It’s been a while since Prizmah was able to gather the field together for the Conference. After four years, the 2023 Conference is happening in Denver—right in my backyard—and I’m excited by what’s in store for the 1,200 people who will join, and especially for the 150+ lay leaders and day school investors like me who will be among them.

The Lay Leader/Investor Experience is being designed with lay leaders and investors, and with a focus on providing content that most closely aligns with what we want and need from a day school conference experience. Looking closely at the brilliant schedule and the engaging sessions being offered can help, but if you want to know what you’ll really get out of the Conference, here’s my top five list that’ll really have an impact on you as a leader, an investor and a day school supporter:

1. Connection. 

Let’s admit it: Leadership can be lonely. Being a board chair, board leader, or one of only a few major funders at a school can sometimes feel isolating. Prizmah’s got you covered with intentional networking opportunities and a special reception just for you. You’ll connect with people from schools and communities that are similar to yours in size, denomination, demographics and more. Leveraging these relationships is the best path to building a community that understands exactly what you’re experiencing and celebrates every victory by your side.

2. Fresh Ideas. 

Interested in learning about fundraising and resource development? Tuition models or endowments? Effective lay-head partnerships or board best practices? Experts from Prizmah and the field will be on the scene and facilitating breakout sessions and Ignite Talks relevant to you in every session block. You’ll hear what’s happening in the field that’s breaking new ground and get a deeper understanding of what’s working— and what’s not—across the spectrum of day schools and yeshivas. 

3. The Pulse of the Field.

With day schools on an upward enrollment trajectory for the first time in the last decade or more, the big messages about day schools are getting more and more clear… and so are the needs. Planning for the future, making sure that this moment becomes a movement, and prioritizing healthy, safe communities are all on the conference agenda. You’ll understand what’s happening on a fieldwide level and come away with tools that help you adapt that understanding to the school- or community-specific context that’s right for you.

4. A Yardstick.

Ever wonder if your school is “normal”? (Is “normal” even a thing??) Data is in high demand, and the Prizmah Conference is loaded with it. You can already check out the incredible research about enrollment, development, the value proposition of day schools and everything else available in Prizmah’s Knowledge Center, but at the conference we’ll be releasing the newest data and rolling around in it to uncover what it means for the field, for your school and in planning for the future.

5. An Action Plan.

Conferences are great for leaving you inspired and reinvigorated. But what then? The Lay Leader/Investor experience is wrapping up with a session designed to answer just that question. What are the next steps for my school and community? How do I act on what I’ve learned to make sure we can level up in the areas that are most important to our students, families and faculty? And what’s the first thing I need to do when I get home?

With all of that in store, you might want to bring a team with you, just to make sure you get the most out of the experience and maximize your learning. (Never fear, there’s also team time built into the schedule!) But whether or not others can carve out the time to join you for this incredible experience, I’m certain that the time you spend will mean that you, your school, and your community are more prepared to be successful as a result.

I look forward to seeing you there!

In Hebrew, the root of the word imagination is ד.מ.ה, and the root of the word “human” is א.ד.מ. The similarity between the roots of the words imagination and of humanity is not surprising. One of the things that makes us human, and one of the greatest gifts we have as humans, is our capacity to imagine. To not allow our reality to bind us. To not allow our fears to censor us.

Rabbi Nachman of Breslov explains the connection between imagination and humanity as both a choice and as a test. Our imagination can elevate us as much as it can bind us. Our role, as humans created in the image of God, is to ensure that the gift of imagination is used to unleash the powers of creativity and possibility. 

It’s not easy to access our inner creativity. One reason for this is that while we gain more life experience as we grow older, we also tend to self-censor. Kernels of ideas that can grow into new possibilities are met with an instinctive resistance. We make lists of reasons for why our ideas are not realistic or attainable. We shut them down before we are even able to fully articulate them.

The irony is that we teach our children not to self-censor. “Look,” a five-year-old kid will say to us, showing us a mismatched pile of Lego, “I made a palace!” And most often we will respond with a wow and offer words of encouragement. For children, possibilities are endless, an attitude we encourage. So why is it so hard for us to apply the same attitude to our own creations? Why is it so hard for us to think creatively? Why do we self-censor our ideas? And how might we stop and allow our inner child to flourish?

