Yikes!

CAJE from the Bottom Up

[cross-posted to TAPBB]

A lot has been said and written about the recent cancellation of what would-have-been CAJE's 34th annual conference. I have my own thoughts about what caused this to happen, though it seems clear that the conference's non-existence this summer is mostly about financial management and the current economy, and little to do with the conference itself.

That being said, the absence of CAJE 34 presents a unique opportunity to look at the conference from a distance and to think out loud about what made CAJE great, what will make it great in the future, and what we can do to develop a conference that reflects that vision.

Rabbi Beth Nichols, an educator who is assistant rabbi at Temple Israel of New Rochelle, NY, taught the best session at last summer's CAJE 33 conference in Burlington, Vermont.

Beth's session was entitled "Evolving Bulletin Boards: Constructing the Big Ideas on Our Walls." A few nights beforehand, she was up late putting together sample bulletin boards. She brought pictures, she brought handouts, and she shared her ideas about how to make bulletin boards that "help students construct knowledge throughout the year." Beth spent her session sharing her own ideas — best practices for using bulletin boards as curricular tools — and soliciting discussion from colleagues who also have given some thought to using the walls of their classrooms in interesting ways.

CAJE used to be a conference full of sessions like Beth's. It was about professionals and not-so-professionals in the field of Jewish education spending time to learn with each other and from each other. But things have changed, and CAJE has become a "top-down" sort of conference.

There are plenty of examples of the "top-down" model in conferences for professionals in Jewish education. Here's how it works: An esteemed expert (a university professor, a government official with experience in the mideast peace process, a well-published author, etc.) stands in front a lecture hall full of people and imparts wisdom about his or her particular subject of expertise before taking questions from the audience. These speakers are not necessarily invested members of the gathered community; rather, they are hired experts who are flown in to deliver a keynote address and maybe sit on a panel. In these sorts of conferences, participants are, for the most part, passive. They are the recipients of knowledge and expertise.

In the "bottom-up" model, things work a lot differently. The classroom teacher's expertise is valued right alongside the university professor's. Every voice has a chance to speak and present, and every attendee is there to listen and learn.

Let me be very clear. The world of Jewish education needs "top-down" opportunities for teachers and educators to learn from experts. We need experts — people who've done research, who've studied the field, who have a breadth and depth of experience that can be shared — because experts help us to do our jobs better.

And there's plenty of room for experts in the "bottom-up" model. For many teachers and educators, CAJE is an opportunity to learn with an impressive array of top-notch educators and academics. There's something thrilling about the interplay between demographers, professors, idealogues and on-the-front-lines classroom teachers. We have a lot to gain from that relationship. It's just that we need to return to a conference model that is conducive for real free exchange, dialogue, and learning. I'm advocating for a conference that revolves a lot more around workshops and a lot less around keynotes.

We already have lots of conferences based on the "top-down" model. Annually, NATE and the JEA hold conferences where they invite experts to lecture and teach to assembled educational leadership. So does RAVSAK, and so do a number of other nationally-publicized conferences and "institutes" held annually. Local bureaus of Jewish education host community-wide in-services where local teachers can hone their skills. In a recent JTA article, Jonathan Sarna suggested that CAJE should be allowed to whither away because other organizations are basically doing the same work, sometimes with more innovation. And he's right, because he understands that CAJE has become just another "top-down" conference where teachers and educators can come and listen to the experts.

Recently, I was sitting at a table at the RAVSAK conference with acclaimed artist Mordechai Rosenstein. Mordechai was lamenting the withering of CAJE. "All those folks used to be the subversive ones. They were out to buck the system. Now they are the system." He's right. The "bottom-up" generation that created CAJE went and became experts. And the conference has slowly transitioned to become "top-down."

CAJE used to be a grassroots organization that was all about being "bottom-up." It's time for a new generation of leadership to re-envision the conference and re-adopt that role. Here's my plan to make that happen:

1. CAJE, as a conference, should cease to exist. It should be replaced by a new conference. I'd call it NGAJE (pronounced "engage") — A New Generation for Alternatives in Jewish Education.

2. The new conference should feature "experts" in Jewish education, but those experts should be encouraged to teach lots of workshops and participatory sessions, not deliver keynote addresses. Conference leaders should be charged with protecting the balance between bringing in established experts and providing opportunities for everyone to teach and learn. The new conference should be a place for new Jewish educational leadership to emerge.

