UbD + Student Teaching = The Plan

All the rage in education is an approach to curriculum writing called Understanding by Design. I've been working with this model as an educator for the last few years and it is the main focus of the second year pedagogy class at PEP.

So I decided to use this model in planning for my visit to the US, by setting out my goals for the visit and then arranging my calendar accordingly. I met with my coach for a half hour (we've been talking about this for a while, though) to flush out my ideas, and I walked away with a good list of questions and ideas that I want to test in the US.

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Leaving Las Vegas

The title for this post is an analogy that says it all... Much like Vegas, JDSs present their illusion as a reality, enticing people to risk their hard earned money on the promise that their bet will pay dividends. In reality, the house always wins and what happens at a JDS stays at the JDS. It is for this final reason that I’ve decided to share this post. Too often, when I share with people that I am leaving the JDS world they talk about how important my work is to the Jewish people and attempt to dissuade me from my decision. Unfortunately, many of these people have no idea what it means to be a day school educator. In this post, I will focus only on the financial aspect of being a JDS teacher… Last year I made $60K teaching six classes at a local JDS. Two of my children attended the school so, while I received the maximum financial aid allowed by the school’s bylaws (40%), about $25k went straight back to the school. In opting for the “subsidized” benefits offere...

Try, try again

It's been a while since my last blog (the Israel trip) and, of course, a lot has happened since then. But it would take me too long to go back and recap the past month, so I'll just take it from the top. Israel expenses keep adding up: I was sick to my stomach for a lot of the time that I was in Israel. When I got back I went to see a GI and he ordered an endoscopy. Needless to say, these things aren't free. And since I got sick on the way to Israel, I decided to add it to the expense of the Israel trip (it's all the same back account, but mentally, it helps). Then came the credit card bills. Well, that was a bit of a shock. When it's on the card, you really don't feel it. Our most expensive days were those "second days" that we opted out of. Maybe G-d is punishing me for keeping only one day of Chag (or maybe I was just too irresponsible with my money). I just remind myself that spending money in Israel is a Mitzvah. Finally, despite trying to figure ...

Rabbi Marcus

My sister called this morning and left a message telling me that Rabbi Marcus passed away. I hadn't seen the man in quite some time (It's been a while since I've been to Toronto, even longer since I've been to Bnai Torah and almost forever since I last spoke with the rabbi - probably at my aufruf a few years back). I did know that he was sick, but I never really process these things well (out of sight, out of mind?). And as inevitable as the news was for some, it really caught me off guard. The first time I met the rabbi I was a five year-old kindergarten student at Eitz Chaim. Over the course of the year we had been learning our Aleph Bet , earning stars for every letter that we covered along the way. I, of course, had procrastinated for most of the year so that, by the end of the year, I had only gotten as far as the fifth or sixth letter (not for lack of knowledge, mind you). With time running out, I tried to corner my teachers to have them listen to me run through a...

Life of Spud

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