It’s Not about the Gifts!

I hadn’t intended to blog about Chanukah this year since I tend to address hot issues for our parents, and Chanukah was not on the list of topics, or so I thought.

Just yesterday, two concerned families individually shared one potent message with which our school entirely agrees – it’s not about the gifts!

Families in our community choose to observe Chanukah in a wide range of ways and have varying perspectives on the place of gifts in our celebrations. Some believe strongly that gifts are out of place on Chanukah. Other families wish they could give gifts but are not financially able to or are stretching to provide modest gifts. Others enjoy the exchange of presents symbolizing the appreciation they feel for one another. We respect all approaches.  But most of all, we respect children and their sensitivities.

This year there have been some exuberant conversations among children describing their gifts. They have not meant to cause discomfort, yet inadvertently they have. Our teachers will be gently guiding classroom conversations away from gifts and towards other, substantive components of the celebration of Chanukah. I share this with our families so that as conversations about gifts arise, you consider speaking with your children about your perspectives on gift giving, support them to understand that different families have different customs, and help them to embrace your own practices.

It’s not about the gifts!  It’s about the values and teaching by doing and by example.

OK, it’s a little about the gifts – but in the spirit of Gemilut Chasidim (Social Action), it’s not what we receive, rather what we share.  Working with Westchester Jewish Community Services, our students and families filled requests of more than 140 children whose families cannot afford holiday presents. We provided gifts for the children of teen mothers who are going to school and seeking employment. We supplied presents for needy babies and elementary school age children through local community clinics.

In a modern twist on Chanukah, our fifth grade Hebrew classroom visited the Amit School in Meitar, Israel – a suburb of Beer Sheva in the south of Israel via Skype. Our students and their partner fifth graders in Meitar celebrated together: lighting the chanukiah (menorah) and singing Hebrew holiday songs. They played dreidle and with each spin asked one another questions about the holiday in Hebrew. Our children enjoyed celebrating with new Israeli friends, speaking with them exclusively in Hebrew, and nurturing Ahavat Yisrael (Love of Israel).

Each of the three school days during Chanukah we are joining together as a kehilah (community) with a joyous school-wide Tefilah U’Shmirat Mitzvot (Prayer and the Observance of Mitzvot) and a lighting of the chanukiah (menorah). Each day is dedicated to a different theme: light, heroism, and miracles.  Thursday evening we will enjoy a Chanukah dinner and celebration coordinated by our PTO.

Let’s not forget the arts. In the school’s front hall there is a display of creative chanukiyot (menorahs) designed and built at home by students as a means of self-expression through ritual art. Additionally, our choir has been singing each of the weekday evenings of Chanukah at the Ritz Carlton in downtown White Plains, bringing a love of Jewish music and celebration to the broader community. We even made it onto News 12 Westchester!

Did I leave out any of our core values? There is Talmud Torah (Love of Learning) – engaged, substantive learning in classes throughout the school about the meaning of Chanukah. With Kavod (respect), I end this post where I began – let us all strive together to support our children to be respectful of the range of perspectives in our community about gift giving and remember, whether or not we give gifts – it’s not about the gifts!

Chag Urim Sameach - Wishes for a joyous Chanukah celebration!

Veterans Day, Thanksgiving, Fighting Hunger and Sharing Our Blessings: Because Giving Away Our Halloween Candy Just Isn’t Enough

Halloween has come and gone. To trick-or-treat or not to trick-or-treat is no longer the question. Our community’s enthusiastic reaction to last week’s blog post Is October Anything Other Than, Well, Monday? was evidence that trick-or-treating was never the question, not really. Our more profound underlying conversation is how to help our children incorporate into their identities our multiple roles as Jews, Americans, and citizens of a diverse world, embracing core values to guide us throughout our lives.

This Friday, at our Veterans Day commemorations, we will send off the bountiful collection of candy we have gathered to share with our troops. It’s an impressive amount of sugar! The colorful piles of candy show us in the most concrete of ways how together we transformed Halloween into an opportunity to do Hadavar Hanachon – The Right Thing; but it’s not enough.

And so, we immediately turn our attention toward Thanksgiving and our year-long campaign to fight hunger. Our leaders in this important endeavor are the fifth-grade volunteers to our Lower School Student Council. They give up a full lunch and recess period weekly and engage in follow-up work during the week, coordinating gemilut chasidim (social action) programming for our school.

