Student AIPAC Delegate Featured in NYT

Yesterday's Middle East section of the New York Times featured an article on the AIPAC policy conference held in Washington earlier this week, with a specific focus on the very large Tennessee constituency who attended.  While we are very proud of all of our high school students who joined the Memphis delegation, it was particularly gratifying to see the article finish off with the following description of 10th grader Isaac Graber's exchange with Erin Reif, an aide to Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander:

Isaac Graber, a 15-year-old sophomore at Margolin Hebrew Academy in Memphis, presented the case for foreign aid, first to Ms. Reif and then again to Mr. Alexander, who arrived late. Isaac held a yellow legal pad but hardly referred to it, as he ticked off facts: foreign aid is about 1 percent of the federal budget; much of Israel’s $3.1 billion is spent on contracts with United States companies; Israel spends 8 percent of its gross domestic product on defense. “They’re such a tiny country surrounded by all these crazy neighbors,” Isaac said. “Really, the bottom line is this is a little bit of money that really goes a far way.”

Then he asked Ms. Reif if she had any questions.

“Do you want my job?” she said.

Ms. Reif:  Isaac needs to finish school first.  But once he does, you'd better watch out...

3/4 Girls Team Completes a Perfect Season

The 3rd and 4th grade girls basketball team put the finishing touch on a perfect season on Thursday night with a 16-15 win in the championship game.  Led by Coach (and Board President) Josh Kahane, this exceptional group of young athletes found their winning touch in the first game of the season and never lost it.  For the fans watching the championship game, doubt began to set it when the opposing team built an early lead and the Macs leading scorer was forced to the bench with four fouls in the first half.

The girls never lost faith, though.  With incredible teamwork, tough defense, and some clutch shooting, they pulled back into the lead and held tight to the very end.  Congratulations to the whole team on a fantastic effort and a fantastic season!

C21: MHA Cited as Change Leader for Jewish Education

In a recent post on the blog of the BJE of Los Angeles, Dr.Eliezer Jones of Yeshiva University's Institute for University School Partnership singled out the MHA and our Curriculum21 project as one that is leading the way toward meaningful - and much needed - change in Jewish Education.  Dr. Jones begins his piece by noting that resistance to change, which is unfortunately often found in schools and in Jewish schools in particular, can have a devastating effect on our children and their future.  Though he cites an example of a Jewish Day School that was forced to close due to its failure of adapt, he goes on to argue that there is reason for hope.  He writes:

First, it should be made clear, that there are schools and organizations that are rising to the challenge of educating our children in the 21st century. Schools like Rocketship in Northern California and High Tech High in Southern California are wonderful models of 21st century learning. Among Jewish day schools, there are examples like Margolin Hebrew Academy in Memphis, TN, which is undergoing a 21st century change project and a number of LA-area day schools and yeshivot that have illustrated a strong commitment to educational technology integration through school-wide one-to-one laptop and iPad programs. These Jewish day schools, and a handful of others, are models for adopting change.


With such exposure comes great responsibility.  We are indeed doing exciting things here and we have, indeed, created a faculty culture that is largely open and embracing of change.  With eyes upon us from all part of the country, however, we must redouble our dedication to this project and our commitment to ensuring that we are equipping our students, in all subject and throughout all of our grades, with the tools for religious, professional, emotional, and academic success in their world of the future, rather than in our world of the past.

State Sum Dog Champs!

It's official. According to the Sum Dog website, the Margolin Hebrew Academy has won the statewide Sum Dog math contest!  In a landslide victory, our lower school students beat out over 60 other schools from across the state with a score of 2,049 points, representing the average number of correct answers given by our students over the week-long contest.  Granberry Elementary in Brentwood, TN came in second 1,391points and our neighbors here in East Memphis, the highly regarded St. Mary' Episcopal School, came in third with 1,291.

All of the students who participated deserve tremendous credit not only for the time and effort they put forth, but for the accuracy with which they answered the questions.  Special congratulations goes to 6th grader Yonah Frieden, who racked up an unbelievable 50,596 points (did he sleep this week?) and ranked #1 amongst all students in the contest.

Though far less important than the educational value of the endeavor, there were prizes involved as well!  For having been the daily winners on the first day of the competition, we won site licences for Yenka's 3D Shapes geometry software (a $330 value).  For winning the overall contest, we get site licences to Yenka's Mathematics software (a $750 value).

