Social Promotion

Please note the new poll asking your opinion on the promotion of students who have not achieved grade level mastery of the curriculum. Please give add your vote to the poll and use the "comments" option below to elaborate on your position.

Color War & Controversy

I have been told that the topics covered on my blog have been too value neutral and could use a little dose of controversy (more like my newsletter messages, I am told). So, I figured I'd use our recent very successful Color War to raise a rather controversial issue. As a former Camp Director, I remember wistfully thinking year in and year out "if only we could have Color War every day..." After all, during Color War kids daven like never before, they participate in every activity, they discipline themselves, they give a maximal effort, exemplify leadership, teamwork, and sportsmanship, and that's only the beginning. Here in school, while on a lesser scale, it was no different. Our students rose to the occasion in the most impressive fashion.

So, what's controversial about that? Well, have you ever considered what motivates kids to perform during Color War? What prize, what reward, what incentive do they receive to give it their best? None. Sure, they get points or lose points but the objective is simply to win is known as intrinsic motivation as opposed to extrinsic motivation. Some, such as the noted author Alfie Kohn have argued that intrinsic motivation is far more effective in producing meaningful and long lasting results than any means of extrinsic motivation could ever be. Perhaps, then, Color War should be a clarion call for us as parents and us as educators to think, and perhaps rethink, the means we use to motivate our children and our students to perform at their best.

The Dominion of Choice

There is no better way to capture the power and inspiration of Linda Hooper's message to our school community at the recent Scholarship Banquet and to our high school students the morning after, than to share the poem with which she closes each and every lecture she gives on the story of her students and the now famous Paper Clips Project in Whitwell, Tennessee:

I came into this world without being asked

And when the time for dying comes

I shall not be consulted

But between the boundaries of birth and death

Lies the Dominion of Choice

To be a doer or a dreamer

To be a lifter or a leaner

To speak out or remain silent

To extend a hand of friendship

Or to look the other way

To feel the suffering of others

Or to be callous and insensitive

These are the choices

It is in the choosing

That my measure as a person

Is Determined

-Gertrude Hildreth Housman

World's Fair

The sights, sounds, and tastes of countries from around the world came together in this year's World's Fair. It was a school wide multi-cultural multi-sensory learning experience provided by the talented young men and women in our 7th grade under the able leadership of this year's MHA / FYOS Teacher of the Year, Ms. Whitney Huey. Well done!

MHA Meets YouTube

Thanks to Matt, our Director of Technology, the video sensation created by three of our CYHSB students for the recent community fair sponsored by YU's Center for the Jewish Future is now available on YouTube. Entitled "The Top Twelve Reasons to Move to Memphis," the goal was to give prospective young families a little - rather genuine - taste of that which makes the Memphis Orthodox Community so special. You can access part one of the video by clicking here. Please help us continue building the buzz about our community by passing the link on to anyone and everyone you think might be interested.

Linda Hooper of “Paper Clips” Fame to Speak at MHA / FYOS Banquet

We are proud to announce that Linda Hooper will be our featured speaker at the upcoming Annual Banquet honoring Rabbi and Mrs. Benjamin Wolmark as well as the memory of Mrs. Rose Margolin. Mrs. Hooper is the Principal at the Public Middle School in Whitwell, Tennessee where she was the inspirational force behind the Paper Clips Project, whose story gained worldwide acclaim when it was captured in the Emmy Award Nominated documentary, Paper Clips in 2004. This will be the first time Mrs. Hooper will be speaking in Memphis and we're honored to have her.

The banquet takes place on Monday, May 26th, 2008 at the Baron Hirsch Synagogue with hors d’oevres at 5:30pm. Reservations are required and may be made by calling the school office at 682-2400 or by emailing plevine@mhafyos.org.

Join us for what promises to be an evening of education, inspiration, and enjoyment for all.

