From Exploration to Action: The Next Stage of Our Educational Journey

In March I shared about the exciting journey that our Reimagine Religious School Task Force has embarked on.

So far, our journey has had us looking inward, learning about the history and current state of the religious school, as well as looking at our own personal Jewish experiences that have been meaningful, memorable, and identity forming for us. During our time looking inward, we spoke with our teachers, learning from them what they need to be successful, the challenges they have in meeting our goals and where their passions lie as educators.

We have also looked outward, learning about what to factor into our thinking about children’s Jewish learning, some alternative models in place in other congregations and what the successes and pitfalls of each of these models have been. Additionally, our task force members have been speaking with parents and grandparents to learn their hopes for their children’s Jewish upbringing, the role Temple Beth Shalom plays in that upbringing, and what educationally is important to them. In other words, these first legs of our journey focused on learning, exploring, understanding, and reflecting.

However, on all journeys, you eventually come to a fork in the road—that point when you have to make a choice. You have traveled a long way and are eager to get to your destination, but there seem to be several paths to choose from and you cannot be entirely sure where each will take you.

Our Reimagine Task Force is now at that place in our journey—we have arrived at that fork in the road and our next several meetings will allow us to look forward as we finally make the decisions that will determine our future path.

To help us do that, we will:

1. Learn how a vision is defined in the context of the work we have been doing and craft a draft vision, based on the ideas, insights, and dreams that have been collected over the past several months from the task force members, as well as feedback provided by parents, teachers, clergy and full-time staff.

   
   

2. Work to identify and articulate several concrete goals that are rooted in our vision that will help define the shape of the future of our youth educational offerings.

   
   

3. Imagine what education in our congregation will be like in the future and synthesize these ideas into a recommendation for a new, alternative educational model for us to pilot.

   
   

4. Finally, brainstorm some feasible, first bold steps that would move us toward the realization of this future.

American educator Stephen Covey wrote, "To begin with the end in mind means to start with a clear understanding of your destination. It means to know where you’re going so that you better understand where you are now so that the steps you take are always in the right direction." This is a long and important journey, and what it will take to reach the destination is the entire Temple Beth Shalom community. We look forward to the next update where we will be able to share a vision for education and perhaps even our bold steps for moving forward.