Not bad for doing a bunch of math problems and having a lot of fun while at it!

Adar is in the air!

With Adar in the air, the sense of excitement and festivity can be felt everywhere.  Once again we launched this special month with our high school students dancing their way down to our lower grades to pick them (some, quite literally) and bring them to the gym.  There they were met by our talented CYHSB band who played as the entire school, students and faculty, danced together and ushered in the happiest time in our calendar.

Here's a glimpse into what it was like:

Auction & Game Show 2012

The much anticipated pictures from our PTA's annual Auction and Game Show are finally  here .  The evening was a success in every way: great items, fantastic food, a particularly entertaining game of Friends and Family Feud, and - most importantly - a significant amount of much needed funds raised for the students of the Margolin Hebrew Academy.  On their behalf, we thank all of those whose hard work made the evening possible.

1st Edition of the Margolin Messenger

Congratulations to our Middle School on the publication of the first edition of their first-ever school newspaper, the Margolin Messenger!  Under the direction of English teacher, former journalist, and tech-wiz, Mrs. Ashley Brown, our 7th and 8th graders built on the recent success of our Boys and Girls High School newspapers by creating one of their very own.  Months of hard work were poured into the writing, design, and layout elements of the paper by the student editors, and it shows..

All one needs is a quick glance at what they produced to understand to the paper's unstated message:  Goldie Globe and Cooper Chronicle beware! The Margolin Messenger has arrived.

Math & Engineering Awards!

It's been quite a week for the math and science programs at the MHA!  Earlier this week we received news that the Engineering Club from our Boys High School, under the direction of Mr. Dana Vaughn, took first place in the small school division at the Junior Engineering Technical Society’s (TSA) Tests of Engineering Aptitude, Mathematics and Science (TEAMS) Competition held at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.  Here's a description of the competition from the UALR website,

This event is designed to teach team development skills through students’ participation as a group in an engineering problem competition. Competition problems cover mathematics, chemistry, physics, biology, visual interpretation, computer applications, and reading analysis and interpretation.

TEAMS presents the multidisciplinary aspects of engineering work by illustrating how the math and science concepts students are learning work together and are applied to solve real-world problems.

Our high school boys are the only ones excelling in math, though.  Just yesterday, our school was the daily winner in the statewide Sumdog Math Contest with a whopping 784 points (compared to 328 for the 2nd place school).  Points are given for the average number of correct math problems completed by students in the school.  Five of yesterday's top ten scoring individual students were also Academy students, with 6th grader Yonah Frieden leading the way.  While we're only ranked fifth for today's contest (the contest runs the entire week with a daily winner announced each day), we are still sitting comfortably on top of the leader-board for the week.  Let's go MHA!

Tournament Updates

We have students spread across the country this weekend competing in various basketball tournaments and participating in the accompanying shabbatonim.   Our Junior High Boys are in Chicago at a tournament hosted by Hillel Torah Academy.  I am told they played hard this morning, but lost to the New Jersey Juggernaut, and my elementary school alma mater, the Moriah School of Englewood.

Our high school girls, who are in Miami for the weekend, suffered two disappointing losses yesterday, but bounced back with two wins today.  Way to go girls!  Both our junior high team and our girls high school team will play again on motzei shabbat.  Stay tuned!

C21: The Sumdog Bug

For some reason, I have resisted the urge to post the weekly column I write for our school newsletter on my blog as well.  As this week's column relates directly to our Curriculum21 Initiative and involves a resource that may be of interest to other schools, I'm going to take the plunge and post it.  Here it goes:

A contagious bug has infected our lower school.  Mrs. Gersten started it when she shared a post she saw on an educational listserve with her faculty.  Mrs. Massey then spread it to her 6^th graders.  From there it exploded and before we knew it kids in all grades, 1^st through 6^th, were smitten with it.  The bug is called sumdog.  It’s math, from counting to Algebra.  And it’s a web-based video game.

Each day this week, our elementary students went home and did hundreds of math practice problems not because they had to, but because they wanted to.  We know, because we get reports detailing how many they have done, in what areas, and what percentage they got right.  In truth, though, all you have to do is listen in on a conversation at lunch or at recess these days, and you are bound to hear the word “sumdog” being mentioned.

