Rabbi Chaya Bender 2019

1. Why is Rabbi Chaya here without a shaker and a stuffed dinosaur?

2. Bathroom Fiasco Havruta–Explicit vs. Implicit Lessons

3. Why teacher interactions matter–Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory

4. Practicing what you preach–Active Listening for Unique Characteristics Havruta

5. It starts with “Me”–Individual Writing Prompt for Spiritual Growth

6. And impacts “We”–Eye-Rolling Inducing Footsteps Team Building Activity

7. Final wrap up and questions

Based on the SEL/SESL Theories of:

Mr. David Adams

Dr. Maurice Elias

Dr. Jeffrey Kress

Doctoral Candidate Nancy Parkes

0-5 Minutes Introduce myself

Why am I here: I have my Master’s Degree in Experiential Jewish Education from The William David Graduate School in Jewish Education.

While studying there I developed a love for diving deeply into complicated things and szuzing it around in an emotional centrifuge until the positive layer could be easily identified.

In that light, my master’s thesis was called: The Power of Positivity: Positive Jewish Identity Formation Through the Lens of the Holocaust.

We will not be going into the Holocaust today, but we will be exploring our Positive Teacher Identity, especially as it relates to the collective team.

I am obsessed with Social and Emotional Learning: theory that you develop a healthy school culture by helping students develop skills to manage their emotions, resolve conflicts, and make responsible decisions.

The new fancy concept coming into use now is now all the rage is SESL, Social Emotional and Spiritual Learning. As you are well aware, you are the rock stars of life. Every day, you teach your kiddos how to manage their emotions, and resolve conflicts, and make responsible decisions. The new addition of spiritual learning is the fun new thing I will introduce a little later.

Warning: You might roll your eyes internally at some point. Please trust the process. If after today you love the activities we did and want to incorporate it into a quarterly check in with your co-teachers–Amazing! If after today you have now developed a deeper connection with your co-worker by bonding over how awkward the activities were–Amazing, as long as the positive bond or inside joke between you is the focus.

5-15 Bathroom fiasco chavruta

To try to get into the mindset of how this mysterious thing called spiritual learning is important, let me introduce a wild and crazy scenario–the bathroom scenario. I have seen a lot of learning happening during the bathroom pile up time. Should I hit my friend while I wait for my other friends to go to the bathroom or should I sit nicely against the wall is a great place to naturally see how everyone has internalized the lessons they learn. What tools does that antsy kid have to self-regulate, will other kids step in to resolve conflicts, how do we help scaffold along that kid to make a more responsible decision next time. Why is this child being antsy? Are their ways that their emotional needs can be met better? Are they sensing some kind of emotional distress in the air from things that we just naturally radiate.

15-20 Bathroom Fiasco Review

Very often the implicit lesson is just as important as the explicit lesson. Kids are just tiny, super absorbent sponges. You might say one thing but they also pick up on something else. Yes, they need to learn how to listen and sometimes they aren’t listening because they are a three-nager. But sometimes, they are listening very carefully to what is being implicitly taught through watching the world around them. Of course, this isn’t a blame game. But the point is that teacher interactions matter. They matter for the development of an individual child and for the general health of the school. But let’s start with the child.

20-25 Bronfenbrenner

1917-2005, Russian Born American Psychologist

See chart.

Where are teachers in this chart?

Most explicitly in the microsystem. But interactions with each other, that is in the exosystem. As you can see through the mesosystem, there is a lot of interaction between these two systems. And that really informs the core of who the child is.

So what can we do about this? Really get to know each other as a team.