3. The new conference should start out small, be volunteer led, and be extremely cost efficient in every possible way.

4. The new conference should be without specialized "tracks" or "conferences within a conference." Again, the conference should be about engaging, discussing, and exchanging ideas. It should not be a place where participants come to hear experts talk, or where they can seclude themselves within a particular bubble.

5. The new conference should not need to be profitable enough to cover the expense of maintaining a full-time staff and year-round initiatives.

6. The new conference should be totally inclusive. Anyone who wants to assume a leadership role should be afforded the opportunity, and anyone who wants to be invested should be part of the dreaming and planning process.

That's what I know... for now. There's probably a lot here I'm naïve about. But I think that might be the point. I think we need to dream big to develop a new national conference for people who are deeply invested in Jewish education. I'm very interested in engaging in discussion, in hearing what others have to say, and in being part of a vanguard that shapes the next generation's version of CAJE.

An Open Letter to the Gay Community

Dear colleagues, classmates, friends, and teachers,

I'm writing you two days after the election and the passage of Proposition 8 to express my outrage, my disappointment, and my sorrow. I'm also writing to tell you that I'm ashamed. And I'm writing to apologize for what we, the citizens of the State of California, did to you.

I've been a Californian and an American since I was born 28 years ago, and for most of that time I've been proud to be both. Today, and for the past few days, when I think about being either of those things, I feel nothing but shame. We did something wrong, and we did it to you, and for that you deserve an apology. (You also deserve to have this injustice righted, but for now that's not in my power. All I can offer is an apology.)

I'm sorry that voters in this state — in my state — voted to take away rights that were just recently granted to you, and that no one should have had to grant to you because you are human beings and Americans and Californians, and you deserve the same freedoms as your heterosexual neighbors.

I'm sorry that voters in this state — in my state — voted to say to you that your love is less real, and that your lifelong commitment does not deserve to be called marriage, at least not on paper in this state.

I'm sorry that voters in this state — in my state — voted to say that this is not a place of freedom and equality but of bigotry and hatred and fear.

I can't begin to understand what it must feel like to have your fellow Californians vote to deny you a basic human right, to decide that something about who you are as a human being makes you less worthy to live life like the rest of us. I would be lying if I said that I understood that kind of hurt because no one — at least no one in my own state and in my own country — has ever done something like that to me.

But I do understand what it's like to be in love with someone, and to enter into a lifelong sacred commitment to them. Today, my own marriage is worth less than it was when I was married just over five months ago. It's not that anything about my relationship to my wife has changed; if anything. our commitment is stronger than it was in May. Rather, my marriage is cheapened because the voters of the State of California chose to cheapen it.

The bigots who supported Proposition 8 believe that the institution of heterosexual marriage is threatened when two men or two women enter into holy matrimony with each other. They could not be more wrong. They do not understand freedom, and they do not understand what it means to be American.

In a place where anyone is not free, none of us are free. In a place that denies rights, none of us truly have any.

Today I am embarrassed to be married because you cannot be. But beyond that embarrassment, I realize that the legal bond represented by my marriage is less strong. In a place where some of us cannot be married, none of us are truly married.

Over two hundred years ago, George Washington wrote,

The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for giving to Mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection, should demean themselves as good citizens.

I used to believe that Washington was describing the United States of America, a place whose government — elected by the people and for the people — "gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance." Since Tuesday, I've come too see his words as prescription rather than description, as a call to true Americans to stand up to bigotry and persecution.

I'm sorry that we failed to live up to President Washington's standard, and that we failed you. I didn't vote for Proposition 8, but I'm sorry I didn't do more to stop it from passing. I'm sorry I didn't shout louder and I'm sorry I didn't work harder. We have an obligation to protect each other's rights and each other's freedoms. On Tuesday, I failed to live up to that obligation. All of us did. We failed freedom, we failed our country, and we failed you.

I only hope that you can forgive me and forgive your state for this injustice. I'm sorry, and I won't let it happen again.

Sincerely,

Josh

Procession

I'm fascinated by funeral processions.

I don't mean the processional of people leaving a funeral chapel.

I mean the procession of cars on city streets or highways, following a hearse, accompanied by cops.