Of all of the various techniques and approaches that are being promoted today as part of 21^st century learning, “educational gaming” as it is known, is the one I have been most hesitant to embrace.  Others have been championing it for quite some time.  There’s a charter school in Manhattan called Quest2Learn that is based solely on gaming.  Well respected professors from well respected universities have recommended it strongly.  But it just didn’t feel right.  Until now.

When educational video games were first introduced, some twenty five years ago, the pitch for using them was rather simple: video games are fun, kids like to have fun, let’s get kids to have educational fun.  The argument for gaming in education today, however, is far more sophisticated.   With the explosion of online gaming in recent years, researchers have begun studying why it is that people  - of all ages and genders – are so drawn particularly to multi-player, web-based games.  Amongst the various things they have learned is that those who seriously engage in gaming are also seriously engaged in learning.  No, they are not putting down the controller for Shakespeare or a Bava Kama, but they are driven to complete the board, or stage, or level that they are on and the only way to do so is to try new things, make mistakes but don’t repeat them, figure out problems, and build certain sets of skills.  That is education in its most basic form.

What’s more, if aliens visited from another planet intent on researching this global phenomenon called gaming to which half a billion people devote at least an hour a day and to which the average American youth will have devoted 10,000 hours prior to his or her 21^st birthday, they’d undoubtedly hypothesize that there was some material reward – money, food, a cruise in the Bahamas– which was motivating this craze.  Yet, we know they’d be wrong.  The overwhelming majority of gamers play for nothing more than the thrill of gaming.  Researchers break that thrill down into three component parts:  our innate desire to compete, our innate desire to be social, and our intense longing for immediate, positive feedback.  Online gaming does all three.  It allows a person to compete and to keep competing (usually at no or very minimal cost) until he or she succeeds.  It allows people to share their success with others, and offers the opportunity to build self-confidence and a bit of pride in doing better than others.  And, the minute a gamer does well, bells start ringing, lights start flashing, confetti starts falling, and a silly little man runs across the screen, does an acrobatic flip and yells “GREAT JOB!!!”

Proponents of educational gaming contend that for this reason, multi-player, online gaming ranks amongst the most powerful educational tools the world has ever stumbled upon.  If we, the educators, can borrow the platform and take control of the content the potential for learning at all levels and for all students, they argue, is unlimited.

The theory is powerful.  Clearly, there are dangers there too.  For our purposes, though, we are going to watch this sumdog experiment and see how it goes.  What we know right now is that our students are amongst the 1,342,484 worldwide who are playing its games and building their math skills in the process.  They are also amongst a far smaller group who are enrolled in a statewide sumdog math competition this coming week.  Their excitement is palpable, the learning is real, and those are exactly the results we all want to see.

The Crucible

Our high school girls were downright frightening in their performance of Arthur Miller's The Crucible last night.  Replete with tears and fights, shrieks and charades, they brought the powerful tale of scapegoating and the misuse of religion to life on our school stage.

As always, the production's success resulted from just the right mix of very hard work by our girls, masterful directing by Dr. Jerry Kutliroff, and a healthy dose of breathtakingly good acting talent that seems to emerge from our little high schools year in and year out.

Following this year's performance, the girls paid their own tribute to one girl who personifies that talent: 12th grader, Leah Fleischhaker.  Those who have attended our High School Open Houses each of the past two years, may know Leah as the girl who spoke courageously (and completely voluntarily) about the challenges she has learning in a traditional classroom setting and the way in which our school has helped her to overcome those challenges.  Those who, in any of the past four years, have attended our Girls High School plays, however, simply know Leah as a truly remarkable actress.

We can't wait to see what lies in store for her as she takes her talents beyond the small stage of the Margolin Hebrew Academy to bigger and better venues.  We have no doubt, though, that she will continue to shine.

See below for a slide show from the performance as well as two video clips of our girls in action.  All of the pictures from the performance are available here.

Online Auction

If you haven't yet bid on our online auction, now's the time! There are lots of great items to be had and it's all for a great cause (the MHA!).

Be sure to join us on Sunday, February 19th at 5:45 PM at Baron Hirsch for an evening of community fun as we wind down our auction and we crank up a competitive - and undoubtedly entertaining - game of Friends and Family Feud.

For questions or to find out more email our PTA auction committee at mhaauction@gmail.com.  Looking forward to seeing you there!

1st Grade Siddur Presenation

The first graders, under the direction of Morah Chavi Katz and Morah Chavi Greenblatt, made us all proud with their performance at our siddur presentation this past Sunday.  Putting their newly acquired Hebrew skills and their love for singing and davening on display for all, it was a special event for everyone.  Our hope is that both their skills and their enthusiasm only continue to grow.

