You haven't made it big until you have been dissed in the press

I'm feeling kind of big and important today.
Julie Weiner wrote in ejewish philanthropy
about the trends in naming Jewish organizations:

"Acronyms, including those in which English initials spell out something in Hebrew. Think CLAL (Center for Jewish Learning and Leadership) which means “community,” and LOMED (Learner Outcomes and Measurement for Effective Educational Design), which means “learn.” Message (for the non-Hebrew ones): We are complicated and do a lot of things. Message (for the Hebrew ones): Isn’t this cool that we sort-of spelled something in Hebrew? Status: Out." - http://ejewishphilanthropy.com/the-name-game-jewish-institutional-style/

So the good news is our work is big enough to sit next to CLAL. She may not like their name but they do cool stuff. I'm feeling pretty good about  the status that "Hebrew Schools" are now sitting in big league comparisons to congregations, and communal work that reaches across borders! An organization with alphabet soup said to me "Hey we weren't even on the radar enough to make the 'out list'."

On the other hand "ouch" Julie, our name is "OUT" of trend?

I agree the acronym thing was a clumsy try the first year we launched and by the way to be truly au current, it hasn't been used in four years. But ok, clumsy start awesome finish-over 3000 children experiencing powerful and meaningful learning because of LOMED.

 Names are important. My name is Cyd. Guess what it is like growing up with my name? "Are you a guy?" "What's that short for?" "What's your real name?"

 I was named for my Uncle Sidney. He was a nineteen year old, skinny blonde boy, not yet a man, who excitedly put on navy wool pants with anchor buttons running up the side and across the front for the sake of his country. When I was a kid I wore those Navy pants. Uncle Sidney, a medic in the pacific, landed on an island just to be shot in the stomach left to die in the underbrush while others forged up a hill. Uncle Sidney was buried in Hawaii. For twenty five years a cross was on his grave until my mom found out and navigated the paper work to get a white magen david to mark his life. http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=3793259

Now I wear his out of trend name. And that is more special to me than being called 
Susan or Michelle or Karen like most of the girls were when I was growing up. I carry his life spark and always have. I've lived for me and to some degree take steps in life he didn't. I am close to this young Uncle, although I never met him. 

Julie, names do matter a lot. We struggle with a language to describe the what and why we do our work. You are right to call us out on a clumsy start. Hebrew School, Complementary Eduction, Supplementary Education, New Models, Alternative Models, Sulam, Masa, Beit Midrash, Shorasheem, Every term seems to miss the mark and yet...

Is it the name that misses the mark --the trend--or what is associated with it?
I am going to suggest that what's most important: the name AND the images, spirit and RESULTS associated with the name. The accomplishments that go with the name are what make a Shem Tov.

A Conversation of 500 Voices

Time to revision. When the snows are here again our team will put in a new proposal to UJA Federation to support congregational learning in NY. We’ll have a five year plan to take us to the next level of powerful Jewish learning.

Two principles are guiding the work of creating a new vision and a new strategy.

1.    The future is built on peak moments. Our future will be when our best moments become the constant not the episodic. We have glimpses of the future right in front of us. Expand on the glimpses by applying emerged truths in new ways. Voila a better future is visible.

2.    There is a new frontier we can’t see yet. No matter how much we stretch our necks, we can’t see what’s around the corner. There is a mind-boggling wonder waiting to be uncovered.

So how can we apply these principles to the work ahead?

A conversation of 500 voices

Over the next few months we’ll be in conversation with:

1.    Members of 100 congregations

2.    Our strategic planning group

3.        Staff that works directly with the congregations from our team and from the Jewish Education Project

4.       Board Members from the Jewish Education Project

5.       Committee members of the UJA Federation of New York

6.       Management of the Jewish Education Project

7.        Educational Resource Providers

8.       Movement representatives

9.       And I hope to open source one big idea to the larger community
10. Data: the analysis of all of our evaluations will speak to us loudly

 Who am I missing?

On the one hand, I feel like I could write a strategy and vision based on our best moments. On the other hand I believe the unknown is waiting to be discovered. Truth, insight, and wisdom do, I really believe, emerge from conversation. So my work over the next few months is to set the table for the conversations and do some steroid listening.

One Wednesday, staff will be in conversation around three questions:

1.        When have congregations been at their best in creating learning that matters in people’s lives? What do you observe?