Accessing Our Imaginative Faculty 

When educators are working on a new program or initiative, they often start with trying to fill an itinerary. While this may seem like a practical approach, most times it is a trap: Before they even begin to imagine what is possible, these educators create the boundaries and parameters that will inhibit their thinking. And while, ultimately, we need to be practical and efficient, practicalities and efficiencies are not going to help us imagine new possibilities. They will only inhibit them. 

Our inhibitors are all the things that hold us back from doing and being our best. They fuel our inclination to self-censor and form the conditions for internal and external resistance. Some of these inhibitors are real, like not having enough time, money or staff. And some of these inhibitors are perceptions, like what others might think of us and our ideas.

The first step towards reclaiming our ,כח מדמה our imaginative faculty, is by becoming aware of our inhibitors. While these inhibitors cannot be ignored (many of them are real and we need to be practical), we must recognize they prevent us from being open to possibility. To access our creativity, we must list of all the things that will inhibit us from accessing our imagination, acknowledge them, and then set them aside. We must suspend disbelief and return to reality only after we’ve allowed our imagination to run free.

If our inhibitors hold us back from doing and being our best, our boosters do the opposite, allowing our creativity to flourish. Boosters might be space that helps us think expansively, like a a coffee shop or library for some, or a walk in the outdoors for others. Boosters can also be imaginary, where we suspend reality and imagine we have all the resources in the world to do what we seek, so that there’s nothing holding us back. This is a return to יצירה , to creation: the force with which the world was created. The essence of אדם, of humankind.

Commenting on Isaiah 14:14, the Midrash says״,אדם – מלשון אדמה לעליון״ the name Adam represents the idea of humans working towards resembling God, who is the essence of creation and creativity. 

These, then, are the first steps toward reducing self-censorship and unlocking our inner creativity: we must list, acknowledge, and set aside our inhibitors, and then list, celebrate, and access our boosters.

Enlarging Our Vision 

But creativity doesn’t only emerge from how we position ourselves in relation to what inhibits or enables it. To truly unlock our imagination, we must train ourselves to see possibility even when it doesn’t exist. One known technique is in asking ourselves “what if” questions when considering the challenges we face. 

For example, instead of asking ourselves “How might we get our students to love tefillah?” reformulating the question as a “what if” can empower us to tap into our imagination. Such a question—one that accesses our boosters—might look something like this: “What if I could take my students anywhere in the world, for an extended period, to help them appreciate and love tefillah? Where would we go? What would we do?” While realistically we will not be taking our students anywhere in the world we want, the question itself is an expansive one, allowing our imagination to flourish.

“What if” questions remove us from the constrictions of our daily realities. They ignite new possibilities and allow for new ideas to emerge. And when we couple them with imaginary boosters, pretending that we have unlimited access to resources, our creativity starts running free. And the irony is that often the creative ideas we’re likely to come up with will not require so many resources after all.

Education in Hebrew is חינוך, sharing a root with the word חנוכה, the holiday we are about to celebrate, representing the idea of inauguration (ח.נ.כ). Education is an act of inauguration, of bringing something new into this world: a new idea; a new perspective; a new voice. It is our task, as educators, to find possibility despite the many challenges that inhibit us. To see education through the prism of inauguration requires of us to tap into our creativity and imagination. 

The most profound thing about imagination is that it is intertwined with our humanity, allowing us to experience our צלם אלוקים, to be in the image of God and access the possibility of creativity and creation.

And the best part of imagination is that it’s free. Following it invites us to trust ourselves and wander freely in the world of possibilities and exercise the gift of our humanity.

Today’s 21st century Jewish communities in America and Israel are among the most socially diverse communities in Jewish history. Of the 7.5 million American Jews, 1 in 5 American Jews are Jews of color (JOC) or non-European/Caucasian descent. According to the most recent Pew study, nearly 20% of all American Jews identify as non-European and 10% identify as Sephardi or Mizrachi. Eight percent collectively identify as Black, Asian, or Latin American. This number nearly doubles for people under the age of thirty. Another recent study highlights the fact that a significant number of Jews who are racially and ethnically diverse have described experiencing racism within the Jewish community.