Each day in our lunchroom between now and Thanksgiving, Student Council members will introduce Birkat Hamazon (the prayer after meals) by either sharing insight into the meaning of Birkat Hamazon or by offering information about hunger  locally, nationally, or globally. Learning however, while essential, is also not enough. We must act.

To that end, Student Council will set up boxes in the lunchroom and encourage our students to place in those boxes donations of non-perishable foods. They will also prominently display a large jar in the lunchroom and motivate our students to bring in tzedakah money to be placed in that jar and used to help the hungry.

Unlike Halloween, as a school we are not at all ambivalent about Thanksgiving. We celebrate this distinctly American holiday as our own, with joy and gratitude; but, this year will be different. We’ll forego the cranberry cobbler and corn bread treats, as well as the song festival focused on the theme of thankfulness for what we have, and instead transform Thanksgiving preparations at school into an opportunity to do Hadavar Hanachon – the Right Thing.

Our Student Council is reaching out to representatives from a number of organizations dedicated to fighting hunger. These special people, who will be honored guests at our Thanksgiving assembly, have committed their lives to helping the hungry; some focusing their efforts right here in Westchester, others serving the hungry within the Jewish community, and still others who address problems of hunger globally. They will speak to our students about their work, accept our gratitude for their tremendous contributions, and take with them the food and tzedakah money we are collecting to distribute among those who need it.

How can our families help? Provide opportunities at home for children to give what they can: portions of their allowance, money received as birthday gifts, or money earned for chores around the house. Consider giving students the option of foregoing desserts or other non-essential food treats and using the money instead to help the hungry, either bringing the money in or purchasing non-perishable food items with it to donate. The amount is not what matters. What is essential is that together we support our children to develop the habits of helping others, recognizing that it is not enough to count our blessings: we must share them.

And so, let the preparations for Thanksgiving begin. Without any guilt or remorse, enjoy creatively dreaming up luscious menus and savoring thoughts of travel to be with family. Just add into your preparations some attention to providing for the needs of others. Our Student Council is proud to help.

Is October 31 Anything Other Than, Well, Monday?

In the past, we have not acknowledged Halloween at all in school, simply pretending that we had never heard of it. 

Yes, some of our teachers have some years given less homework on October 31 because students might be “busy.” And yes, some of our students have struggled with peers going trick-or-treating when they do not. 

Although at school we ignored the event, our silence did not change the fact that families have different perspectives concerning Halloween and students know it.   

One year, our fifth grade teachers mentioned that it is possible families might have some extra candy lying around and asked students to bring it in to donate to a local soup kitchen for goody bags to give out to children at the soup kitchen’s annual Thanksgiving feast. We donated our candy, without indicating that we had any clue why families just might have more sweets at home than usual.

Not to worry – there will be no costumes, candy or celebratory parades. We respect enormously those families who do not participate in Halloween celebrations because they are troubled by the pagan origins of a night on which the boundaries between living and dead were believed to have overlapped. We similarly respect those families concerned about the connection to the Christian holy days of All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day. And, we respect those families disturbed by the reference in the phrase “trick or treat” to malicious “tricks” played on homeowners if treats are not distributed.

At the same time, we understand the neighborly community-building feel other families enjoy on Halloween. And we embrace the spirit of sharing our blessings with others, not only giving food to those who are hungry - a major focus for our student government this year, but also sharing our extra indulgences (i.e., candy) widely. Halloween’s roots are at least partly a harvest festival, with some similarities in spirit to Sukkot and Thanksgiving.

This year, without celebrating or even discussing Halloween at school, we openly admit that we are not sequestered. We know that October 31 is Halloween. We know that conversations have taken place between parents and children about whether and how each family will react to this day: allowing trick or treating, giving out candy to neighborhood children, both, or neither. Regardless of our differing perspectives on Halloween, many of us will have extra candy at home. And, as a school, we are committed to the core value of gemilut chasidim (social action).

Got Candy?
Let’s transform the day into an opportunity to do Hadavar Hanachon – The Right Thing! We will encourage our students to donate at least a portion of those excess treats to people who are very deserving: our troops in Afganistan. If you are among those families who either go out for the evening or simply close the shades and dim the lights on Halloween eve, you can still encourage your child to share tasty snacks you may have at home with our troops. 