There's something that draws me to these slow-speed chases down the streets of LA. Dozens of cars and cops (usually on motorcycles) following a dead body riding in the back of a ridiculous looking car. Hearses aren't really limos, and they aren't station wagons or pick-up trucks. They're like El Caminos for dead people.

Nice Airport, Disgusting Passengers

I'm sitting here in the JetBlue terminal at the Long Beach airport, waiting for my flight to Chicago for Thanksgiving.

(I'm usually a pretty loyal American Airlines customer, but JetBlue was way cheaper this time, so here I am.)

It's a very nice airport. Parking was a breeze. Checking bags and getting through security was a breeze. We even got exit-row seats on the plane. And they have free wireless internet access on the plane. Note to other airlines: Offering your passengers free access -- instead of crappy $5/second through t-Mobile NotSpot or something like that -- is a great way to keep people pretty damn happy. It's not like providing free internet is that big of a cost in the greater scheme of airline economics. And there can't be that many people who actually pony up the $900 for eleven minutes of checking their email.

So the airport experience has been pretty good thus far, with one exception: the guy sitting next to me. Now, I would get up, except for that I'm sitting here with Sara and Mike and Erin, who are all perfectly happy to be sitting right here. Also, I have a very comfortable seat on a couch next to an outlet (in the back of the room at Gate 3, if you're familiar).

Sitting on my left (he can't read my screen because his bag is between us) is this very disgusting man. I was first introduced to him when I came back from the bathroom. I had left my bag on my seat (Mike is sitting on the other side of me and could watch my stuff), and when I came back, this other guy had sat down next to my seat, spreading his giant computer bag and his big leather jacket and his plug running right across my seat. This one guy -- who isn't obese or anything -- was taking up almost four seats of prime terminal real estate next to a big bank of electric outlets.

He just kind of looks at me as I look down at my bag. Finally, I say, "Would you mind moving your stuff so I can sit back down." He makes this look like I've just asked him shove a hot coal up his own ass.

I finally sit down, plug my own laptop in, and begin reading the news online and browsing through my email.

The entire time, this ass hole is sitting next to me burping loudly. Then he starts coughing all over the place, not covering his mouth. Then he starts farting. Far be it from me to criticize a person for having loud or profuse bodily noises. The problem is that this guy is sitting in a public terminal in an airport, in close proximity to many people. This has been a very disgusting last twenty minutes.

crackberry

Many many people have asked if I have an iPhone or if I have plans to get one. The truth is that I'd love to have an iPhone, but at the moment I'm very happy with my new Blackberry Curve that my work gave me.

First, I have no complaints about the keyboard, which has tactile feedback. Second, it works on T-Mobile's 3G network. Third, when I'm connected to a WiFi network, the phone uses VOIP to place calls.

And the Blackberry works fine for posting to my blog. And yeah... it was a lot cheaper than an iPhone.

Take that, iPhone.

A Tip

Don't leave your GPS unit in the car. Someone could shatter your driver's side window, reach in, and take it out.

Then the window won't be covered by insurance because it will be less than your deductible. So you'll be out $208 for a window, and you will no longer have a GPS.

Trust me on this.

"I'm not SUPERstitious, but I am stitious."

I watched The Office and Earl last night. I haven't had a chance to see my other Thursday night favorites (ER and CSI) yet, but they're waiting on the DVR. My takes:

1. My Name is Earl was good, though not necessarily excellent. Sara says that she misses the original pace of the show, when Earl would cross one thing off of his list in each episode. I think I agree with her.

Nevertheless, the episode showed hints of brilliance.

The show's willingness to mess with the opening sequence (in a previous season, they did an episode where the opened each segment with a different character doing the opening monologue bit and announcing, "My name is Joy," or "My name is Darnell," or whatever, and last night, the show opened with, "My Name is Inmate 28301-016") is refreshing and funny. It's evidence of the irreverence that makes the show good.

Earl joining the white-supremacist and old-guy gangs was excellent. So was Randy showing up and asking questions off of flash cards. Randy as lovable moron is hilarious, mostly because Ethan Suplee is brilliant. I think the writers have to be careful not to take this too far... It's hard to believe that the guy doesn't know how to cross the street but he does know how to drive a car. I don't need this show to be über-realistic, but I do need to be able to maintain my suspension of disbelief.