To address the complexities of identity and belonging issues and heal the social inequities and injustices that have impacted the Jewish people in North America and around the world, Jewish leadership and educators must also be representative of our diversity. In addition, many ethnically diverse Jews have intersecting identities that makes the issues of racism and antisemitism simultaneous concerns. We have an opportunity to model our mosaic of diversity in our educational leadership and in our future educator pipelines. In order to design thoughtful solutions to the lack of diversity in Jewish leadership, we must acknowledge why it has been difficult to address. 

First, there is a lack of education on the rich diversity within our Jewish community, beginning with our youth. Too often, the first encounters with racism for a Jewish person of color occur within their own community via day schools, religious schools and camps, resulting in far too many becoming estranged from Jewish life. Our curricula can go beyond the Ashkenazi experiences of the Holocaust to tap into the wells of knowledge from Jews of all racial and ethnic backgrounds and experiences in America and around the world. All of our youth need to be able to see representations of diverse Jews, from chachamim of antiquity to modern day Jews. And for those with non-European heritage, learning how those similar to them contribute to the beauty of Jewish life enhances their Jewish pride and self-esteem while also enabling them to stand up to antisemitism and racism, which frequently come from the same foundation.

Secondly, the predominant culture wars and identity politics pressure Jews to choose supporting social justice over being Jewish or choose only one aspect of their identities, such as being Black. Their Jewish identity is often unwelcome in such spaces. This conundrum is particularly challenging for Jews of color who are often vulnerable and may already feel like outcasts from our Jewish community. They may constantly have to prove their Jewishness. In the spirit of Dan le-khaf zechut, judging people favorably, the missteps are often coming from Jewish students who have not had the opportunity for education on Jewish diversity, and for some, little to no interactions with Jews unlike themselves. 

At best, Jews of color often choose emotional, psychological and even physical exile from Jewish community. At worst, some may divert their talent and energies into movements or causes hostile to the Jewish community, some of which even demand they deny their Jewish identity. By enlivening our curriculum with deep Torah, as well as lifting up the richness of our diverse Jewish heritage, we have the opportunity to ingather our exiled, kibbutz galuyyot, to build up a foundation to support our future Jewish leaders and educators.

Lastly, the Jewish communal ecosystem acknowledges it is behind in addressing equity, diversity and inclusion. Few organizations have strategies to recruit, develop and retain diverse Jewish leadership. Our educational leadership has an opportunity to include the full range of Jewish diversity whether ethnically, nonnative English speakers, women, disabled and more. We should be asking ourselves, “Where are Jews of color and other identities in our midst?” 

At the same time, we must develop pathways for the leadership and mentorship of our diverse future educators. I hope to see many of you at the Prizmah Conference in January, where I will present on “Diversity and Inclusion & the 21st Century Jewish Educator.”

The Torah hints for us to see opportunity in Jewish diversity in Genesis 48:4: “I will make you fertile and numerous, making you a community of nations [kehal amim].” It could have said, “I will make you a community, kahal,” or just an “am,” nation singular, but as Rav Hirsch’s commentary on Gen 48:4 calls us to see, the secret to the strength of the Jewish people lies in our diversity.

Walk in to just about any Jewish day school or yeshiva, and you are bound to smile. Whether it is the colorful artwork on the wall, the enthusiastic voices singing in Hebrew, the sparkle in the eyes of teachers greeting their students, or even in the smell of lunch preparations, our schools present a multisensory experience of joy. If we seek to fulfill the call of Psalms to “worship God with joy,” our schools are a truly wonderful entry point.

Given this core connection between schools and joy, when more than a thousand educators and leaders of the day school field gather at the Prizmah Conference in Denver next month, we are excited to welcome Tal Ben-Shahar, renowned psychologist and “happiness guru,” as our featured presenter. In his talk, entitled “Wellbeing in Schools: Applying the Science of Happiness,” Ben-Shahar will help participants understand the science of happiness and how we can apply evidence-based tools to build higher levels of wellbeing and resilience among teachers and students, resulting in lower levels of anxiety and depression, improved relationships and better academic performance.

With a growth in enrollment since pre-Covid, reversing past trends, more families opting for and staying in Jewish schools, and appreciation of the quality and value of day schools across North America, now is indeed a happy time for many schools. There is also much to learn and anticipate as we look ahead. At the conference, we will engage in sessions and workshops with experts and experienced practitioners on the diverse factors contributing—and challenging—day school growth and stability.

