A Taste of Jewish Enrichment Center Professional Development
Intrigued about the Jewish Enrichment Center and want to get a sense of what learning is like here? Schedule a visit.
- Site Visit: Site visits, in which educators may observe our classrooms, offer insight into our educational environment while raising questions about children’s needs as Jewish learners. In a short workshop prior to the observation, educators consider how institutional values towards children, Judaism, and learning are made visible through physical and auditory environments. Site visits are scheduled throughout the year, and may be customized to educators’ interests. Visits typically last two hours.
- Guided Documentation Tour: Three times a year, Jewish Enrichment Center educators assemble a floor-to-ceiling installation of children’s ideas about Torah and Judaism, with documentation that offers insight into children’s learning. Encounter powerful interpretations of Judaism by children, and consider the impact of children learning in this way. The documentation-based visit raises questions about the ways we include children in Jewish life and what Jewish children’s learning entails. Documentation visits are scheduled January through May, and last 90 minutes.
Workshops
Workshops offer an introduction to a transformational framework, with real tools to enact your vision.
- Children at the Center of Jewish Learning: In this day-long workshop, educators and educational leaders use several methodological lenses to look closely at high quality children’s work produced by placing the child at the center of Jewish learning. The workshop is designed to provoke questions about the aims and practices of Jewish children’s learning, with special attention to teaching
- Principles & Practices for Revolutionizing Jewish Education: This three-day institute introduces the Enrichment Center educational framework, mindset, and tools that enact significant trust in children’s capacity to make meaning for themselves, in an ever-evolving Judaism. We pay special attention to how we use language to create culture. Through reflection practices and dialogue, educators and educational leaders consider how to make use of ideas in their own contexts. Institutes are held yearly in August. Please check back soon for information about the August 2020 institute.
We recommend that when possible, schools bring a team to the Jewish Enrichment Center consisting of educators who work directly with children and educational leaders. It’s easier to integrate ideas and skills from our professional development when working with a cohort familiar with your institutional challenges and opportunities.
Year-Long Professional Development
Want to dive deeply into an educational framework and process for raising Jewish children who can grapple with complexity and diverse perspectives, enact empathy for themselves and others, and who determine their own path in Judaism, integrating self, community, and Judaism in a dynamic relationship? Come immerse yourself in language and practices for this kind education, and see your own practice grow by leaps and bounds. To find out more about these opportunities, email Rebecca at rebecca@jewishenrichment.org.
- Professional Development for Teams: Join Jewish Enrichment Center educators in a one- or two-year sequence of Professional Development modules. Your teaching team and ours meet monthly to dive into topics introduced at the three-day institute and continue to deepen our knowledge and capacities for partnering with children in Jewish learning.
- Coaching/Consulting: Personalized coaching and/or consulting is available with the Jewish Enrichment Center’s founding director, Rabbi Rebecca Milder. She partners with educational leaders to design child-driven, content-rich, creative Jewish learning practices in their own contexts.