PROZDOR'S POSTGRAD SENIORS TRAIN TO LEAD

BY JODI WERNER GREENWALD
Photo by Justin Allardyce Knight

In mid-February at a Jewish day school in Dnepropretrovsk, Boston's sister city in the Ukraine, Josh Sowalsky steeled himself to lead a classroom of 20 seventh-grade boys in a performance of "The Hope," an anthem written in English by popular Jewish musician Rich Recht. Part of a joint American/Israeli teaching team of high-school seniors on a Bureau of Jewish Education-sponsored trip to present lessons in Jewish values at the school, Sowalsky had come prepared. He knew how to handle the language barrier through the judicious use of voice, body language and the help of a Russian translator, maintain discipline when things got noisy by suddenly stopping what he was doing and giving the students a stern look, and address unforeseen problems by improvising. But how would he get his 20 charges excited about "The Hope," a song that he describes as the corniest he'd ever heard?

Again, Sowalsky turned to his training. He screamed about how this was the best song ever, belted the song at the top of his lungs, and during the chorus, put his hands in the air, jumped up and down, and pretended he was "moshing" at a wild rock concert. "I screamed, jumped, waved and sang, and the kids couldn't get enough of it!" he reports. "I knew from Moreshet that if I showed passion and could inspire, it would be a home run."

Moreshet, Prozdor's senior seminar program, had served as Sowalsky's training ground for this trip. The word "moreshet" means "legacy," as in the traditions of the Jewish people, says Prozdor Director Margie Berkowitz. "We're giving our 12th graders the tools—all manner of Jewish teaching—with which to transmit this legacy to the next generation."

Prozdor Hebrew High School students graduate at the end of the 11th grade, and subsequent enrollment in Moreshet is optional. Students sign up for the extra year to gain practical leadership experience and training. They assume work placements as teaching assistants for instructors, Hebrew tutors for peers or assistants for students with special needs. Moreshet students also become counselors at Prozdor Shabbatonim and on short trips, such as those to New York City, UMass Amherst and Montreal.

"It's a self-selection process, says Rachel Sklan, Prozdor's former informal education coordinator and Moreshet coordinator. "The most committed students return for Moreshet senior year." This past year, 60 out of 110 Prozdor Class of 2004 graduates returned.

A key objective of Moreshet is to transmit Prozdor's informal/formal educational approach to students. By splitting students' time between leadership training and work experience, "we train 12th graders on how to become instructors, educators and counselors, and then they put this into practice at Prozdor," says Dan Brosgol, Prozdor's associate director. "Ultimately, this will help them get summer jobs and other positions in college and beyond."

Every other Tuesday, students rotate between Leadership and Text and Jewish Education tracks. On a Leadership and Text night, for example, they spend half the time focusing on feedback, group process or leadership styles, and the other half on finding leadership examples in biblical stories. On Jewish Education nights, they rotate between informal, formal and special education, and a unit that covers issues involved in leaving home for the first time and being responsible for one's own Jewish life. In the process, the Moreshet faculty serve as role models for creating engaging learning experiences.

For example, Prozdor Academic Director Yehudah Potok achieves his goal of highlighting leadership models in Jewish text by teaching students how to give an inspiring and effective d'var Torah. During a recent Text class, he handed out passages from various books of Torah, asking students to mark down facts, feelings, ideas and any questions that came to mind while reading. After they finished, Potok asked for someone to recount one of the stories they had read.

Sowalsky volunteered. Facing the class, he factually summarized the Genesis story of Sodom and Gomorrah. Afterward, Potok asked Sowalsky and the rest of the class, "What about the four quadrants of thinking you engaged in during your reading? How can you make storytelling even more engaging?"

Starting with Moses' history of insecurities, Potok told the class the story of the rod and serpent from Exodus, building the message deliberately, infusing his own personal interpretation. In the process, the students learned what Potok considers to be a valuable lesson about public speaking: Audiences don't want you to tell them a story verbatim, they want to hear your insights and be entertained in the process.

In her Leadership class on feedback, instructor Mardi Klein likewise gets her students actively involved in the lesson. In one session she put them through a role-playing exercise in which a "supervisor" had to critique the performance of an "employee." When the student acting as supervisor opened his critique with negative comments, the employee student got defensive. Klein then used this situation as a springboard to introduce the concept of "feedback sandwiches": It's beneficial to start and end with positive comments, positioning constructive criticism in the middle, where it's most palatable.

"This moment is all about the next moment," she said, reminding students that their strategy and goals for outcome are as important as their language, and that planning in advance is key. "Ultimately, learning how to give and receive feedback will open up communication and allow you to work better with others," she concluded.

In running the Moreshet program, Rachel Sklan applied a philosophy championed by NOAM, a London-based Conservative Jewish youth group: Empower youth to take responsibility. "When young people look up to other young people, it's more inspiring than looking at a teacher," she explains. "We introduce them to dugma ishit, the concept of leading by example." Moreshet therefore encourages high-school seniors to act as role models for their peers and inspire with their behavior.

The knowledge and commitment that these students develop also empowers them to assume leadership roles in Jewish organizations on college campuses and beyond, adds Berkowitz: "As a microcosm of the new Prozdor education, Moreshet seeks to transmit an ongoing passion for Jewish living and sense of responsibility to Jewish continuity."

BACK TO TOP