Our ability to continue progress in enrollment, affordability, appreciation of and support for day schools, as well as excellence—in all our schools—hinges both on our joy and on our ability to harness the creative spirit in each school leader, educator and student. We will enlist the Stanford d.school’s K12 futures team at the conference to explore futures thinking methodologies for Jewish schools. We cannot just prepare students for the future; we must help them develop the imagination, agency and will to shape the future. 

All of this will take place within a vibrant community of professional and lay leaders, all of whom believe that the joy and creativity represented by and cultivated within Jewish schools are perhaps our most promising indicators for a strong and healthy Jewish future. For those joining us in Denver, I look forward to celebrating and learning with you. And to all, as we approach Chanukkah, the Festival of Lights, I share personal greetings for joy and hope, even at these darkest days of the year. 

When I first encountered this quotation, by the author and social activist bell hooks, I was stopped in my tracks: “The function of art is to do more than tell it like it is—it’s to imagine what is possible.”

Many believe that, in hooks’ words, the purpose of education is to “tell it like it is,” to cram as much information as possible into the heads of learners, so that they understand the world. But I believe that if we are actually going to prepare learners for the world that is coming once they leave our care, we need to embrace the fact that education is an art, and that we do more than “tell it like it is.” Following hooks’ logic then, the purpose of education, especially Jewish education, is to “imagine what is possible”—to have a vision of the future, and to work each and every day to create that future together. 

Just like Hashem infused Betzalel with רוּחַ אֱלֹקִים Ruach Elokim, the Spirit of God, to design and build the Mishkan, my hope is that this kind of creative spirit infuses the leadership of Jewish day schools and yeshivas gathered at the Prizmah Conference in Denver in just a few weeks. During three days of high-quality professional learning and relationship building, we will celebrate the spirit of creativity that we bring to our work every day and the ways that each and every one of us imagines what is possible.

Here’s a brief glimpse into some of the creative experiences that you’ll have at the Prizmah Conference. 

• We come together as a whole community for Shared Experiences of learning and celebration. Envision your future with Lisa Kay Solomon, Louie Montoya, and Ariel Ran from the Stanford d. school’s K12 futures team; experience with intersections between creativity and Jewish tradition with thought-leaders, rabbis, educators, and creates from across the spectrum of Jewish life; and explore the science of happiness and how it can strengthen your school community with renowned psychologist and expert Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar. 
   
• To welcome you into the conference’s dynamic and creative experience, we’ll be beginning on Sunday afternoon with Creative Workshops, facilitated by our Prizmah Conference Creatives-in-Residence and Featured Presenters. Get into the creative spirit through hands-on explorations of creative processes, art-making and facilitated conversations. 
   
• Activate your imagination and collect inspiration in the Creative Hub. Network and share your passions with others, and imagine how you might bring your ideas to life. 
   
• Throughout the conference, you will have the opportunity to choose from hundreds of sessions that are designed to develop your leadership capacities, share leading practices, foster belonging, build connections and meet your emergent needs as a Jewish day school leader. Expert facilitators and thought leaders will share Idas and resources that will help to advance you in your role, your school, and your community. 

Whether this is your first Prizmah Conference or you’ve been participating for years, I hope that the Prizmah Conference is an opportunity for you to draw ideas and inspiration from the collective creative spirit of Jewish day schools and yeshivas. I am very much looking forward to imagining what is possible, together with you. 

We shape the future and the future shapes us.

Educators shape the mindsets, behaviors, and skills their students will carry with them into the future. And while this has always been true, the global pandemic, nationwide attention to injustice, and profound impact of technology on our daily life have heightened our collective sense of urgency to design more abundant futures with—and for—our students.

This moment has made us realize that we cannot just prepare students for the future, we must help them develop the imagination, agency, and will to shape the future. As educators, we spend an inordinate amount of time preparing students for the future as if we know how the future will unfold for them. But in an ever accelerating moment of uncertainty and ambiguity, merely being “prepared” feels insufficient. In a world filled with more unknowns than knowns, how do we help our students not just be “prepared” but capable of envisioning and building the futures they want to bring to life?

