Cathy Lowenstein, principal of Vancouver Talmud Torah, says that because of where she lives, she is “a little bit away from the day school world” and lacks some of the resources available in the more major Jewish centres.

From left, Deborah Court, Lookstein principals’ program director, is seen with Canadians Joyce Kerr, participant; Shana Harris, mentor; Cathy Lowenstein, participant; Leia Ger-Rogers, participant; Ted Walker, mentor; Ben Karmel, participant; and Rabbi Yamin Benarroch, participant.

“Just like you have to work harder to keep your own children engaged, you have to work harder [as a Jewish educator] to keep yourself engaged in Jewish education,” she told The CJN in a phone interview.

Lowenstein was one of 18 educators, among them five Canadians, to take part in the 10th annual principals’ program hosted by Bar-Ilan University’s Lookstein Center for Jewish Education, in partnership with the Avi Chai Foundation.

The “summer seminar” took place July 7 to 17, but all the participants are instituting year-long, in-school “action research projects” under the guidance of mentors, and they will meet again for a February seminar in Florida. They’re expected to submit final reports on their projects next summer.

Lowenstein, a native of Winnipeg who taught at Toronto’s Bialik Hebrew Day School for four years, was matched with mentor Shana Harris, Bialik’s director of education.

“She’s the one who helped to instil [in me] an interest in being part of a Jewish day school,” said Lowenstein, whose school is a community school with more than 500 students from preschool to Grade 7.

Harris has expertise in teacher mentoring, the subject of Lowenstein’s year-long project. Lowenstein, who plans to institute a formal mentoring program at VTT instead of continuing with the informal mentoring that has been in place, recalls that Harris assigned her to a mentor during her own first year at Bialik.

Although Lowenstein had had 20 years of experience in the public school system, she found her first year at a Jewish school “very challenging.” Often, she said, new teachers are unfamiliar with the dual-language curriculum and “rigorous routine.” They may also welcome input on issues related to their first parent-teacher nights and report cards, she noted.

“We want to keep teachers in Jewish education,” Lowenstein said. “Sometimes they come in – fine teachers – but they don’t come forward to talk about the stress until it’s too late, and at the end of the year, they’re already going somewhere else. This way, we’ll be able to support them appropriately from the beginning.”

Joyce Kerr – a vice-principal of Winnipeg’s Gray Academy of Jewish Education and a 2006 recipient of the Jewish Education Service of North America’s (JESNA) Grinspoon-Steinhardt Awards for Excellence in Jewish Education – is planning a tfillah project that will start with the school’s Grade 1 students.

Kerr, who also teaches Grade 1 Judaic studies, said the project will focus on using a “value word” from each prayer the students learn as a basis for discussion and artwork.

Kerr, whose school has about 570 students from junior kindergarten to Grade 12, expects the project will give students a way to relate the prayer to themselves, and is hoping to expand it in coming years to higher grades.

“[Tfillah] is their talk time with God,” she said. “It’s very hard for Grade 1s, because it’s not concrete, so I’m hoping the value words are going to connect them personally.”

On a larger scale, she noted, the process of implementing change through an action research project is a tool that the principals are now familiar with and will be able to use again in the future.

“You don’t make the changes just like that,” she said.

Like Lowenstein, Kerr was struck by the diversity of the participants in the Lookstein program, ranging from leaders of yeshivot to schools that serve an entire community.

Retention of students and the cost of Jewish education were among the common issues that arose in discussion, she said.

Rabbi Yamin Benarroch, vice-principal of the high school division of Montreal’s Hebrew Academy, an Orthodox school that serves about 230 students from Grade 7 to Grade 11 (and a total of about 650 from pre-kindergarten to Grade 11), will focus his research project on methods and strategies to improve student achievement and increase interest in Torah study.

“I think it’s the challenge of every Jewish day school and yeshiva high school,” he said.

He plans to work on the methodologies together with his staff, he said. “I want it to be collaborative.”

Rabbi Benarroch said the Lookstein program was “on a very high level, with very motivated participants and demanding staff who pushed us very hard.”

Other Canadian participants were Leia Ger-Rogers of the Kehila Jewish Community School in Hamilton, Ont., and Ben Karmel of the Calgary Jewish Academy. As well, Ted Walker of Toronto’s Eitz Chaim Schools is serving as a mentor.