25-30 Intro–Active Listening for Unique Characteristics

Pedagogy of SESL:

Teach

Model

Prompt

Practice

Reflect

Three levels:

1. Skill Building

2. Climate

3. Transcendence, something greater than ourselves…not just about me and my life and my great or bad day…but about the holistic health of the classroom, the school, and the world. It is the recognition, or perhaps the realization that I matter to the health of the classroom and the school and the world. It is the realization that my relationship with co-teacher, staff, clergy matters for the growth of the child and health of the school. Each classroom might have four walls, but learning happens everywhere

30-35 Active Listening for Unique Characteristics Chavruta

35-40 Wrap up chavruta by visually charting

Ask–what are some commonalities between the skills you both had?,

I will put answers into columns:

Column 1, skill building (concrete steps):

Challenge 

Survival 

Compassion, Looking people in the eye

Column 2, Climate (creating a positive learning environment that is safe, supportive, motivating, and appropriately challenging) :

Relationships

Motivated Action

Role models, modeled behavior

Trust

Column 3, Spirituality/transcendence (connected to something deeper or to a vision, connected to something bigger):

Connection to others

Connection to community

Three levels:

1. Skill Building

2. Climate

3. Transcendence, something greater than ourselves…not just about me and my life and my great or bad day…but about the holistic health of the classroom, the school, and the world. It is the recognition, or perhaps the realization that I matter to the health of the classroom and the school and the world. It is the realization that my relationship with co-teacher, staff, clergy matters for the growth of the child and health of the school. Each classroom might have four walls, but learning happens everywhere

Skills need to be learned, climate has to be conducive, and there needs to be a connection to something beyond “me”.

In other words–you can’t just teach about being a mensch, you in a teacher team and as an entire school need to be the coaches who creates the environment, so that the learner can connect to something bigger than themself…and so that you as a teacher can be spiritually fulfilled by your work that also leads to something beyond yourself.

On the chart in front of you from NJ because I couldn’t find an equivalent nice one from CT, see the 5 standard SEL competencies. These 5 skills are things that are learned best in an environment where the adults are modeling these skills. 

40-50 Individual work

So let’s start with individual work and go from there. Just take time to fill in the sheet, at this point just for you.

50-55 Preparing for Team Work

On your foot fill in the prompt

I was 

I am 

I will 

55-70 Eye-Rolling Inducing Team Building

I promise you I am not doing this activity to be infantilizing. Quite the opposite, I am doing this because I am a kinesthetic learner and activities like these help me learn. Remember my warning in the beginning: If after today you love this and want to incorporate it into a quarterly check in with your co-teachers–Amazing! If after today you have now developed a deeper connection with your co-worker by bonding over how dumb the following activity was–Amazing, as long as the positive bond or inside joke between you is the focus–because otherwise, as you now know, bonding over negativity will become an implicit lesson that is taught.

70-75 Final Wrap up

Would any groups like to share something that came up during your activity? You can share your I was, I am, I will, or next steps!

I was (skeptically that Rabbi Chaya could teach me something about education)

I am (so impressed with her knowledge)

I will (incorporate this into my practice as a teacher)

Pedagogy of SESL:

Teach

Model

Prompt

Practice

Reflect

Self-Awareness

Self-Management

Social Awareness

Responsible Decision Making

Relationship Skills

Your classrooms are already places where the kids feel loved and held. Explicitly, you teach these kids how to be future geniuses that will make the world a better place. Being a teacher doesn’t just involve classroom teach. It involves modeling. And while we all have our moments, we must remember that everything we do, especially the implicit lessons we teach, get absorbed. You need to teach the skill. Model the behavior. Gently prompt each other to model the behavior. Practice the behavior until the I will be becomes the I am. And reflect together as a team. Also gently. 

We all need to work on our own social and emotional intelligence if we want our learners to grasp the skills. Its not about checking your busy life at the door. Sometimes you need to just lay your cards on the table in interpersonal interactions. This past week I had a lot of trouble sleeping and started many meetings by letting others know where I was emotionally so that my crankiness wouldn’t be unprofessionally misconstrued. I didn’t always succeed, but at least I tried, even from my place of emotional disregulation. Sometimes its about sharing. Sharing with your co-teacher in the morning that you are feeling distracted because you have awesome evening plans or sharing that you haven’t slept well and that you are already running low on patience. Sharing in age appropriate ways how you are feeling with your kids is excellent modeling. Sometimes our littlest kids won’t get it, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t get help from other adults so that you can get the space to emotionally regulate yourself and refresh. It is always better to, when given the chance, model SEL competencies in all aspects of your professional, but remember that we are an eco-system and you never have to be alone.