Our blueprint is to empower educators and schools with the very strategies and mindsets used by futurists. In K-12 schools we are comfortable teaching the past, but not the future. As Jewish educators, we are uniquely tethered to our history, drawing us towards lessons in morality, dignity and responsibility. And in our institutional infrastructure there are plentiful lesson plans, teacher training, multiple-choice options, and even essay prompts on how to examine what already exists in the world. But there is scant professional learning that prepares us to teach about how to shape the futures we want to bring to life. By crafting and sharing five approaches to empower futures thinking, we believe educators will feel emboldened to see, shape and share the purpose for their school’s institutional journey. Consider using these questions as starting points:

How might we build empathy for those who come after us?

Cultivating Empathy for the Futures invites us to imagine and explore the moral, ethical, social, and equitable human implications of different futures at the individual and communal levels. It asks that we explore the implications and potential experiences of real people living in those futures to help us more deeply understand a much fuller range of emotional and social needs of the humans living and learning in those futures.

How might we start to trace change over time to understand how the world will change?

The future is dynamic, complex, and full of surprise. Change often comes in disruptive ways, seemingly unpredictable and unprecedented. By Tracing Change Across Time, we grow more attuned to toggling between short term possibilities and long term promises, and learn to grapple with – and possibly avert unintended consequences of aspirational ideas in an ever shifting context.

How might we craft visions of coexistence where everyone in your community is heard, seen and valued? 

We need to learn to dream, imagine, and build together, side-by-side, with those who bring the wisdom and lived experience far apart from our own. Invite participation, honor individual and collective power, and make positive choices in ways that lift, fortify, extend, and embrace community.

How might we see multiple pathways toward the future, honoring the plurality and ambiguity of creating something new?

We develop our capacity to see across possibility and resist the urge of a singular pathway. In so doing we value different types of knowledge, disciplines, lived experiences, and ideas. We cultivate intellectual and cognitive flexibility, resisting the urge to see things in just “one right way.”

How might we engage in world building to explore what our future communities might look like? 

Worldbuilding fluidly integrates arts, humanities, science, philosophy, religion, governance and the human experience in novel and complex ways, making us able to suspend our present to immerse ourselves into the future. 
                    
We are being shaped by this moment, and outcomes of the choices we make will shape us for years to come. Educators and students are the futurists we need today.

My family moved to Richmond from Calgary in 2002 when my father began his role as principal at Richmond Jewish Day School (RJDS), where both my sister, Noa, and I were enrolled. From our arrival, the entire Richmond Jewish Day School community was incredibly warm and welcoming. My happiest memories from childhood took place when I was a student at RJDS. Some of my fondest memories include Fun Day, latke lunches, going to Garry Point at the end of the year, performing in the annual talent shows and musicals, and singing in the choir, but the best part was the people – wonderful classmates and teachers, and a supportive community. We moved back to Calgary in 2006, and, for both myself and my whole family, we recall our years in Richmond, and at RJDS in particular, with tremendous affection and nostalgia.

This played no small part in my decision to attend the University of British Columbia (UBC) for university. At UBC I was very active in the Jewish community, including serving as the President of Israel on Campus and later working at Hillel as the Director of Programming. I was also able to reconnect with many friends from RJDS. Despite our relatively smaller numbers, RJDS alumni played a disproportionate role in leadership roles and overall participation in the Jewish community at UBC (as they do in the wider Jewish community of Greater Vancouver). I believe that this is due to the rich Jewish identity and connection to Israel that RJDS cultivated, as well as the deeply inclusive and grounding community that the school provided for us. This has been repeatedly demonstrated to me when I encounter other RJDS alumni as adults, both in terms of their Jewish identity as well as their character.

After graduating from UBC with a degree in political science and international relations, I worked at Hillel BC for about two years. I then moved to Tel Aviv three years ago to teach English and work with NGOs supporting women and asylum seekers. I have since made Aliyah and worked as a journalist at Haaretz Newspaper before transitioning to tech about a year ago. I am now a Marketing and Communications Manager at a tech company called Deci AI. I am also pursuing my Master’s in Middle Eastern History at Tel Aviv University. While life here is often less orderly than Canada, I really love it.

