Educating families

Sunday school is not just for kids anymore

BETH OLSON
Staff Writer

Steven Sandler plays Geography Twister with his daughter, Rachel, during the third-grade family education Israel program at Temple Emanuel of Tempe.

Photo courtesy of Susan Schanerman

It's Sunday morning. Mom and Dad are rushing the kids into their religious school classrooms so the parents can have time to get to Target, the grocery store and the carwash in the two hours before they need to pick the kids up.

After all, Sunday school is for the children, right?

Times have changed, and religious school is no longer just for the children at several local synagogues, including Temple Emanuel of Tempe, where family education has been incorporated into the religious school program. Family education includes programs and curriculum through which parents and children learn together. This differs from the traditional approach of children attending religious school on their own and parents attending separate adult education classes.

The need for family education developed over the last 20 years, says Susan Schanerman, education director at Temple Emanuel. She explains that some people, as they become less religiously observant at home, send their children to religious school to "get Jewish" rather than using it to complement what is happening at home.

"(Religious school) is supplemental school," Schanerman says. "The idea is that you're supplementing something. For so many families around the country, that is not the case, and at Temple Emanuel as well. If (the students) don't get it here, they don't get it anywhere."

Rabbi Andrew Straus says that Emanuel's family education programs have stopped the cycle of what he calls "gas station Judaism."

"Parents say, 'I'll drop off my kid for two hours on Sunday and you'll fill up the gas tank with Judaism. I'll come back in two hours. He'll have a full tank and I'll run it down during the week.'

"We're telling parents, 'We can help you fill the tank, but we can't do it ourselves. You as parents have to be active participants in this educational process of creating Jewish children and Jewish adults,' " Straus says.

The family education programs at Emanuel and throughout the Valley bring parents into the classroom with the children in the hope that the practices and ideas taught will then be incorporated into the home, says Schanerman.

Emanuel has been dabbling in family education for a few years, according to Schanerman. But after Straus, teacher Syndi Scheck, and congregants Vivian Gealer and Carole Pinkwasser attended a Whizin Institute conference at the University of Judaism in Los Angeles in the summer of 1999, family education took on a new meaning at the temple.

The Whizin Institute is an organization that provides education and resources for Jewish family education to Jews across the country.

"The Shirley & Arthur Whizin Institute for Jewish Family Life was established to strengthen Jewish families by encouraging a commitment to Jewish living," according to the Whizin Institute Web site. "(The Institute) is dedicated to teaching Jewish professionals, lay persons and entire communities the concept of Jewish family education."

Gealer, who will serve as Emanuel's family education chairwoman next year, explains that Judaism is essentially a home-based religion, and problems have developed as people practice only in the synagogue.

"People are learning how to become synagogue Jews, but not Jews at home," she says. "Whizin is an institute of teaching leaders and synagogues how to go back and make people feel comfortable being Jewish and give them the equipment to have a Jewish home and be a Jewish family."

Emanuel's first trek into the family education front came when Straus joined the congregation in 1998. Straus had attended Whizin conferences and had developed family education programs at his previous position at Peninsula Temple Sholom in Burlingame, Calif.

At Emanuel, Straus began a program three years ago called Windows, designed for seventh-grade students preparing for their b'nai mitzvah. The topics for the four-part series of parent/child discussions are: What do Jews believe? What does it mean to become a bar mitzvah? How does one become an adult in the Jewish community? What does it mean to belong to the Jewish community?

"We've had a fantastic response. We've done evaluations at the end of the year each year. The parents have just raved about it. They've enjoyed the opportunity to have conversations with their kids about (these issues)," he recalls. "The kids have enjoyed seeing their parents actively involved in Jewish learning."

Emanuel's family education grew from Windows to an entire series for each grade level, pre-K through seventh grade. The most extensive was the first-grade program, Sefer Safari, headed by Scheck.

Gealer's family, including her first-grade son, Gabriel, participated in Scheck's program.