Exceeding Expectations

I am rather confident that none of those who assembled to watch the red-wigged, face painted clown play "It's the Rabbi's Birthday" on her yellow kazoo while decking me out in the latest of birthday hat fashions - an assembly which included our entire office staff, my wife, my assistant, our board president, and Rabbi Ronald Schwartzberg, Director of Jewish Career Guidance and Placement at Yeshiva University's Center for the Jewish Future - believed that I would actually post pictures of the Josh Kahane sponsored spectacle on my blog. Well, here at the Academy we're all about exceeding expectations and doing that which few imagined possible...

Reaccreditation and High Commendations

A year long intensive process of reflection, collaboration, and evaluation spearheaded by Mrs. Sandy Gersten culminated yesterday not only in a recommendation by our Quality Assurance Review Team that we be reaccredited by the Southern Association of Schools and Colleges (SACS), but with highest of praise from the four person team who spent the last forty-eight hours roaming our halls, visiting our classrooms, speaking with our students, faculty, parents, and board members, and sifting through stacks upon stacks of instructional, curricular, administrative, and governance documents in an effort to assess the quality of our educational program.

In their report to our stakeholders before departing yesterday afternoon, they lauded us with the following five commendations:

1. The school under its current administration is dedicated to the families and community and to meeting the needs of its students.
2. Teachers integrate higher-order thinking skills daily in their lessons.
3. The students are respectful and an atmosphere of respect prevails throughout the school.
4. Parents and stakeholders display a strong sense of support for the school.
5. The SOIN system provides a comprehensive online student management system and effective communication with parents and students.

Every QAR team is required by SACS to provide recommendations for improvement as well. Perhaps most encouraging about the team's report was the fact that the four recommendations they made were all items that we had already identified and which we have already begun to address. They were:

1. Maintain efforts to fully integrate the present vision into all facets of school life.
2. Identify and implement a full scope and sequence to vertically align the curricula in all subject areas.
3. Use needs assessments to create a structured professional development plan.
4. Reorganize the present governance entity into a smaller Board of Trustees and institute an active parent / teacher advisory board.

As important as it is to focus on our weaknesses and to constantly commit ourselves to improvement, it is equally important for us to celebrate our successes - and this is a success worth celebrating. On behalf of the extended school community I once again thank Mrs. Gersten for her tireless efforts in this and in so many other endeavors. I thank Mrs. Carol Straughn for her meticulous collection and organization of our materials; the committee heads for their leadership and high quality work; as well as all of the faculty members, board members, and community members who helped make this process the success that it was.

Let this be a springboard for us to many more successes and even greater heights in the months and years to come.

Yom Ha-Atzma'ut

From passports and rice cakes to banners and rain drops, it was quite a day and quite a celebration...

Blog Updates

Have a look at the two newest elements of my blog: the survey and the list of job contacts.

The survey I'll use to gather some informal data on issues relating to education, Jewish education, Memphis, and just about anything else that's on my mind.

The job contact list can be found under the MHA / FYOS Links section, and is something we put together to assist those families looking at our community to network with professionals in their respective fields. Please share the link with anyone and everyone to whom it may be of help.

A Time to Share

For a decade or more, our high school boys have been on the receiving end of programs in Holocaust education. In History class, in Jewish History class, each and every Yom Ha-Sho'ah, and undoubtedly at a variety of other times throughout the year, they hear stories and accounts of what it was like to be a Jew in Europe during World War II. And so it should be. There is much to learn and, as we all know, the downloading process from those who witnessed the events is a race against the clock.

But, we decided that for our boys high school this year we wanted to do something a little different. Instead of receiving, we wanted them to experience the act of giving. Instead of continuing to transmit the history and lessons of our people only within the context of our own community, we wanted them to feel the importance and the power of sharing the messages of Yom Ha-Sho'ah with the larger community within which we live. So, under the leadership of Mrs. Kutliroff, our boys spent their Yom Ha-Shoah in the classrooms of White Station Middle School, running Holocaust workshops with small groups of students, culminating with a presentation by descendants of survivors who shared their own family history with their new "students" and friends.

The reviews from both the givers and the receivers suggest that this may well have been a program which neither side will ever forget.

