Inside Jewish Day Schools

Leadership, Learning, and Community

Alex Pomson, Jack Wertheimer

• Publisher: Brandeis University Press
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781684580712
• Topic: Didattica
• Subtopic: Didattica generale

A perfect guide to those wishing to understand the contemporary Jewish day school. This book takes readers inside Jewish day schools to observe what happens day to day, as well as what the schools mean to their students, families, and communities. Many different types of Jewish day schools exist, and the variations are not well understood, nor is much information available about how day schools function. Inside Jewish Day Schools proves a vital guide to understanding both these distinctions and the everyday operations of these contemporary schools.

I

Lower and Middle Schools

1

Progressively Maintaining the Middle

Hillel Torah Day School, Skokie, Illinois

Hillel Torah Day School combines the traditional verities of Modern Orthodox day school education (intensive exposure to Hebrew, an Israel-centered calendar, prayer every day, and extensive text study) with a progressive, child-centered educational orientation. This chapter reveals what happens when school leadership acts with great clarity of purpose—how, in this instance, that purposefulness sees expression in an intense commitment to child-centered education and a serious investment in Hebrew in all of its forms. It also results in creative and at times unconventional moves to ensure that students are served by educators who can bring the school’s mission to life and model its central principles. In a day school subsector that is pulled by market forces to the religious right and religious left, this is a school that demonstrates the special benefits of a strong educational direction, or what its leadership would call hashkafa, a religious worldview.

Three episodes observed during the course of the same morning at Hillel Torah North Suburban Day School convey a sense of the student experience at this kindergarten to eighth grade Modern Orthodox school.

Every day, approximately twenty-five boys in the school’s oldest two grades come together for both shacharit and mincha (the morning and afternoon service) in a classroom that does double duty as a prayer room. On days when Torah is read, the girls also join; otherwise, they have their own separate service. The proceedings are always led by the students, usually with a fair degree of competence. To all intents and purposes, it is no different from the weekday services in the synagogues their fathers attend.¹ Usually the group is supervised by a senior member of staff and another member of the faculty. On this occasion, the supervising teachers arrive late. Nevertheless, more or less on time, the boys get started with the minyan (prayer service) by themselves, with impressive, if not flawless, decorum. When the teacher arrives, the service is already well and truly under way. There is no need even to pause.

A couple of hours later, in a different corner of the school, beyond a classroom door plastered with hand-drawn self-portraits of the students, “kindness awards” and “Smores learning artifacts,” second-grade students are absorbed in a writing workshop. They start out gathered on the carpet where they’re all independently doing an exercise laid out on the interactive whiteboard in front of them. Once it is complete and without any obvious teacher intervention, they disperse to tables where groups continue their work. They share writing resources from pots at the center of these tables. One group is working with a teaching assistant on spelling tasks. Another group is gathered at a semicircular table around the lead teacher in a guided reading activity. A third group, completely independently it seems, is proceeding with a word-study workbook exercise. Everyone seems to know what they’re supposed to be doing. They appear remarkably content.

Back in the middle school, soon after, a seventh-grade group of thirteen girls and boys start a Gemara (Talmud, the foundational compilation of rabbinic Judaism) class. They began learning Gemara at the start of the year, about six months earlier, so they’re very much beginners. Taking laptops from a common trolley, each student sits at a separate table and begins the class by taking a ten-minute online quiz of common Gemara vocabulary. Once they have finished, the students are asked to spend the next five minutes reading out loud to a partner from the passage they’ve been studying this past week—“not just scanning with your eyes,” says the teacher. A couple of students take turns to read to the teacher at his desk. With Pesach (Passover) less than a month away, the teacher next distributes a workbook of new material from Masechet Pesachim (the tractate concerned with Passover matters). He explains that the students’ first job is to mark up the unpunctuated text to decipher the structure of the Gemara; they’re not expected yet to understand every word. He encourages them to use the skills they’ve developed over the past few months. And so, working in small groups and checking back to material they’ve previously studied, the students pick their way through this puzzle. When a student gets stuck, he goes over to another group and calls, “Heh, I have another question for you.” It’s striking that the student doesn’t simply turn to the teacher for help. In fact, while the groups are puzzling over the material, the teacher is continuing to listen to students read, another way of checking if they understand the flow of the text. In a class made up of beginners, it’s remarkable how independently the students are working during almost the entire lesson. The teacher, for his part, has needed to address the class as a group only very occasionally.