Below is a compilation of some of the best pictures from the event.  For the full album, click here.

Early Childhood Receives NAEYC Accreditation

It is with great pride and sincere gratitude to our Early Childhood Director, Mrs. Charna Schubert, and our outstanding group of Early Childhood teachers, that I inform you that our Early Childhood department has recieved accreditation from the National Association for Education of Young Children.

For those unfamiliar, NAEYC is the gold standard of accreditation for Early Childhood programs.  Recieving it was a three year process of training, upgrading, surveying, improving, and copious documenting of every aspect of our program.  NAEYC has ten different program standards with at least 30 criteria in each standard.  For a program to be accredited it must meet at least 80% of the assessed criteria.  In the report we recieved yesterday, we learned that in nine of the ten standards our program met 100% of the assessed criteria and in five of the ten standards we recieved a 100+ indicating that we have even met non-required "emerging criteria" as well.

This is a historic landmark in the growth of our school and a welcome indicator that our efforts to raise our school's standards and help our children soar are bearing tangible fruit.

So mazel tov again to our entire Early Childhood department and I look forward to many more such milestones in the years to come.

Guest Blogger: Elan Cooper, 7th grade

My parents have stressed to me that our family feels that when we celebrate a Simcha like my Bar Mitzvah this weekend, it is a proud and special moment to do good deeds at the same time.

While in Israel recently to celebrate my Hanachat Tefillin at the Kotel, I had a few occasions to witness the fine work of the Darkaynu programs, which cater to the special needs of a diverse group of students — students with severe learning disabilities, mild retardation, and Down Syndrome. Darkaynu was created to provide these young men and women with the same year-in-Israel experience that their peers, siblings, and neighbors enjoy. The boys learn alongside their mainstream peers in Yeshivat Har Etzion and the girls are in Midreshet Lindenbaum in Yerushalayim.

Their programming affords these young men and women with the opportunity of a lifetime: they get the chance to learn real relevant Torah, to tour Eretz Yisrael, spend Shabbos with friends. Above all, perhaps, these students have the opportunity to spend a full year away from home — learning how to think and learn and live on their own. They learn about themselves; their strengths and weaknesses, and what they have to offer Klal Yisroel as individuals and as part of their greater Jewish community. 

Over the course of our school year, the students meet various groups and spend Shabbat with a number of Yeshivot and communities throughout Israel. While in Israel in November, I myself had a chance to see and meet several students from Darkaynu, and with my Dad and brother Jeremy at my side, I came up with an idea for my then upcoming Bar Mitzvah weekend. I decided to use my Bar Mitzvah gifts to fund a Shabbaton of the Darkaynu students this very Shabbos. This weekend is quite unique. While we are celebrating my Bar Mitzvah here, my Bar Mitzvah gift dollars will give Darkaynu students the opportunity to meet and befriend a group with diverse background and interests, from varying levels of religious observance, and then, to look beyond all of the external differences to experience Shabbat as friends. The students this Shabbat are at Bar Ilan university simply enjoying meeting kids and expanding their horizons during their sacred year in Eretz Yisroel, and embracing the acceptance of them as peers and friends who are excited to be in that special environment. 

You and I may take this acceptance for granted, but the young men and women in the Darkaynu Programs appreciate the new friends and shared experiences from this special weekend. It is my prayer that just like I will remember this Bar Mitzvah weekend here for years to come, they will be talking about their memories from their Shabbaton this weekend and from their unusual experience at Darkaynu.

Elan

Senior Wins Comcast Award

Last week, 12th Grader Alexa Wender was awarded Comcast's Leaders and Achiever's scholarship.  According to their website, Comcast looks for the "best and brightest seniors" in communities across the country who are also "catalysts for positive change in their communities" and "serve as models for their fellow students." Those of us who know Alexa, know that she fits the bill perfectly.

Along with Jeremy Cooper's early acceptance to MIT and Columbia and Sade Cooper's early acceptance to Barnard, Alexa's award is another feather in the cap of our outstanding 12th grade and we expect even more exciting news from them over the coming weeks and months.