75 Final Questions

The Bathroom Fiasco

Directions: Read and understand the scene. In pairs, think of what explicit and implicit lessons were taught regarding how to behave at the bathroom (explanations below). Put individual lessons on post its. When finished, put explicit lesson post its above the line on Rabbi Chaya’s giant post it and implicit lessons below the line.

Scene: Every kid except for one has gone to the bathroom. Teacher A is in the bathroom coaching that last kid to go and Teacher B is outside. Student A starts hitting people. Student B is laughing because they think it’s funny. Student C starts talking about how Student A also hit them (when they really didn’t). Teacher A is distracted a bit because they have exciting after school plans. Teacher B didn’t sleep well last night and was already burnt out before they came into school. It goes without saying, every kid came into school that day with different emotional and physical needs that may or may not have been met before they arrived at school.

Explicit Curriculum: What do you think were the explicit lessons/expectations/rules set by teachers regarding the proper way to use the bathroom?

Implicit Curriculum: What lessons do you think the students might have picked up on from watching the interactions between Teachers A and B throughout the day? 

Active Listening for Unique Characteristics

In pairs, discuss the two questions. Share in a way that is natural to you, either one person shares fully and the other then responds, or else gently listen to each other while having a conversation.  

1. What is something you can do that not everybody else can do?

2. What were some of the factors that went into you being able to acquire that skill?

Five Levels of SEL:

1.Self-Awareness

2. Self-Management

3. Social Awareness

4. Responsible Decision Making

5. Relationship Skills

Pedagogy of SESL:

1. Teach

2. Model

3. Prompt

4. Practice

5. Reflect

Three levels of SESL 

1. Skill Building–I can share.

2. Climate–The classroom is a safe place where I become socially aware of the needs of others through practicing how to share.

3. Transcendence–Therefore I connect to the class project of tzedakah, helping others outside of our classroom, making the world a better place!

1. Skill Building–I have healthy relationship skills.

2. Climate–The workplace is where I utilize my skills of positive communication skills to interact with others.

3. Transcendence–Therefore, I model how to have healthy relationships, teaching my students this skill explicitly and implicitly. This both helps them develop into the kind of people who will be there for people in need as well as helps my school and community become a better place.

Individual Writing Prompt for Spiritual Growth

Three things I am going to do to:

Make myself better

1.____________________________________________________________________

2.____________________________________________________________________

3.____________________________________________________________________

Make my classroom better

1.____________________________________________________________________

2.____________________________________________________________________

3.____________________________________________________________________

Make my school better

1.____________________________________________________________________

2.____________________________________________________________________

3.____________________________________________________________________

Make the community better

1.____________________________________________________________________

2.____________________________________________________________________

3.____________________________________________________________________

Make the world better

1.____________________________________________________________________

2.____________________________________________________________________

3.____________________________________________________________________

Foot Steps Instructions:

Step 1: Create

Trace Your Right Foot 

Think of a time in the past when you weren’t your best as a teacher either with your co-teacher or with a member of the staff. Somewhere on your right foot, write about this time in the past under the heading “I was”. You can write it in a generic way if you are feeling uncomfortable. However, being specific is best. The past doesn’t have to define who you are in the present and who you can be in the future.  

Think of the kind of teacher you are on your best day. Write on your right foot about this in a specific way under the heading “I am”.

Trace Your Left Foot

Think of the teacher you will become. Think about how you as a collaborative teacher can make the classroom, the school, and the world a better place. Write about the kind of teacher you would like to become somewhere on your left food under the heading “I will be”.

Step 2: Conversation

1. Stand on your foot prints and face each other.

One person shares 

I was…

I am…

I will be…

2. Teachers now switch places to be in the other person’s footprints

Other person responds 

You were…

You are…

You will be…

Is that right?

3. Go back to original footprints and first speaker can clarify if necessary. Now repeat the process with the other person.

4. What will help each of us move ahead to become the kind of teacher we want to be? How can we work as a team to support each other in order to achieve this goal?