Despite the different school settings involved, the consistent display in these episodes of the same attributes and aptitudes is striking. In each instance, students indicate both an ability and a readiness to act independently. Their ability to do so is surely the result of learned roles and accumulated skills, cultivated, most likely, within the framework of classroom routines since these are habits that typically need to be developed with concerted cultivation. At the same time, the students’ readiness to act with so much independence from a young age indicates their comfort within an environment that evidently gives them frequent opportunities (and even requires them) to act with autonomy and self-sufficiency—not to rely always on teachers but to draw instead on their own resources and those of their peers. To find the consistent expression of this paradoxical mix of structure and autonomy in this setting—a Modern Orthodox, religious Zionist day school in Chicago—is surprising. It invites further exploration. What are the educational principles and organizational processes that have made this fusion of attributes possible? What are the purposes and aspirations that have nourished these attributes? To what extent might they be reproduced in other settings?

Widening the Frame

From the outside, Hillel Torah looks like a great many other Modern Orthodox day schools in America. More than sixty years old, this institution has catered to multiple generations from the same families in the same suburban Chicago location. The facilities have not fundamentally changed over the years. There are tens of Modern Orthodox day schools in America with a similar profile, serving communities that, following World War II, were among the most active adopters of a model of Jewish education that promised Jewish, often Hebraic, literacy alongside preparation for a decent college education. Built around a dual curriculum of Judaic and general studies, these schools embodied what their ideologues called Torah Im Derech Eretz or Torah U’Mada—access to Jewish culture and world culture in equal measure.

Today, these schools continue to be the bedrock of the day school market. It’s no surprise, for example, that programmatic components of the Jewish studies and Hebrew curriculum used at Hillel Torah are also employed by a great many other schools: Tal Am—the elementary-grade Hebrew curriculum most widely employed in the day school field; Bishvil Ha-Ivrit—a widely used middle and high school Hebrew curriculum; and Bonayich—a more recently developed curriculum and framework for the study of Talmudic texts for middle school and high school students. These programs were developed for a market sector that has seen tremendous stability over many decades. Modern Orthodox schools have been the equivalent of anchor tenants in the day school curriculum marketplace. While non-Orthodox day school options rapidly expanded toward the end of the last century, they have contracted in recent years for a variety of sociological and financial reasons. By contrast, over the past two decades, the number of students enrolled in Modern Orthodox day schools has been characterized by the most recent day school census as exhibiting “modest growth.”² Total enrollment in these schools has increased by 1 percent in twenty years, hovering at around twenty-seven thousand students. In recent years, this sector has been decisively outgrown by various ultra-Orthodox school sectors. It has also been subjected to repeated warnings of implosion under the burden of continually rising tuition and due to what commentators call “a slide to the right,” that is, the pull of ever more stringent Orthodoxy. And yet despite the dire prognoses, Modern Orthodox day schools continue to survive, if not thrive, in many communities across America. They are safe bets for parents, many of whom attended similar, if not the very same, schools themselves.

This stability is both an asset and a liability. Absent the prospect of losing families to tuition-free public schools, still a marginal phenomenon in the Modern Orthodox community but a real and present danger for non-Orthodox institutions, these schools have not experienced special pressure to innovate. Outside the unusually congested marketplace in the New York tristate area where any number of subtly differentiated alternatives compete with one another, Modern Orthodox schools are not under special pressure to keep up with the competition. Some wrestle, for example, with swings in their feeder markets due to rising house prices or some other local circumstance, but most cater to what is essentially a captive market. There might be some ferment at the edges created by parents seeking, on the one hand, more intense limmudei kodesh (sacred Jewish studies) or, on the other hand, more up-to-date STEM education, but essentially the great majority of their customers aren’t about to leave, unless, that is, to Israel, an ideologically and financially appealing option for a small stream of families every year.