Jewish Week Features MHA Program

Gary Rosenblatt, the Editor in Chief of the New York Jewish Week, dedicated his Yom Ha-Shoah editorial to a description of an innovative new program in Holocaust education called Names, Not Numbers. It's a program in which a professional filmmaker and a professional journalist team up with professional educators to teach high school students how to take an oral history and how to transform it into a video documentary. Equipped with those skills, two students are then paired with a local Holocaust Survivor or WWII veteran and set out to make a documentary based on their life story. The program has been run, to date, in four schools across the country to wide acclaim and with great success.

We are proud to announce that due to a generous grant from the Bornblum Foundation, the program will be coming to our high schools next year. Stay tuned for more...

MHA Runs Away with Memphis in May

Anyone associated with the MHA over the past decade, knows that the Lower School's art program is unsurpassed. Very soon, the rest of Memphis will know it as well. It gives us great pride to announce that three of our students won top prizes in the annual Memphis in May art contest. One of them, selected out of hundreds of entries, received the grand prize and her design will be featured on all of the Memphis in May promotional materials displayed throughout the city over the next month and a half. Congratulations to them and a heartfelt todah rabbah to Mrs. Judy Levin for all that she has given our students and our school over her years of dedicated service.

Calling All Alumni!

In an effort to reconnect with our alumni all over the globe, I have created a Facebook group called MHA / FYOS Alumni. If you are an alum or attended either the Academy or the Yeshiva of the South for some period of time, click here to access the group and sign up. Please encourage every alum you know to do the same! We'll use the group to share memories of the past, connect alumni to our present, and get their input about our future.

A Comedy of Errors & A Mexican Explosion

Our high schools were at their best this past week. It began with the boys' production of Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors. While I love our boys dearly, the truth is that I wondered whether they'd be able to match the girls' production of Antigone just a few weeks ago. Yet, with only three weeks preparation, they rose to the occasion in the most magnificent way. Without a doubt, a lion's share of the credit goes to Dr. Kutliroff for adapting the play and bringing it to life in a way that had our audience rolling in laughter much as audiences did in England four hundred years ago. But it was our boys who pulled it all off in the end, from the set design to the lighting, and from the food concessions to the incredible acting. And, once again, perhaps the most remarkable element of what was a remarkable night, was the knowledge that in just about any other school and in just about any other town, many of the boys who were up there on stage would never have received the opportunity, the encouragement, nor the confidence to perform as they did. Yet, here in Memphis they have the opportunity to shine.






Not to be outdone by the boys across the field, the Girls High School had a production of their own on Wednesday. While it lacked the glitter of our major theatrical performances, it had two rather unique features of its own. First of all, the entire play was performed in Spanish. Second of all, the entire script was written by our girls. Here too, we must give credit to our wonderful Spanish teacher, Mrs. Barbara Mansberg, and to our estudiantes talentosas in her class. Of course, the performance had a distinctly Jewish spin to it as it was followed by a full meal for the girls high school and for the girls in our current 8th grade. The menu featured Spanish punch, Spanish rice, and an entrée lovingly called the Mexican Explosion.

Memphis #1 in Affordable Housing

Anyone living in our community knows that one of its many attractions is the value of its real estate market. Despite the burst of the mortgage bubble, the cost of a decent house in the major Orthodox communities of the New York / New Jersey area remains well out of reach for many young families. New York transplant communities in South Florida are not far behind. In LA and other big cities on the West Coast, things are even worse. Even in the growing Orthodox communities of the South and Midwest, housing prices don't compare to those of Memphis. We all know it - but now we have the data to prove it. According to Money Magazine and CNN.com, a study conducted by an organization called OnBoard asked real estate buyers in major metro areas across the country to determine how far their income gets them in their local real estate market. The city which they determined gets the most house for their money was none other than our own Memphis, TN. Have a look at the list and then pass it on to everyone you know who doesn't yet live in the most affordable housing market in America.

Career Day

When I grow up, I want to be a...