The poster on the wall was a funny way to write Giovanni Ribisi off the series (for now, anyways... I guess he had other projects to work on), but I would have enjoyed it if they took the Shawshank Redemption joke a little further. Ribisi standing in a drainage ditch yelling at lightning would have been great, or at least Earl throwing a rock through the poster.

Joy calling Randy "big-headed hillbilly Linus" was great. So was her stained-glass Earl (Darnell: "It looks just like Earl would look if he were made of glass."). Jaime Pressly is great on the show, and she deserved her Emmy. I think it should be noted, however, that when she's given too much screen time on her own, Joy gets grating and annoying. Her comedic pairing with Darnell gets better and better as the show progresses. At this point, their contrast makes for perfection.

2. Things The Office got right:

• Including almost every character in the episode. We missed the gang at Dunder-Miff all summer, and getting to see everyone again was like coming home after a vacation. Creed got lines, Oscar got lines, Angela got her own plot line, Darryl and Pam are co-religionists, and the whole-ep revolved around Meredith. Each time we saw a character for the first time, my face lit up.
• Pam and Jim. They didn't make Pam-Jim the center of the episode, and they didn't play the kiss as this giant dramatic moment with exciting music and all that crap. Using Kevin to vocalize what's going through the audience's minds was brilliant. Making their characters respond to their kiss in instant replay was brilliant. Not messing with their flirtatious friendship while at work was brilliant. The subtlety of the whole thing was brilliant. Their relationship played as being sweet and innocent and beautiful without being nauseating. Brilliant.
• The perfect dose of Andy. Enough to get across that he's still the same old Andy, but not so much that you wanted to strangle him. The whole nipple gag was laugh-out-loud funny.
• Dwight and the cat. You know putting Angela's live cat in the freezer is exactly what Dwight Schroot would really do. Perfect.
• The entire race sequence. From the big check and the stripper nurse (and the T-shirts, which I expect to see on NBC.com any second now) and the pasta to Michael barfing, the whole 5k part of the episode had me cracking up. Andy drafting behind Kevin, the guys driving to get a drink then meeting up at the end, and Toby taking it all too seriously was all comedic genius. Toby's character is exceptionally written. On one hand, he's Michael's arch-enemy, the only voice of adult sanity at D-M. On the other hand, he has that small bit of Michael in him that pops out once in awhile, like when he was genuinely upset that he didn't get a robe, or when he took the race seriously.

That's all for now. Stay tuned for my thoughts on ER and CSI once I've had a chance to see 'em.

D'var Torah: Chayei Sara

Things might have been easier for Eliezer, Abraham’s servant, if he’d had the assistance of GPS.

He had a long journey to go on. He was a man with a mission.

GPS – which stands for “global positioning satellite” – is a technology that allows a device, which can be held in someone’s hand or mounted in a car navigation system, to communicate with specially designed satellites. Using trigonometric calculations, the device figures out your location anywhere on the globe, and can help you map a course to your destination.

I learned a lot about GPS this weekend, when Dan Medwin and I participated in a global treasure hunt called “geocacheing.” People who participate in the game leave “caches,” little treasure troves, in out-of-the-way spots around the globe, then post the GPS coordinates on a website. Using a handheld GPS, geocache hunters trek through wilderness, looking for little plastic boxes hidden under rocks.

Eliezer is on a mission, too. He’s taken an oath to his elderly boss to find Isaac a wife among Abraham’s own people. According to Midrash Rabbah, Eliezer isn’t on the treasure hunt we think he’s on. When he journeys to Aram-Naharaim and brings his camels to a well, he’s trying not to find a wife for Isaac. Abraham has given Eliezer an out. If he cannot convince a women to come back with him, “you shall then be clear of this oath to me,” Abraham says in Genesis 24:8.

Eliezer, seeing opportunity, is hoping that his journey will end a certain way. He hopes not to find a wife for Isaac, according to the midrash, because he wants Isaac to marry his own daughter. Eliezer is a man on a strange mission. He must fulfill his master’s wishes, but he’s hoping to fail.

When Eliezer arrives at the well, he prays to God, asking for a woman to present herself. But as he speaks, the word vayomer in verse twelve is marked with a rare shalshelet. According to Rabbi Lee Buckman, the shalshelet indicates how “apprehensive, how worried, how desperate” Eliezer is. He’s a man on a mission, and it’s a little scary.