This is the educational microclimate inhabited by Hillel Torah, a long-established school with a current enrollment of 425 students, most of whose families have been members of the same three or four congregations for decades. Certainly the school faces challenges—financial, ideological, and educational—but this is a school that has achieved an unusual degree of equilibrium. It is blessed with a highly respected head of school who at the time of this study was completing his tenth year in the position. The school’s enrollment is steady, and its finances are relatively stable, although about a third of families are not able to pay full tuition. In terms of Jewish education, it maintains an unusually intense commitment to its ivrit b’ivrit program (teaching Judaic studies in Hebrew) at least until the end of the elementary grades. In the middle school, a strong Judaic studies faculty is admired for offering relevant and appealing role models for the students.

What makes Hillel Torah so interesting is its combining of the traditional verities of Modern Orthodox day school education (intensive exposure to Hebrew, an Israel-centered calendar, prayer every day, and extensive text study) with a strongly child-centered educational orientation. Even in a Modern Orthodox day school context where parents typically seek the best of all words, these attributes don’t always sit well together, if indeed they both are present. In a community context where the only real enrollment competition is from a non-coed day school ideologically to the right, it’s worth pondering what drives the school’s determinedly child-centered educational orientation; it does not seem to be marketplace pressure. Spend a few days at Hillel Torah, and it’s remarkable how often you encounter verbal and visual expressions of a commitment to deliver ever more effectively on this distinctive educational vision. What accounts, then, for this unusual blend of educational and ideological commitments?

Putting the Pieces Together

As we talked to the head of school, Rabbi Menachem Linzer, it becomes evident that his own biography has been an important element in shaping this fusion. The child of educators, Linzer had what he calls a mixed day school experience as a child. In fact, once he decided to give up on a career in the sciences (“the world didn’t need another engineer!”) and chose to devote himself to Jewish education, part of what drove him forward was his desire to create a different kind of school experience from the one he’d had as a young adult. Linzer himself is a paradox: an intellectual with a passion for experiential education. One of the most formative educational experiences of his life was his relationship with Rav Aharon Lichtenstein, one of the most serious halachists (decisors of Jewish law) and Jewish thinkers of recent generations, with whom he studied in Israel and whom he welcomed to the school on one memorable occasion. At the same time, he’ll readily tell you that one of the most enjoyable parts of his job today is playing guitar and singing each week with the youngest grades in the school. To put this unusual mix in insider terms, he’s a guitar-playing Gushnik (the Gush being one of the names of the yeshiva co-led by Rav Aharon for more than thirty years).

No doubt, Rabbi Linzer’s own passions offer a kind of rough template for what one finds at Hillel Torah. More profoundly, though, the educational approach he has helped shape at the school is a blend of what he observed and absorbed at two markedly different New York day schools where he worked as an educator before coming to Hillel Torah. (This blending is a powerful testament to the ways in which educational traditions evolve and advance.) After completing smicha (rabbinic ordination) at Yeshiva University, Linzer took his first full-time job at the Ramaz Upper School, where he taught Gemara for eight years. Supported by a skilled department chair, he thrived in a serious academic environment that enabled and encouraged him to work with students at a very high level—what he calls, a Bes Hamedresh level, one found in serious study halls. His job wasn’t just about academics. He took on pastoral responsibilities as a grade adviser, doing Israel guidance, supporting student clubs, and playing guitar at kumsitzes (informal musical gatherings), but the academic dimensions of the experience demonstrated how schools can successfully and productively embrace a rigorous curriculum with high standards in both general studies and Judaics.

An opportunity arose to take up a first administrative position at another flagship in the New York area: a Modern Orthodox institution, the SAR (Salanter Akiva Riverdale) Middle School, a diametrically different educational institution from where he had been. It was a challenging stint at a time when the school was going through some major transitions, but his experiences there overturned his own thinking about education. Sitting in meetings where the education team would spend forty minutes talking about one student, he learned what it meant to truly give attention to children. Coming into a classroom where students had taken all the books off the shelves in order to build car ramps, he saw what real student engagement looks like. For someone who had by then spent a quarter of a century in one day school or another, it was nothing less than a revelation.

