Early childhood
Nov 26, 2021
After nearly two years in which their lives were upended, students are finally beginning to return to some normalcy this school year. Yet, the effects of learning online, the anxiety of missing major life milestones, and the isolation from peers and extended family have all taken their toll.
Nov 12, 2021
This week, as the “virtual curtain” fell on our final Torahtron performance, the co-creators of Words From Our Hearts: A Prayer Exploration for Early Childhood, Evelyn Goldfinger and Joy Schandler, had an opportunity to reflect on what they learned throughout the yearlong program.
Nov 5, 2021
As the authors from Rosov Consulting described in a white paper published by CASJE in 2020 “Beginning with the work of Bellah and his colleagues, in their landmark study Habits of the Heart, sociologists have distinguished people’s relationships to their work as jobs, careers and callings.”
Oct 29, 2021
Our Jewish community, and others around North America, are experiencing a crisis in teacher recruitment and retention. To education veterans and Jewish communal professionals, this is, of course, nothing new. What is new is that this summer the first systematic effort in more than 10 years to collect data about the Jewish education workforce was published based on a four-part research study led by Rosov Consulting and the Greenberg Team.
Oct 22, 2021
After having to halt its programming due to COVID, CAJE’s Miami Jewish Day School Robotics Program is back. We received an overwhelming amount of emails and phone calls from various schools in Miami-Dade and Broward counties asking us to try to restart it this year.
Oct 1, 2021
The word “retreat” has several meanings. One, of course, refers to withdrawing from a difficult, dangerous or disagreeable situation. However, in professional and private life, we often refer to “retreat” in two other ways: “a place of privacy or safety” and “a period of group withdrawal for prayer, meditation, study, or instruction under a director.”
Sep 3, 2021
A typical day for a Jewish Head of school is much more than sitting in an office, taking phone calls, or doling out discipline for problem students. A head of school wears many hats and has a staggering list of responsibilities that would astound and alarm most people.
Aug 27, 2021
If one words sums up the teaching and learning in our Early Childhood Education centers this past year and a half, it would be “pivoting.” At the start of the pandemic, the educators had to pivot from teaching their preschool children in person to virtually through the computer screen. Then when summer camp and school started, they pivoted again, teaching in person while incorporating all the Covid-19 protocols designed to foster as much health and safety as possible for the staff and the children.
Jun 18, 2021
When the pandemic hit our ECE schools, everyone involved embarked on what can only be termed an “emotional roller coaster.” One way that CAJE sought to make a difference was to provide teachers and their children skills to cope with the ups and downs of the year.
Jun 11, 2021
CAJE is always on the lookout for how to help our schools and their families. So what you read below, we hope, will one day save a life! About two years ago, tragedy struck in one of our Federation-funded schools...
May 21, 2021
You may recall that JRS stands for Jewish Resource Specialist, a teacher - leader in an Early Childhood Education (ECE) program that holds an additional role added to the ones s/he already has. The JRS is a professional embedded in a school who is asked to focus on how to: Deepen the Jewish engagement of their school families AND Deepen the Jewish learning in the ECE- for teachers, children and families.
Mar 26, 2021
Whether you are having a seder involving early childhood, elementary, middle, high school students or empty nesters, or any combination thereof, making your seder interesting and interactive is a worthy and attainable goal. All you need is some inspiration, motivation, and time to prepare.
Mar 19, 2021
The last one [aspects that need improvement in the day school system] that I'll talk about is the pipeline of educators for Jewish Day schools. There is clearly pandemic fatigue across the board. I'm sure that we all feel it. I know it's difficult to come to another Zoom. The pandemic fatigue is very real and it has raised the conversation about mental health and wellness in schools, now even more important than it had been before. Mental health and wellness was a topic of conversation before the pandemic; and now, we have heard more conversations about anxiety among students particularly in the high school level.
Mar 12, 2021
There's been so much loss and trauma that will follow us as we slowly move out of the pandemic but I think that there is a collective sense of optimism about Jewish day schools right now. I would like to focus on three particular areas and to give a quick overview of what we're seeing from the national perspective at Prizmah. They are the value proposition of schools, collaboration and coordination on the community level, and the pipeline of educators for Jewish day schools.
Feb 26, 2021
The education world has experienced change over the past year in unprecedented and deep ways. In education, we often talk about how we are called upon to metaphorically drive the bus while changing the tires, looking under the hood and getting people on and off safely. This holds true during the pandemic more than ever.
Feb 19, 2021
Close to a year ago, as our entire world was thrown into a new reality, the world of Jewish education was compelled to pivot into this new reality as well. Our Miami Jewish day schools had to instantaneously become adept at new ways of teaching and learning. At first, the approach was “do the best possible,” given the situation and hope that things would go back to “normal” soon.
Dec 25, 2020
Words from Our Hearts: A Prayer Exploration for Early Childhood offers an opportunity for our youngest learners, their teachers and their parents to immerse themselves into the spiritual language of prayer. Prayer concepts are introduced to the children through simple everyday words like: Todah- gratitude, B’vakasha- please, S’licha- forgiveness, and Halleluyah- praise and wonder.
Dec 4, 2020
Covid-19 has changed the way we do many things. Yet one factor remains the same: our early childhood educators’ commitment to the children and their families and to creating and nurturing relationships that become the beginning of many family’s Jewish journey.
Nov 13, 2020
JNTP is a national Jewish day school program adapted from the New Teacher Center in Santa Cruz, California. Through JNTP, CAJE develops veteran teachers into mentors who work specifically with novice teachers in their first 1-3 years in the field. Mentors learn about the specific challenges faced by novice teachers and develop the skills and dispositions needed to guide them through their first years of teaching.
Sep 11, 2020
Dr. Susan Jay grew up in Brookline, MA in a family that was very active at their large Conservative congregation. Her mother served as sisterhood president; they observed Shabbat, and most of all, she loved attending religious school. How fitting that Susan is the chairperson of the Congregational Education Committee!