So, bring in your candy and snacks. Leave them in the bins at the front doors of the main building. We will send them to our troops with notes thanking them for their service to our country.

It’s a small gemilut chesed project, demonstrating gratitude for the blessings we enjoy and recognizing our responsibility to give to others. While modest in scope, it is a project that empowers us to begin to take focus off whether or not we trick or treat to how we together help others. There will be larger gemilut chasidim projects to come as our student leadership focuses our attention on the dramatic problem of hunger locally, nationally, and globally. In the coming weeks, you’ll hear much more.

Meanwhile think not of what candy you will get or not get: think instead of what you can share.

A Day In the Life: My “No Office Day” With Our Fifth Grade

I was exuberant on the morning of Tuesday, September 13 when my phone buzzed with the happy message: No meetings scheduled today!

That was the only “appointment” entered on my calendar. I spent our first No Office Day

Rabbi Leibowitz in class during "No Office Day"

with our Fifth Grade, engaged in their daily experiences from arrival through dismissal. Ilanit Curi-Hoory, our assistant principal, spent the day with the Kindergarten. We’ll have five more No Office Days during the year during which Ilanit and I will each spend an entire day with all of our grades. We will also have at least two No Office Hours daily.

What did I do on No Office Day? I joined Fifth Graders as they happily greeted our Kindergarteners and walked them to class, hung out with 5B during early morning independent reading, led tefilahwith 5B and talked about ways our feelings are reflected in the words of our prayers, facilitated a reading group in 5D focused on the reading strategy of asking questions as we read, taught a literacy lesson in 5A comparing  and contrasting a Jewish and an African tale which were both cultural retellings of Cinderella,  was interviewed in 5C’s chumash class, and then enjoyed listening to 5C students interviewing each other in their literacy lesson.

Rabbi Leibowitz davens with Grade 5 during "No Office Day"

I joined 5A for Hebrew and played a memory game with them in which we learned both vocabulary and sentence structure, watched a basketball game during recess and discovered a new location where some of our students who love nature could continue to explore. I ate lunch with 5B, enjoyed observing 5B and 5C’s dodge ball game in PE, listened to a read aloud of the book Holes in 5B, walked students to buses, and came back into the pick up room to wait with those going home by car.

It was a great day!

What is it that made No Office Day so special? I was engaged in our kehilah, our community, not to observe our teachers or our students and not to be “the leader” with a specific goal, but to be an engaged participant in learning and connecting. I was with the Fifth Grade not “to do” anything, but rather “to be” with them in kehilah.

Principals and other school leaders from across the country, and even some throughout the world, are participating in No Office Days this week and throughout the year. We are sharing on Twitter, in blogs, and in a No Office Day wiki the ways in which our presence can best make an impact on learning in our schools. We are connecting nationally and internationally for the purpose of connecting more meaningfully in our daily face-to-face interactions in our own school communities.

So, today, with only two hours scheduled for time in classrooms, I’m already feeling withdrawal pains. I think I need to post my blog, get away from the computer, and back into class! Looking forward to sharing more with you!

Bye for now. I’m off to class.

The Power of “We”

Community! Collaboration! Connection! Energy! Ideas! Action!

The school year begins with the power of “we” – our community working together to enrich the intellectual and spiritual lives of our children.

What’s in store for our school this year?  A dynamic PTO with new and returning leadership to strengthen the bond between our families and school.  New community action groups with parents and teachers dedicated to enhancing Jewish life, gemilut chesed (social action), Israeli culture and health & wellness.  Family curriculum nights where students and parents playfully learn together.  Refined and strengthened Student Services to better meet the needs of all learners, whether in enrichment or support.  Expanded science program with more fully integrated classroom and lab studies, using our indoor and outdoor labs, trails, and gardens.  An exciting balanced literacy program to enhance reading and writing skills in English and Hebrew.  Technology plan to build skills and encourage creativity, while teaching our students to become responsible, safe digital citizens.  A facelift for our walls with bright banners and colorful pictures expressing our mission and core values to reinforce who we are as a school and community.

And looking ahead to 2012-2013, we are designing our new library-media center and planning and training for the introduction of Singapore Math.

Join us! Become more engaged with our Schechter Westchester community.  By bringing together our ideas, talents, passion and time, the power of “We” will make a wonderful difference in the lives of our children and our families!