On our treasure hunt, Dan and I embarked on a mission to find a geocache at the top of Cuyamaca Peak in eastern San Diego County. We trekked straight up the hill, gasping for breath as we approached 6500 feet above sea level. Using the GPS, we found the location of the cache, a tree on the hilltop, located a few feet from where a fire lookout station used to stand.

But the geocache wasn’t there. We dug around. We uplifted rocks. We reached under branches and leaves. The plastic container we were seeking was missing.

A similar thing happens to Eliezer. A moment after uttering his half-hearted prayer to God, Rebecca appears and gives him and his camels water to drink. The Torah recounts an interesting moment in Eliezer’s consciousness: וְהָאִישׁ מִשְׁתָּאֵה לָהּ מַחֲרִישׁ. “The man stared at her, silently.”

After our mission seemed to be a bust, Dan and I wandered around the mountaintop, hopelessly trying to not be failures. It was then that we found our treasure. It wasn’t the plastic box we were looking for, but a blind man named Crazy Dave. Dave, who has no eyesight at all, has hiked to the top of Cuyamaca Peak dozens of times. He told us that the mountains heal him, and he recounted stories about his life.

וְהָאַנָשִׁים מִשְׁתָּאוּ לוֹ מַחֲרִישׁים .We stared at him, silently

It was at that moment that Eliezer’s true treasure became apparent to him. His mission was not about marrying his daughter to Isaac, but about connecting Isaac with his b’shert, this woman of kind heart who just-so-happened to be from Abraham’s clan.

According to the Midrash, one lesson of Eliezer’s journey is that there are moments when you need to take a deep breath and realize that you might have to redefine your vision of success. For Eliezer, this meant fulfilling his oath to his master. For Dan and I, it meant meeting a clear-sighted blind man.

Crazy Lunchtime

Two crazy things happened at lunch today.

I was walking through University Village, which is a giant strip-mall with a food court adjacent to the USC campus. They have a bathroom there. I needed to use the bathroom. So I entered.

I'm standing at the urinal, doing my business, and a woman walks out of a stall. Now, I'm sure I was in the right bathroom (it says "Men" on the door and it has urinals). I do a double take.

The woman is holding a bucket, cleaning supplies, and a mop. She is there in order to clean the bathroom

I say, "Excuse me."

She says, "No problem. Do what you gotta do."

She then continues to clean, as if it would not be bothersome to someone that a woman is hanging out in the men's bathroom while he's trying to, you know, do what he went there to do.

Thankfully, I have no problem using the facilities while there's someone in the room. So I went ahead and did what I had to do.

Then...

I went to Subway to get a sandwich for lunch.

I had never been to the Subway at University Village before. This is a giant Subway. It has two counters, arranged perpendicular to each other. One is a normal Subway counter, where you go up and make your sandwich and then watch them make it.

The other counter is magical. It looks like a normal counter, except it has these touch-screen kiosks in front of it, kind of like the self-serve kiosks at the airport.

You order your sandwich from the kiosk. They make your sandwich. Then they call your number, you grab your sandwich, and you leave. The kiosks let you do all the customization -- for any vegetable or condiment you can tell it to put on less or more -- and it even lets you add things like avocado or bacon, or have your sandwich toasted. This is the coolest technology I've ever seen.

According to a press-release from Pro-Tech Kiosks, the company that makes these technological wonders,

The Kiosks provide an intuitive touchscreen interface with large buttons, enticing graphics/photos of the food options; from fresh subs to salads, as well as a full array of toppings and assorted condiments. A pleasant, and encouraging, voiceover assists the customer with the ordering process, each step of the way.

Customers are able to order quicker, minimize order errors from poor communication, choose from a number of upgrade options (value meal, double meat, extra cheese) and to be able to pay at the Kiosk with their credit or debit card. In addition, the software, text and voiceovers are able to switch to a different language, such as Spanish, with the touch of a single button such that Subway can better serve different demographic markets.

So I ordered my sandwich at the kiosk. The voice was pleasant. The interface was easy to use. Two minutes and thirty-seven seconds (I checked) later, my order was ready. Wow.

Excellent Signage

There's a no-smoking-sign on the Coke machine on the patio at school.

This means that smoking is not allowed inside the Coke machine.

Thank goodness. I hate smokey soda.