My time at RJDS impacted me profoundly in numerous ways. Among other things, my time at RJDS directly led to my attending university in Vancouver, my participation and leadership in the Jewish community there, and my decision to move to Israel. There aren’t enough good things that I can say about RJDS and I could wax poetic on the subject for much longer if given the opportunity. My understanding is that this year the school is celebrating its 30th birthday so let me wish you ad meah ve-esrim (“until 120,” as we say in Hebrew) and may you go from strength to strength.

I grew up in Dollard des Ormeaux, a suburb of Montreal. Although my father was a public school teacher, my parents made the decision to send my sister and I to Jewish day school in the neighborhood. They wanted us to have strong ties to the community, to Judaism and to Israel. It worked.

I used to watch my dad grade papers. I would sit in my room with a stack of papers and a pile of red pens and pretend to be marking papers and giving feedback to my “students”. As I grew older, I knew that teaching was my trajectory. The memories of the experiences I had in the JDS classroom stuck with me. I wanted to teach and I wanted to teach in a Jewish day school. I wanted to help students build community, make connections with their families to Judaism and discover who they are as learners.

My first job was at Gesher JDS. I took a position teaching kindergarten, which I assumed would last a year or two until a different grade became available- that never happened. I spent 22 years working with 5 year olds and starting them off on their journey in Jewish education. I loved every minute.

I have been blessed to work in amazing schools and organizations who share my goals and philosophies around teaching and learning. Every moment you have with students is a moment to build connections, community and knowledge. Every moment you have with teachers is a moment to celebrate new relationships, building exciting and meaningful curricula and supporting those choosing to enter the world of chinuch.

I come from a long line of educators and I am honored to be a part of this profession working to build the next generation of educators.

It is without question that I firmly believe that going to Denver Jewish Day School from kindergarten through senior year of high school strongly impacted the person I am today. While many people may think that growing up with only 20 people per class would not prepare me for the so-called “real-world,” I believe it is quite the opposite. 

It was because of this unique experience that I was able to find myself, all due to the fact that I attended an intimate school with a small nurturing  environment. 

The individual relationships I was able to create with my teachers allowed me the confidence to approach professors in college, even those who taught large lecture classes. I learned how to speak up, and that my opinion mattered. I learned that at the end of the day, life is all about relationships and connections.

You know what they say – 2 Jews, 3 opinions. So, while I may not have had exposure to the same quantity of people in my 13 years growing up as compared to someone in public school, I most definitely was exposed to many opinions that differed from my own. I learned the value of listening to others and constructively debating opinions,I gained the skills and the ability to have open conversations with people of all Jewish backgrounds, which was constantly reinforced in my small environment- all because we prioritized the lesson that everyone’s opinions mattered.

I was a big fish in a small pond. I took on leadership positions like Student Council President which  led me to eventually become Emory Hillel President in college. I wasn’t afraid to go after what I wanted and I had the confidence to take all necessary measures to successfully achieve anything I set my mind to. 

As a Jewish professional, I am not sure I would be where I am without my Jewish day school education.  My Jewish day school experience provided me with a strong foundation in Jewish community, inspiring me to continue elevating our peoplehood in any way that I can. 

Denver Jewish Day School was the first step in my Jewish life. I will forever be thankful for my 13 year experience at Denver Jewish Day School. I would not be the person I am today without it, nor have the lifelong relationships that I created there. As I grow up and begin my own family one day, I have no doubt that I will be sending my kids to Jewish day school, so that they too can build the same foundation that I was lucky enough to receive myself.

Take a minute to look around your school and consider in what ways it’s different than it was 20 years ago.

Try looking beyond the surface, focusing not on the color of the walls or the displays on the bulletin boards or the names on the faculty roster (though those pieces can be artifacts that represent deeper change). What does “learning” look like? What happens in the classroom on a daily basis? What kinds of questions are kids encouraged to be asking? How are you assessing learning? How different are these pieces from five years ago?

But are the kids in your building today the same as the kids who were there even five years ago, much less 10 or 20 years ago?

What if school was a place that was already experimenting and changing and learning and pivoting to meet the changing needs of the students—and the world they are being prepared to enter?

Enter the lab school.

A lab school (short for laboratory school) is a space designed to ideate, explore and test new educational models and methods, incubating new ideas and developing teachers in a live setting. The original one was founded by John Dewey at the University of Chicago in 1896; today, over 125 years later, lab schools can be found all over the country, most focusing on a specific educational niche. While not all modern lab schools are associated with a college, university or teacher-training institutions, they have the same goals: to experiment, innovate and share.