After four years at SAR, Linzer was given a chance to take up the position as head of school at Hillel Torah. He describes it as an opportunity to weave together the best of what he had experienced over the previous decade: a commitment to high standards and rigor in ways that are appropriate in a K–8 institution, while at the same time giving children a chance to express their creativity, giving them the attention that helps them grow. This is the yin and yang that has made Hillel Torah tick these past few years.

Linzer himself is the first to say that what Hillel Torah is today is far from being all about him or his personal story. He’s had the good fortune to work with and learn from some outstanding educators and, no less important, he has been able to partner with some unusually generous and wise lay leaders. This may indeed be the case, but it is also evident from observing his collaborative leadership style and from hearing how others talk about his style that no matter how fortunate he might have been, he has been remarkably open to learning from partners and colleagues, whatever their level of seniority. Ego has not been an obstacle, even while he has been driven by a general sense of what he was trying to achieve.

Growing into Growth

The prevailing educational philosophy at Hillel Torah has certainly changed over the course of Linzer’s tenure these past ten years. Those who have been associated with the school for a long time will say that Hillel Torah was for many years “very old school.” The instruction was teacher centered and the students generally passive. Characterizing the classrooms as traditional would have been an understatement. As we have already seen, that is not the case today. How this has happened is a textbook story in school change.

Rabbi Linzer came with a general sense of the direction in which he was hoping the school would grow, but he was a new head in a conservative institution, and those who hired him were not especially interested in educational change. Board members, most of whom were parents, certainly wanted what was best for their children, yet, like parents in many other schools, their image of what was best resembled the best parts of their own education; they were not looking for something radically different. In any case, while Linzer may have had aspirations to take the school in a new direction, he did not claim to be an expert in teaching and learning in elementary education. It was not as if he arrived with a plan in his hands.

The key in this instance, was to gradually co-opt and recruit fellow travelers on a journey when at first the destination was only dimly perceived. Linzer was fortunate that when he took up his position, Tamar Friedman was already in place as head of Judaic studies. Friedman, an experienced educator with a deep commitment to ivrit b’ivrit (teaching Jewish studies classes in Hebrew), was unusually receptive to trying out new ideas despite her already well-formed views about language learning. She has continued to be a strong partner over many years. The school’s senior team has also included over the past ten years general studies educators who have been particularly interested in the promise of new thinking and child-centered educational ideas. One head of general studies who occupied the position for three years before emigrating to Israel was especially pivotal in introducing what have become some of the school’s signature programs. The growth mind-set of the leadership team was, and continues to be, a special strength of the school. The current head of general studies was recruited from a community day school in a search that specifically sought a creative educator for this role. Coming to the end of her first year, she has already been able to help the school continue to evolve.

An additional important contributor to the school’s evolution has been the unusual willingness of Hillel Torah’s senior team to place bets on new faculty who come straight out of college, something that many schools are reluctant to do. In the first years of Linzer’s tenure, as an older generation of teachers started to move on, the school took a chance on hiring younger educators who may have lacked classroom experience but displayed latent talent and whose preparation programs had exposed them to cutting-edge educational thinking. These younger faculty have been especially adept, for example, at integrating technology into the classrooms and in coaching their colleagues to do so. A number of them have now been working at the school for more than five years, and as they have matured as educators, they have played critical roles in continuing to advance new educational thinking.

At first it was hard to bring about change, particularly while an older generation of faculty lingered. Over time they either opted to move on, were encouraged to do so, or bravely submitted themselves to the often painful work o...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction. Inside the Black Box
• Part I. Lower and Middle Schools
• Part II. High Schools
• Part III. K–12 Schools
• Conclusion. Vital Jewish Day Schools
• Appendix: Day School Sectors by the Numbers
• Glossary
• Notes
• Index