2.       What has enabled this?

3.        If  you had three wises for congregational learning what would it be?

What is emerging from conversations that have already been happening:

1.        Our work has to be targeted for three groups:

a.       The Coalition of Innovating Congregations. The fifty congregations engaged in creating new models of learning, and assessment.

b.      The next group of congregations (30-50) that haven’t yet engaged in reaching for the horizon.

c.        The Pioneers. The congregational teams and resources that are experienced  at breaking down the next frontier.

Some idea starters I’m hearing:

1.        Getting the right people on the bus really matters. What is the opportunity to expand the Coalition Educators (who make change from the middle) and engage 20 somes who are innovators? What opportunity is there to have boomers who have time and experience support that work. A system that is intergenerational and geared toward meaningful engagement and innovation?

2.       What’s the opportunity to think of Congregational learning on the congregational level and not just the K-7 level?

I’ll be posting the emerging headlines from our conversations. Tell me what you think. Add your voice. We’ll be wiser if this is a conversation of 1000 voices.

Ten Years Later the Tables Have Changed

 Around a decade ago, Jonathan Woocher hosted a meeting where folks from educational change initiatives sat at long banquet tables to discuss how to effectively transform congregational education. The tables are important in the telling because they represent both the number of places recognized as trying to shake things up and the tone of the time. 

Many, not all, spoke about their work like feted kings: “We’re the rulers and we know what we are doing.” There was pride and little inquiry.

 I remember one project director, seemed to take pleasure In saying “We’re not like The RE-IMAGINE Project (where I worked) we do this…which is so much better.” 

Childish for sure, and armchair psychologists would say, “Hey that just comes from insecurity.” Sure it didn’t feel safe to say "I don’t know" or "we are not getting the results we hoped we'd see." It also came from an expectation that someone had to be the best. Funders were listening too.

And now a decade later, with the proliferation of networking as a big idea, the lack of quick results from any single project and a recession that kicked everyone in the rear, the table is very different.

Next week teams from the educational agencies in Boston, Philadelphia and New York are having lunch together --again-- around an oval table that will be lined with chocolate and flowers. As before, the table is important in the telling.

These three geographically friendly cities are all in the thick of trying to support their communities in transforming Jewish learning. And the good news is that we are all strong enough to be vulnerable. Each city is doing thoughtful and focused work that produces results and quandaries.  Over the years personal relationships have been built among the people at the table so we have a convivial  safety zone to learn from each others results and to explore the quandaries together. Let's be honest: there are a lot of quandaries. 

Our next conversation is about sustaining innovation with a large emphasis on “What is the story we are telling?” 

Our agenda has us learning from each other's work: what is/not working. And then asking: “Is there an opportunity to have a national campaign to tell the story of the new face of congregational education?” As David Treitsch from Boston said: “We need something like the dairy farmers have with Got Milk.” Wanna join the conversation, there is room at the table, and the chocolate is yummy.

What I said and forgot to say (damn)

I was on a panel with Sid Schwarz and Lisa Colton this week at Synergy UJA federation of NY to talk about where synagogues need to be headed.

I used the rule of three pointed out by my colleague Ed Harwitz: when you speak just say three things.

Ok so I gave three headlines and forgot something. I want to kick my self for forgetting to say something I felt was really important.

Headline One:

Congregations that are successfully making change are strong enough to be vulnerable.

That is they know when they are at their best..they have a sense of worthy purpose that is inspiring. And they are strong enough to say things like:

I need help

What if

Let's imagine

Headline Two:

Congregations that are successfully making change are speaking to the real life questions and desires of people. The agenda is what we Jewish leaders want, but rather are present-non judgmental to engage folks in what they yearn for...like we took 100 educators to Macy's to say this is where life questions emerge, practice radical empathy and be present for folks with self and with wisdom of tradition.

Headline Three

Congregations that are successfully making change are recognizing the center of the  synagogue universe is not the sanctuary. Architecture and the calendar has staff pulling to the center of the sanctuary. We know there is no center of the universe. So these congregations are understanding no center and there are multiple centers, so engaging takes place in multiple settings, with different staffing strategies (the universe also doesn't revolve around the clergy).

and Damn, what I wanted to say was

STOP WITH THE JEWISH JOURNEY

this bifurcation of people..people aren't on Jewish journeys and life journeys

they are on life journeys and Judaism speaks to that

speak to the whole

sorry I didnt' say it there, glad I can say it here

Stop with the Jewish journey

Engage the whole of a person with the riches of Jewish life 

Torah is a conversation

Engage Life journeys  with the conversation

How do you Sustain Innovation (as appearing on ejewishphilanthropy)

New questions have to be answered at every stage of the innovation cycle. Nine years ago, when we set out to transform the synagogue school from a place that teaches “about Judaism” to the headwaters for lived Judaism, we asked: “What capacities does a synagogue need to make change?” Since then The Jewish Education Project in partnership with The Experiment In Congregational Education has been uncovering answers to questions like “How do you break the mold? What’s it take for innovation to spread? How do you assess success?” Now that congregations have actually created innovative models of learning and assessment we have a new question. Over fifty synagogues in NY, known as the Coalition of Innovating Congregations, are asking: “How do we sustain innovation?”