CYHSB Steak Dinner

The high school boys put on another remarkable show last week, with their annual Steak Dinner.  A fundraiser for their activities budget, the Steak Dinner is a four-course sit-down meal (steak, of course) for three hundred people, replete with entertainment, a dvar Torah, and a tribute video, all of which - from grilling the steaks to choosing the nominee and from playing the music to washing the pots - is done by our high school students.  Certainly, Rabbi Gersten, our Mashgiach Ruchani, plays no small part in getting them organized and ready to roll.  As he pointed out at this year's event, the Steak Dinner is a wonderful example of 21st century learning in the sense that it requires significant collaborative efforts, it offers opportunities for creativity and differentiation, and it requires our students to solve real world problems in a high pressure, performance based, framework.  There is no doubt that in addition to the memories they accumulate from the Steak Dinner each year, the skills our students acquire in the process will also last them a lifetime.

Congratulations to Dr. Whitney Kennon for being the recipient of the boys' tribute this year!

Here are some of the sites and sounds for your enjoyment:

A Photo Story from our Four Year-Olds

 This is now the second year that our Early Childhood teachers have been using Photo Story in their classrooms.  This simple slide show software is a powerful way of honing the descriptive and articulation skills of our youngest children while introducing them to technology as a means of communication.  As you can see from this example by the four-year olds in our PreK-4, it's also a great way of bringing the stories of our Judaic Studies curriculum to life.  

Great job, Morah Raananah and Morah Debbie! 

High School Open House

Though it was a few weeks ago, I wanted to share with you the Prezi which we put together for our high school open house.  During the event itself, the Prezi was shown in a darkened room and following each of the videos, a spotlight turned to one of our high school students, perched upon a platform in the corners of the room, who spoke for a few moments about the topic represented in the video.

Enjoy!

High School Open House 2011 on Prezi

A Month In Review

It's been almost a month since I last blogged and there is so much to catch up on I don't even know where to start.  Our students have been busier than ever and hardly a day has gone by without an exciting program or an inspiring moment, in at least one of our divisions.  Here a few of the highlights:

Last month we were visited by a representative from the Dixon Art Museum, who read The Dinosaurs of Waterhouse Hawkins by Barbara Kelly and then led our students in an exercise to try and mimic the Victorian artist's style. Shortly thereafter, our 6th grade launched its incredibly exciting ePals program. Harnessing the internet and the power of webcams, our students are having meaningful conversations and getting invaluable cross-cultural exposure with students in Italy, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Uganda. It isn't every day that our middle class Jewish children in Memphis, Tennessee get to interact with gifted AIDS orphans in a small village in Africa.

For Thanksgiving our students all learned the lessons of gratitude and appreciation by reaching out to the less fortunate. From the elementary students who put together toiletry bags for the homeless to the high school girls who delivered them while giving up their own vacation time to volunteer at downtown shelter, there was a spirit of community outreach and social action throughout the school.

Our Middle School got into the giving spirit as well.  Keeping with what has become a wonderful tradition, our Middle School boys "took on" the students of the Shrine School in a "fierce" game of basketball.  For half of the game our students saw a game they knew well from a completely different perspective: seated in a wheelchair.  With students of all ages cheering them on, the Shrine students had the time of their lives notching another "victory" in their illustrious school record.

Reaching beyond the walls of our school and seeing the perspectives of others also played a significant role in the other classes this past month.  Both of our high schools visited the Memphis Public Library to see the Choosing to Participate exhibit created by Facing History and Ourselves.  Facing History, which has one of their national offices here in Memphis, is an organization dedicated to teaching students about the harms of racism, antisemitism, and prejudice around the world.  Several of our teachers have attended their training seminars and we have been most fortunate to benefit from their outstanding materials and programs.

 Our fourth grade also expanded its educational reach with a markedly 21st century twist.  As a new wrinkle in their traditional state fair program, the 4th grade set out to collect postcards from all 50 states.  In spreading the word, it was suggested that this may presented an opportune time to teach the 4th graders about the positive and educational power of social media.  I was invited to the classroom, along with our Tweeter in Residence, Rabbi Akevy Greenblatt, to show the students what Twitter was and how it gave us the power to instantly reach thousands of people with common interests across the globe.  Of course, we took the opportunity to talk to the 4th graders about the potential hazards of social media as well and insisted that they only use these types of forums with the help of an adult.

Believe it or not, that only begins to scratch the surface of all that has happened here over the past month, but at least it provides a small taste of the rich learning experiences in which our children are engaging.  I hope to return to far more regular blog posts after we return from our winter break.