Teach-In
For Teachers

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Local Jewish educators convene for
fifth annual NIRIM conference.

JULIE WIENER

Staff Writer

A

t an hour when most
Detroiters were still in bed
summoning up the energy
to bring in the Sunday
paper, hundreds of people were at
*Temple Israel ready for action.
As Hebrew and Sunday school
teachers, they were accustomed to the
hour and day. But this time, instead of
standing in front of the classroom, they
were sitting in desks, raising their
hands, and learning.
The Agency for Jewish Education's
fifth annual NIRIM Jewish Educators

Conference on Nov. 9 attracted 370
teachers from the Detroit area and
points as far as Grand Rapids and
Kalamazoo.
Entitled "All the Colors of the
Rainbow: Diversity in the Jewish
Classroom," the conference began with
a keynote address by David Tulin, a
Jewish educator and president of
DiversiTeam Associates, a firm special-
izing in organizational training and
diversity team-building for businesses
and non-profit organizations.
Tulin encouraged teachers to be
aware of the diversity within an all-
Jewish classroom and to be careful of
letting their own prejudices affect their

teaching style.
Following the keynote, teachers
broke into two one-hour training
workshops, some on the theme of
diversity, and others simply demon-
strating new lesson plan ideas and
teaching strategies.
Among the 22 workshops offered
were: "The Many Faces of Judaism in
the Classroom" (a panel discussion
among Orthodox, Humanist, Reform
and Conservative rabbis), "The
Changing Face of the Jewish Family,"
"The Delicate Balance of Working
With Interfaith Students," "Bringing
the Bible Stories to Life:Integrating the
Arts," and "Je wish Education in an

Electronic Environment." In one work-
shop, teachers tried out an activity in
which children practice their Hebrew
vocabulary by role-playing as mer-
chants and buyers in an Israeli market.
Most workshops were led by local edu-
cators, with three instructors coming
from elsewhere in North America.
"My first session was very interest-
ing, all about family diversity issues in
Jewish homes," said Paula Miller, a
first-grade teacher from Ahavas Israel in
Grand Rapids.
Karyn Berger, a teacher at Beth
Israel Congregation in Ann Arbor, has
been attending NIRIM conferences for
two years and was positive, but with
reservations. "I like the issues that
they're investigating, but I think it
could have been more tightly framed.
`Diversity is a hot topic word, but we
don't often give it justice and it's
important not to gloss over it," she
said.
Her colleague from Beth Israel,
Carol Feldman, was less critical. "It's
just wonderful," said Feldman, adding
that she goes to the NIRIM conference
each year because "it always gives me
something new to try out in the class-
room.
According to Lainie Phillips, AJE's
coordinator of
school services,
workshop evalua-
tions were over-
whelmingly positive.
"I went through
every single evalua-
tion on Sunday
night, and out of
600 evaluations,
only two were nega-
tive."
Phillips added that
Jewish educators
the rabbis' panel dis-
listen to the
cussion was especial-
keynote address.
ly well-received, and
that videotapes of
the discussion will be distributed to
religious schools that request them. ❑

Corrections

Promise Keepers was founded in
1990, not 1909, as was erroneous-
ly noted in last week's edition.
Congregation B'nai David
defeated a proposal to merge with
Congregation B'nai Moshe prior
to moving into its current loca-
tion. The same story in last week's
edition also erroneously identified
Grant Silverfarb.

•

11/14
1997

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