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in
the

back to school

What’s New
At Day School

A roundup of what’s happening
at our local day schools.

STACY GITTLEMAN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

A

fter several years of undergoing expansions
and renovations, several Jewish day schools
around town are settling in comfortably into
their new academic environs as they continue to
innovate on teaching everything from Talmud to tech-
nology for the 21st century.

FARBER HEBREW DAY SCHOOL

Now one full year in its brand-new building, the
Farber Hebrew Academy features wings for each of its
grade levels — from preschool to high school — all
have their own designated space. There is, as always,
an emphasis of creating a schoolwide community
atmosphere where older students can have the oppor-
tunity to mentor the younger ones and where every-
one is responsible for cleaning up their classrooms
and keeping hallways tidy.

TOP: Farber fifth
graders with teacher
Arielle Howes.
RIGHT: Hillel teacher
Elizabeth Canvasser
with entering third-
grader Naamah
Rosenzweig.

Farber’s Head of School Rabbi Scot Bergman said
this year teachers will instruct older students with
a method called “visible thinking.” Developed by the
Harvard Graduate School of Education, this teaching
pedagogy aims to integrate the development of stu-
dents’ thinking with content learning across subject
matters. Trained on this concept, Farber educators
will challenge their students to document and illus-
trate the way they think, which requires them to visu-
alize and illustrate the material they are presented in
subjects ranging from English to math to Talmud and
Bible studies.
At the high school level, there is also an emphasis
on gaining an understanding of the history of Detroit
and how the Jewish community has meshed with the
wider one through the decades.
“We are educating our students to be engaged

continued on page 20

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August 24 • 2017

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