The literature on sustaining innovation is depressing. According to business and educational studies, the majority of innovations sprout long enough to be seen as the next good thing only to be devoured by organizational stasis. To stave off the mighty lion, the status quo, we are learning to use a worthy weapon: Results. Have them. Share them. Hit the head and the heart.

To master the art of reaching the head and heart of stakeholders you have to work at the nexus of evaluation and marketing, a zone where most congregational leadership teams don’t dwell. I confess, neither do I; but we’re learning.

Stories to the Heart

This past week close to 150 clergy, educators, teachers and lay leaders from The Coalition of Innovating Congregations gathered at City Winery in New York City to sharpen their skills in communicating the results of educational innovations (e.g. models that are more camp than school, learning in the city and home instead of the classroom, Shabbat family celebration in real time).

Deborah Grayson Riegel, an international communications expert, helped us speak to the heart. “Know your audience,” she instructed, “think through what you want your stakeholders to do, to know, to value and connect with.” So, team members from Community Synagogue of Rye, for example, spoke about wanting financial support from their Board for their model of small group home learning, family holiday gatherings and Skype Hebrew. Temple Beth Sholom of Roslyn – who have an “everyone is a mentor and everyone is a mentee” model that includes regular family Shabbat celebration – talked about needing to impact prospective parents. “We ask a lot of families [to participate]. And for them to say they want to participate, they need to see what can result.”

To move Board members and prospective members to action, Grayson Riegel said stories told from the heart would go to the heart. Getting the punch in the punch line requires a certain kind of story telling. So each congregation used a template for storytelling highlighted in Jonah Sack’s book, Wining the Story Wars, called the Hero’s Journey.

The template helps the listener follow the learner through struggle and eventual triumph in a way that is memorable and deeply moving. The congregations also watched a three-minute video that illustrated the Hero’s Journey at one of our congregations, made using the template:

The video capture’s Zoe’s remarkable story, and showed how this young teen was able to overcome an immense challenge with the help of Kane Street Synagogue’sL’tzedek Model, where children turn learning into social action as a compass for their daily lives. Zoe’s story, one of many, goes right to the heart.

Headlines from The Coalition of Innovating Congregation’s Stories:

• security and relationships with a caring mentor
• helping others through social justice
• found a place to belong
• Noah blossomed into his own person
• Became a mentor to other youth
• Gained self confidence and a sense of responsibility
• They are always asking: what more can we do?
• He found a community
• He performs mitzvoth that speak to him and are relevant to his life
• Emily said she felt more like herself here

Data to the Head

When battling the status quo, stakeholders also want to see the cold hard facts. Congregations have needed to develop their ability to collect the facts and then beautifully and thoughtfully present them.

When congregations are putting energy into creating new models and using new methods of education design and assessment, it is easily understood why they wouldn’t have the energy for collecting data. And yet, we know it is essential. So we created tracking tools that congregations use to collect data over time. These tools then equip the congregations to mark over time things like how many children/families participate in an innovative model; how many hours of professional development educators participate in, and what percentage of children continue post b’nei mitzvah from an innovative model vs. the traditional Hebrew school model.

Our experience shows that it is very hard to get agreement on what data will satisfy stakeholders. However, maybe not surprisingly, one result that is shared by many congregations is how well a child and family will be connected to one another and to the congregation. To this end, we created a survey that measures this outcome. Over a dozen congregations, across movements, have administered a “connectedness survey” three times during the last two years. This survey measures the growth and change in families’ connections to one another, and to the congregation. Congregational teams analyze the results, with support from our staff, and are able to show stakeholders the difference between connections expressed by families in their new model vs. the traditional Hebrew school model.

What’s next?

Once you collect the data you need to present it powerfully. As of June 1, we are posting tools that enable congregations to use their stories and their numbers effectively. We are posting on innovatingcongregations.org a tool kit that includes ready made “press releases” and “presentations” that wrap around their hero’s journey stories and collected data. This tool kit includes a two-minute movie, ready for viewing now, used by Coalition Congregations to communicate the unique value of their innovations.

