Infusing+Jewish+Values

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**7/20 Class Notes**
Respectful challenge

**7/7 Class Notes**
Good afternoon message. Jewish text: "a person who welcomes a friend with a smile is as one giving him or her all the finest gifts in the world" -Avot D'Rabbi Natan, 13:4. How could teaching this Jewish text help you create a welcoming classroom? Where might you place this text? Celebrations: You can make them up (keep it structured and short). Watermelon: Take a huge slurp of watermelon, and spit out 3 seeds. Peace Out: Beat on chest twice and make a peace sign and say "Peace Out", Morning Meeting:
 * ideas: choose a few people each day to share, use a timer (1 min each)

Beit Midrash in the classroom
Why use hevruta? What skills are needed? What might make it hard to put kids in havruta? Discuss ideas about what active means. Havruta practice lesson. Fill out active listening chart Go over "ways to start a task with havruta" Take and print pictures of students in havruta, and label how they are actively listening
 * used to teach Jewish Values
 * the difference between paired learning and hevruta: pairs could split the work, work next to one another, each work individually. Paired work can hold to the same standards as hevruta.
 * hevruta when studying Jewish text, not about general studies. Something that Jews do to study text. Could be about prayer, Jewish texts, values
 * Hevruta is studying in a pair over a certain period of time, where they learn and grow and challenge one another.
 * learn in a Jewish way - historically Jewish
 * positive surprises from havruta pairings
 * become familiar with one partner
 * social aspect of learning
 * students see the text through their own eyes
 * less frontal teaching, students are more invested and engaged in the learning
 * prefaced by cooperative learning in order to introduce the skills needed for havruta
 * Listen to other students
 * Read and understand text/comprehension
 * support and challenge
 * understand the assignment
 * gender issues
 * learning level and needs
 * physical space
 * relation to content
 * students who don't work well together
 * how much guidance/independence they will need
 * specific children clashing
 * uneven numbers/absent kids
 * Hook: what does it mean to be active? an active talker? an active listener?
 * What does it mean to listen?
 * Good listening looks like... why?
 * good listening sounds like...
 * good listening feels like...
 * active listening means...

**6/29 Class Notes**
Assignment for today: Jewish Classroom Vision (pre-assessment) Rough draft for Jewish Ritual Lesson for She'hehiyanu - for the first day of school? Lio Lionni - Tilly and the Wall book

6/25 Reading
__Life in a Crowded Place__

Chapter 1 Ceremony, Ritual and Rite
Ceremony: Marking the transition between activities, between daily life and classroom life. Ritual: taking up a position in a circle, making pledges, lighting candles, prayers Rite: marking a certain passing of time or achievement with a certain celebration or activity
 * Opening the day: 15 minutes of silent writing time, morning meeting where students get to connect to one another, pledge + song + prayer
 * Example: (1) Good morning - Be prepared: paper + pencil, literature book, writers notebook; (2) Getting ready - class jobs; (3) Morning announcements - kids tell about their lives, what's coming up; (4) Acknowledgements and appreciation - students thank people at home and in class and say why
 * During the day: song or stretching to transition between subjects
 * Ending the day: although activity usually drops when the bell rings, there can be read aloud at the end of the day, songs, etc
 * a teacher sits in her rocking chair with a book and lights a candle as a ritual for reading time
 * very specific set of behaviors, such as standing for the national anthem
 * has a centering affect, brings students/community together by all participating in the ritual
 * individual rituals vs. community rituals
 * transition, incorporation and separation
 * Transition: threshold and competency rites
 * Threshold rite: entering and leaving a classroom, lining up to leave, entering a classroom properly
 * Competence rite: passing from one stage to another (going up a grade)

Chapter 2 Celebration

 * humans are celebratory in nature
 * celebrations include special day, spur-of-the-moment, achievement, getting older
 * guidelines to think about: celebrations shouldn't occur too often that it becomes flat.
 * celebrations should be separate, and should be placed carefully in order to separate it out from daily goings on.