By Joel Magalnick, Editor, JTNews
After only three years on the job, Jewish Day School’s Rabbi Stuart Light, the Director of Judaic Studies, has received two awards for his school. The awards were given to Rabbi Light earlier this year at the Jewish Education Assembly, a conference of Conservative-movement educators. Both were awarded as a result of innovative curricula he has developed in his tenure at JDS.
The first award was for what Rabbi Light called a “spiraled parashat hashavua program,” based on each week’s torah portion. The program splits the portion and breaks them into lessons for each class from kindergarten to the fifth grade. Though the program is still in development, Rabbi Light said the program is beneficial because students will learn the entire portion instead of select pieces.
“Year after year, when teachers were asked to teach parasha,” Rabbi Light said, “they would look at…the one concept that jumps out at them, and that’s what they would end up teaching.”
With the new program, he continued, the teachers know exactly what to teach because there is a strategy for each grade to learn its specific section of the portion. Also, the students can bridge their knowledge from one year to the next without rehashing the same stories.
“It’s about creating a more formalized program,” Rabbi Light said, but added the program is also meant to help with teaching the children how to treat each other while explaining how “the Torah is more than meets the eye.”
The second award, which was offered by the Torah Ora publishing company in conjunction with the JEA, went to the best curriculum piece, according to Rabbi Light.
Students — in this case, sixth graders — are taught about the ancient prophets “through the lens of leadership,” he said, “and we use different segments of prophets to bring out the ideas of what makes a leader.”
Topics include how a leader is viewed in society, whether a leader is above the law or more beholden to it, and if leaders make better parents.
Rabbi Light put the program into the context of the Canaanites wandering in the desert. They lost two leaders in quick succession, Moses then Joshua. As the Hebrews turned from a nomadic tribe into a settled one, they discussed choosing a new leader by asking “what qualities will enable a new leader to be where we need to be, to establish a kingdom under God?” according to Rabbi Light.
Following these lessons, the Herb Rosen Leadership Seminar brings community leaders into school, and “the same questions the kids are asking are asked to these very successful leaders in the community,” Rabbi Light said.
Visitors so far have been King County Executive Ron Sims and educational technology consultant Sally Narodick. The program was put together over last summer through the request of the Rosen family.
Rabbi Light has been director of JDS’s Judaic studies since he received his ordination from Jewish Theological Seminary a little over three years ago. Part of his mandate has been to make the school’s Jewish curriculum more sophisticated. Judging from his track record thus far, he appears to be succeeding.
“We’ve gotten some great reviews,” he said.