The movie was good... wait until you read the book

If you thought the movie was good, wait until you read the book.

Okay most often it is the other way around. "If you liked the book, you'll love the movie." In this case, if you saw the documentary: The High Five: That Nurtures the Whole Person (soon to be released worldwide) you'll love the book.

We've written the LOMED Handbook.

A team of leading educators and rabbis have been working on the handbook for how to create and assess whole person learning.

It is going to the printer this week. Great colors!

Who are the authors?
Meet:
Dr. Evie Rotstein
Rabbi Dena Klein
Anna Marx
Cindy Reich
Rabbi Jeni Friedman
Ellen Rank
me too

We have put together an 8 chapter book that will enable educators to create and assess whole person learning. The documentary shows powerful models and learning in action. You can see and feel the result. That's great, but educators need to actually create it. Therefore, the book!

Here is an amazon like preview of the chapters.

I'm including the opening quotes of each chapter so you'll see what's the big idea of the LOMED Handbook.

Chapter One: Introduction

The world around us is changing at high speed. The economy, technology, the nature of families and children, and learning itself are significantly different than they were just a decade ago. Rapid change presents demands and opportunities for educational leaders seeking to create Jewish learning that is accessible, relevant and meaningful for today’s learners.
(Creating High Impact Jewish Learning, A Benchmarking Report of Innovative Capability in New York Congregations, 2011)


Chapter Two: Priority Goals Turn Vision into Action

When we say [education] should have purpose, we mean simply this: no matter what the content or activity, the relationship between it and a long-term worthy goal should be logical, built into curriculum and assessment and transparent to students, teachers and community.
(Schooling by Design, Mission, Action and Achievement, Grant Wiggins and jay McTighe p.13, ASCD, 2007)


Chapter Three: High Impact Models that Nurture the Whole Person

If we think of Jewish education happening only in schools, or educational settings for that matter, we are severely limiting ourselves.
(Dr. Jeffrey Kress, The High Five: to Nurture the Whole Person, a Documentary, 2011)


Chapter Four: Whole Person Learning and Noticing Targets/Outcomes

Teaching is a means to an end. Having a clear goal helps us as educators to focus our planning and guide purposeful action toward the intended results.
(Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe, Understanding By Design, ASCD, 1998, p. 13)


Chapter Five: Noticing and Assessment

For the life journey, noticing connection and missteps
The story of your life is a network of intersecting stories—the story of your family; of your community and schools; of your friends and acquaintances—and how all this, along with your own internal story, have made you who you are…pilgrimage is no panacea; we do stupid things along the way …This too is part of our stories.
(Spiritual Autobiography, Discovering and Sharing Your Spiritual Story, Richard Peace, Nav Press, 1998 )

Chapter Six: Learning From Noticing and Assessment

Such is the way of a tzaddik, say the Berditchever, someone who is continuously aware of her deficiencies yet trusts that God will help her attain a higher level in the future. Indeed, if the Name
of your God is “I am not yet who I am not yet,” then you too get to keep learning and striving and growing.

My own beloved teacher Arnold Jacob Wolf, whose memory is a blessing, used to mischeiveously complain that his problem was not that God was silent. “My problem,” he would insist, “is that God won’t shut up. Now what do you want? Leave me alone. I did that mitzvah last week. What do you mean, you want it again and better?”

(“Who Am I to Go to Pharoah?” Lawrence Kuhsner, p. 43,
Jewish Mysticism and the Spiritual Life Edited L. Fine, E. Fishbane and O. Rose)

Chapter Seven: Designing Powerful Learning

The new environment in which Jewish education operates in the 21st century demands a new set
of design principles for Jewish education itself.
(Design Principles for the 21st century, Lippman Kanfer Institute)

Chapter Eight: Designing Professional Learning

Professional learning that increases educator effectiveness and results for all students occurs within learning communities committed to continuous improvement, collective responsibility, and goal alignment.

(Learning Forward, 2011, http://www.learningforward.org/standards/learningcommunities/index.cfm)

I wish I could say you I'd see you at the book signing at Borders Book Store. Too bad they are closing all of their stores.

All LOMED congregations will get a color (and if you want signed) copy of the LOMED Handbook at the Summer Institute in New York City on August 10 and 11. They will also get their own DVD of the documentary The High Five. Come on, if you are going to be in the city in August you should get some swag.