The work we face now is to sustain the innovations. Boards and lay leaders need to say yes to resources. Families and learners need to say yes to engagement. To do this Coalition congregations are innovating in one more area: Communicating Results to the Head and the Heart.

Tell me the story..I'll show you a movie -two movies

I love the comment just left on my blog by Allison Fine author of The Networked Non-profit
http://www.allisonfine.com/publications/networked-nonprofit/

Tagline for a synagogue's educational program:
"Temple Such and such..we make great grown ups."

Yep couldn't agree more.
So we made a movie that says just that
although we use our tag line:
The Coalition of Innovating Congregations
Jewish Learning for Real Life

Fifty congregational teams gathered at the City Winery yesterday to celebrate the results of learning that helps kids grow up in this world. It was a wow day learning how the work we have done really has impacted people in powerful ways.
Here is the story of one student from Kane Street Synagogue, Zoe, who has grown in remarkable ways because of her experience at the congregation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PPL3JLO1cU

We are supporting congregations in telegraphing the difference they make.
We have another 2 minute movie

for Coalition congregations to put on their web sites
so prospective parents know what's special about what they do.

The movie says this is not just a place that runs your kids from activity to activity
or drills this and that we actually partner with you to help raise your kid(s)
in this crazy world. It is animated, enjoy!

What do you think of the movie? What would you change/celebrate?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=O65cSsVGjAs

A new tag line

I've learned  that I have to work work at the nexus of research and marketing.

Collect the data and get out the word. This is essential work when trying to sustain innovation.

While standing on the marketing foot I know I have to  highlight the congregations that are doing  the hard work of innovation.

In NY it is over 50 congregations who can post on their websites

 member

The Coalition of Innovating Congregations.

What's so special about them?
We've collected the data and this is what we learned:

The Coalition Congregations' focus on new models is based on an understanding that congregational education may be about getting kids ready for bnai mitzvah AND it is to help children grow as resilient people every day and in every way.

When we hear the stories of success from the Coalition we hear children facing the real world a little stronger, and  a little less alone.

Like Zach from Temple Emanu-El in NYC, a teen in the Tribes Model,

who is in the midst of preparing to apply to college said: “being a junior in high school, I have a lot of responsibilities, like studying for the SATs and stuff. At times when I’m tempted not to study, I think, being a gibor, someone who is strong, when making a good decision is hard – I know in the long term this is going to make me a better person, and I’ll be glad that I made that decision.”

So the new tag line we need to communicate based on the data collected says an old idea:

The Coalition of Innovating Congregations:

Jewish Learning for Real Life

Here's where the new idea comes from: (compiled by Suri Jacknis)

When Rabbi Judah went to the house of learning he would carry a pitcher on his shoulders, saying, “Great is labor, for it honors the person who does it.”

Babylonian Talmud, tractate Nedarim, page 49b.

A man should love work and not hate work.  For just as the Torah was given as a covenant, so work was given as a covenant, as it is said:  “Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of the Lord your God.”  (Exodus 20:9)

Fathers According to Rabbi Nathan, chapter 11

The Mishnah says:  “Whenever a human life is endangered, the laws of the Sabbath are suspended.”  The more eagerly someone goes about saving a life, the more worthy he is of praise….

Babylonian Talmud, tractate, Yoma, page 84b

Rabbi Judah said in the name of Samuel:  “If I had been there I would have told them something better:   ‘You shall keep My Laws and My norms by the pursuit of which man shall live’ (Leviticus 18:5)  “he shall live by them, but he shall not die because of them.”

Babylonian Talmud, tractate Yoma, page 85b

Do not take drugs; do not leap over ditches; do not have a tooth extracted; and do not anger either a snake or a Syrian.

Rav to his son, Rabbi Hiyya, in the Babylonian Talmud, tractate Pesahim, page 113a

There are three partners in man:  The Holy One, blessed by He, the father and the mother.  When a person honors his father and his mother, God says, “It is as though I had dwelt among them and they had honored Me.”

Babylonian Talmud, tractate Kiddushin, page 30b

As regards parental responsibilities to children, the most important duty is to teach the Torah. A father also must teach his son a trade:  “He who does not teach his son a profession…it is as if he taught him to be a thief. (Kiddushin 29a and 30b).  Parents should also teach their children how to swim.  In modern parlance, this commandment means that parents are required to teach their children whatever self-defense skills a re necessary for survival.” 

Joseph Telushkin, Jewish Literacy, p. 582

He has told you, O man, what is good,

And what the Lord requires of you:

Only to do justice

And to love goodness,

And to walk humbly with your God.

Micah, chapter 6, verse 8