Einstein Academy, a short-lived experiment which opened in the fall of 2020 in Denver and closed its doors in May 2022 (coinciding with the pandemic) was a Jewish lab school with these goals in mind.

During our planning year, we spent weeks learning about different educational models locally, nationally and internationally. Using our mission and vision as a lens, we drew pieces from these various schools with the purpose of a lab school at the heart of all of it. One example that had really intrigued us was the Opal School in Portland, Oregon, which recently closed its doors (sadly, also a casualty of Covid). The school, while deeply committed to its students and their growth, had a parallel goal of impacting education in general: conducting research, bringing in teachers from around the world to learn together, and developing robust professional development offerings based off of what they had developed at the school. From their website, “We were always a startup in a continual dance of learning and growing. Our staff members were all teacher researchers, working to invent new systems of education that preserve and extend children’s natural learning strategies, their creativity, their curiosity and the wonder of learning itself.”

This was what we wanted to be. We felt that education needed to be shaken up, not just incrementally with small changes here and there, but systematically—completely rethinking everything we did and why. Partly because we were brand new, mostly because it aligned with our goals and philosophy, and partly because it was Covid times, there was no sense of “how things had always been done.” Every single day was an experiment. Every day involved trying something new, learning from it and reshaping it for the next day. Every day, we met with our faculty to evaluate the previous day, look at the data and make adjustments.

And our students benefited from it. They were getting an educational experience specifically tailored to them at the exact moment that they needed it. If something didn’t work for them, it changed. If something wasn’t working for our teachers, it changed. And if someone had an idea, we worked with them to flesh it out and implement it. Our one guiding non-negotiable question was, “Is it best for students?”

With the closing of Einstein Academy, though, no other lab schools exist within our day school network, and that’s a problem. Lab schools serve a key role in the advancement of education in that they are centers for new ideas to be born, developed and spread. They provide support and safety for risk-taking and ignoring “how things have been done” in order to seek what might be. Without lab schools in our network of Jewish day schools, we are at a serious disadvantage.

Yes, some schools are already incorporating elements of lab schools, and it’s so exciting to see. But every school can and should be a lab school. Here’s how.

Start with one teacher or one class or one week. 

Most schools do have an idea of how things have always been done that makes change hard and scary. So, start in one area and go all- in. And then get bigger. And then get even bigger. 

Celebrate risk-taking and normalize failure. 

It’s much safer to stick with what we know to be “fine” than to risk complete failure by trying something new, but that also means that we never have the chance to try for “great”. Model risk-taking yourself, and celebrate those who try something new. Make those who are shaking it up the exception rather than the norm. 

Don’t make it “something else”.

Everyone who works in a school has full plates, so be prepared to take things off of those plates faster than you add them. If you’re going to try portfolios as evidence of learning, take away report-card narratives. If you’re going to build in a three-week interdisciplinary time period, accept that you won’t finish the textbook. Make trying the new thing the top priority and everything else secondary. 

Focus on what you’re gaining rather than what you’re losing.

A sense of loss for the old ways is totally natural and normal, so reframe the loss of the old as excitement for the new. If you’re trying a student run presentation of learning in lieu of the traditional Chagigat HaChumash, for example, celebrate the creativity and leadership of the students rather than bemoaning the loss of tradition. It won’t sell everyone, but it will set the tone for the direction you are headed. 

Commit.

You have the power to shape the identity of your school, so decide today that you are a lab school. Not in a way that’s buzzwords or makes a great photo op or checks a box on a strategic plan or looks great on your website for SEO. Instead, in a way that is scary and unknown, but that contributes meaningfully to shifting the world of Jewish education and helping to bring new ideas to the field. Scary is good; that’s how you know you’re pushing the limits just enough. 

Then share.

While there is no such thing as “best practices”, because no one approach will ever be best for everyone, we can learn so much from others. We can adapt and combine and tweak things that worked in different schools to try at our schools. We can ask for help and seek support to help with the “scary” factor a bit. We can learn from the “failures” of others about what to do differently or what to integrate when we give it a try. And then we can report back and contribute to the ongoing conversation. 

Ultimately, we’re all in this together, one giant lab school—for our students.