This special collection was designed in honour of Morah Judith Leitner. As one of our school’s co-founders she has been a visionary leader to us all these past 25 years. To celebrate and honour Judy, we’ve collected images and articles that portray what learning through the visual arts means at The Toronto Heschel School.
This theme of this issue is “The Ordinary and Extraordinary of Every Day.“ As we try to re-establish some routines and normalcy in our lives this fall, we take time to think about what every day brings.
Cultivate Justice
This issue of Think honours and highlights the work that teachers are doing to develop social responsibility in their students through the teaching of the students' heritage, culture, or religion.
Imagination lives here
This issue of Think considers imagination and sees children and teachers contemplating possibilities, envisioning their potential, and discovering themselves.
The Art of Focus
This issue of Think looks at the art and science of focus. Our writers consider how children can learn focus, and how Jewish tradition, classroom teaching, and family life contribute to children's sense of self and ability to learn and focus.
Learning as Belonging
In this issue of Think our writers reflect on learning and belonging, and aspire to an educational environment that cultivates confidence, insightfulness, and initiative.
Towards Your Best Self
In this issue of Think our writers consider what is personal and internal – the mind and not the brain, individual identity and not social definition, the management of perspectives and not information. They write about connections and patterns that are forming inside our children as they learn and mature.
This issue of Think contemplates several themes that run through "Weapons of the Spirit". The writer, producer, and director Paul Sauvage uses the story of "Le Chambon" to cogently demonstrate what good values, good training, and good work look like. Our writers address a teacher's focus on the individual child, on the importance to elicit from each student the habit of creative response, and how both this attentiveness and this encouragement connect to moral and ethical responsibility.
The best educational strategy will deliver academic skills and build character at the same time. In this issue, we explore these layers. We look at specific educational practices that advance child development
even as they expand the students’ academic reach. Our writers say that good education happens when children look inward to improve themselves and look outward to understand the world at large.
In school settings, the word "integration" perhaps calls to mind the desegregation of American schools during the civil rights movement or departments of interdisciplinary studies at universities. Today integration speaks to reframing ideas by widening their scope, enhancing topics through context and purpose. In this issue of think, our contributors fill the canvas with integrated studies.
Each of us hopes that the work we do and the life we live is of value: not only for the present but also for the future. We hope that the efforts we put forth to help our families, our communities, and our broader society will in some way endure, and will not simply dissolve in the shifting sands of time.
We live in an age of distracted living. Superficial descriptions and buzzwords send us sailing in crazy directions. Eat this. Don't eat that. Exercise for half an hour. Never sit down. In the school world, trendiness sees the phrase "critical thinking" bounce around like a new age technique, computers are touted as essential learning tools, and ecology is a fashion.
For some parents, enrolling their children in Jewish Day School education is a clear choice. Family tradition, strong adherence to Judaism as a religion, attachment to the land of Israel or the Hebrew language are all reasons that some families would only choose a Jewish Day School education for their children.
"It was child's play!" The phrase implies an activity accomplished with ease and enjoyment, a goal achieved without stress. Digging a deep hole at the beach is fun, even if it requires work and perseverance."
Recently in a store selling "educational" books, games and software for children, a child of five or six years attracted my attention. He was completely absorbed in a computer activity.
One day last June two very excited children proudly entered my office. They were carrying a plate of salad, but this was no ordinary offering of lunch for the Principal. This was the annual culmination of a math unit on measurement.
In his book, SMART SCHOOLS: Better Thinking and Learning for Every Child, David Perkins writes that smart schools are informed, energetic and thoughtful. In smart schools, thinking is the center of the learning process. The Lola Stein Institute builds smart schools. The Toronto Heschel School is an excellent example.
To manage or to micromanage, that is the question! As our children grow year to year we want to make sure they develop all the skills they need to be successful and content. Some parents prepare the road for their children. Some prepare their children for the road...
During the 1970's when I was immersed in teacher training, the "self-esteem" movement was in vogue. We read voraciously on the subject and learned that praising children was the thing to do. When little Johnny coloured enthusiastically, we hugged him and cheered....
As I sit here at my desk, reflecting on the past 12 years, I am struck by the beautiful community that is The Toronto Heschel School...
Perspectives
The Lola Stein Institute (LSI) is a centre of inventive educational thinking and addresses the challenge to re-frame schooling for the exigencies of our times.