Literacy Pronoun Watch: The only pronoun used in the writing of this blog entry is “we”; there is no “I,” “you,” “he,” “she,” or “them.” With tremendous room for the individual, together we are greater than alone; united we will offer so much to our children and our community. That is the power of “we.”

Family Programming Of The People, By The People, For The People, Shall Not Perish From Our School

Our K-2 Family Math Night was truly an evening “of the people, by the people, for the people.”

We weren’t affirming the core American values of human equality and representative democracy as was Abraham Lincoln when he profoundly uttered these now famous words (of the people, by the people, for the people) in the Gettysburg address, but we were most definitely affirming some of our school’s core values: Talmud Torah (love of learning), kehilah (community), and gemilut chesed (social action).

Creative communal collaboration as a celebration of our core values is an idea whose time at our school has come. Simple on the surface, and yet a profound and meaningful shift in the way we relate to each other within our school community; parents, teachers, and yes, students, can and must collaborate creatively to develop meaningful programs and together live our core values.

The first ever K-2 Family Math Night wasn’t only about the math.

Why, yes, our youngest students and their parents enjoyed math games together that stimulated critical thinking and creative problem solving skills. And, yes, our fifth grade students took on a vitally significant leadership role by facilitating each of the math booths.  And, indeed, there was a social, community-building relaxed feel for parents and students alike as our gym was transformed into a math carnival with the festive theme of “math around the world.”  And, true there were the expected bumps; it was very hot – we know air conditioning is on our “wish list” and we’re working on cooling the main building.  But most of all, Family Math Night was a meaningful expression of core values which permeated the evening: a passion for learning (Talmud Torah), a celebration of community (kehilah) and an opportunity for all to donate new or gently used children’s books to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital (gemilut chesed).

The public face of math night was substantive and fun. But, even more potent was the conversation and planning that led us to the evening. It’s that behind the scenes story that has the potential to offer you the greatest insight into our school’s continuing development as a value-driven community.

Math Night was truly born last fall, when the PTO made calls to just about every parent in the school touching base, inviting involvement, checking on how things at school were going for their children, and asking for input into what could be improved. Parents responded with thoughtful, insightful observations and suggestions. Many conversations ensued with PTO leaders, with parents amenable to sharing input directly, and ultimately, with a huge number of individual parents in one-on-one (or two-on-one when both parents attended) parent-principal conferences.

We turned listening into dialogue and began actively setting goals. An engaged cadre of parents stepped forward with wisdom and commitment, ready not only to recommend projects, but to volunteer their time. We together committed to one of our school’s most central tenets: “To learn and to teach; to observe/participate and to act.” We are learning and teaching through open, meaningful conversation. We are participating and acting through collaborative, creative program development.

Action is enticing. It’s also time-consuming. While many faculty members and parents were involved in Family Math Night; as was our entire fifth grade (the stars of the evening!), in truth there wasn’t yet sufficient parent participation in the program development, planning, and implementation. Amy Federman, chair of Family Math Night, spearheaded the event and brought together a committed, although still relatively small, parent committee. Ray Bello came through for the school tremendously in providing many resources for the evening and galvanizing us around a book collection for St. Jude.  Doris Richman, our math coach, coordinated faculty members and prepared our fifth graders for the evening.

It was a great beginning!  At the same time, it was only a beginning.  We’d love more Jewish holiday family events, literacy evenings celebrating reading and writing in both Hebrew and English, science Sunday programs using our lab and our outdoor trails and gardens, family social action (gemilut chesed) programs and more Family Math Nights – starting with a third through fifth grade Family Math Night next fall. But, to pull these events off successfully, we need even greater parent engagement. We need your ideas, suggestions, input, and also, your time.

I feel quite a bit like Uncle Sam, with finger pointed stating “Uncle Sam, or rather Uncle Schechter, needs you.”  The listening feedback loop is stronger than ever; with numerous accessible, open venues for you to share your ideas. Opportunities for meaningful dialogue will continue to expand. The next steps lie with parents. To reach our shared aspirations for our children; our school will need for all of us, including our parents, to offer our knowledge, skills, passions, and time.

Please engage actively with our school. Write in and share your ideas and insights. Tell us ways in which we can together expand and improve programming for our children.  Commit to working on at least one program next year. We not only welcome and value your active participation; we need it.