"It's a home-based reading program. The premise of it is you read to your children every night anyway, why not make one night a week Jewish reading," explains Gealer.

Scheck began preparing for the project last summer. The program received a grant for $2,400 from the Jewish Community Foundation to purchase books. Scheck read all of the books and assembled a packet for each one, including a book summary, questions and activities. During the school year, first-grade students picked books each week to take home and read with their families.

Scheck says she was thrilled with the response she got from the parents and children. She recalls that students would bring their projects from home to show her and could not wait to talk about their books or check out new ones.

"It was such a positive experience to see how they incorporated it into their lives. The response from the parents was that this has become an important part of their bedtime ritual," Scheck says.

Gealer agrees, "It starts a dialogue people might not normally have with their child about all kinds of (Jewish) subjects. I'm really glad I have a first-grader as well as putting this program together."

The first-grade class also had two events where parents were invited to join the children in the classroom. At the first event, children made a shema pillow to remind them to say the shema when they go to bed - the same time they read their stories. The second was a Hanukkah program that involved stories, songs and art projects.

Several other grade-level programs included the families joining their children for religious school. The programs included family activities and a separate adults-only discussion with the rabbi about the grade-level theme.

Karen Bever, mother of Rebecca, 11, and Marlee, 9, recalls studying Israel with Marlee and the third-grade class. She says small groups were assigned different regions of Israel and they then had to come up with an ad campaign to get others to want to come visit.

The fifth-graders have discussed the origins of their family names, says Bever. Schanerman explains that the fifth-grade topic is lifecycle events, and the students will participate in a mock wedding in May. At the wedding, students will participate as rabbis, cantors, brides and grooms.

"The kids are learning not only through their schools and their educators there, but through their parents and families, as well, (about) their history and their traditions," explains Bever.

Gealer, Schanerman and Straus all emphasize that the family education programs are designed for families of any level of observance.

"It's not as threatening for adults if they are doing it through the eyes of their child. ... We don't make anyone feel awkward. It's all very friendly, open and inviting," explains Gealer.

While family education is new to Temple Emanuel, other synagogues, including Temple Chai in Phoenix, have had programs for years.

Ava Keenen, director of education at Temple Chai, says the synagogue started its JET (Jewish Education Together) program about 10 years ago. That program involved parents and children coming together for part of the religious school day, with parents receiving adult education for another portion of the day.

The JET program is being replaced at Temple Chai with the new family school program, explains Keenen. This year the family school is for third- and fourth-graders; it will extend to fifth grade next year, and an additional grade each year after that. Family school includes activities twice a month, including family retreats, social action projects and adult education.

Social action projects have included visiting nursing homes for Hanukkah, planting trees and feeding the homeless.

"The evaluations (the parents) have given have just been wonderful. They've spent good quality time with their children. It enriches their Jewish practice at home," Keenen explains. "The students are very motivated and enjoy having their parents there."

Beth El Congregation in Phoenix also maintains a family school program, headed by Education Director Tziporah Altman-Shafer.

Beth El's family school takes place every 6-8 weeks and the families come together on Sunday mornings, in place of regular religious school. Some activities have included "Back to the Future of Israel," in honor of Yom Ha'atzmaut, where families study four different periods in Jewish history, a Hanukkah program, and Super Shema Sunday, held on Super Bowl Sunday, an event that focused on educating families about the shema. An upcoming event is planned for Mother's Day.

Linda Feldman, family life educator for the Bureau of Jewish Education, says her job is to support family education locally. She says the BJE sponsors its own programs, as well as helping to facilitate programs at local synagogues.

"Family education is really so crucial and at the forefront of Jewish education. That's why Whizin Institute has worked so hard to enhance it. We need to empower the families to be the primary Jewish educators for their families," she says.

Feldman says that the BJE's Pieces of Our Past program has been utilized at seven different synagogues: Temple Emanuel, Temple Beth Sholom, Temple Chai, Temple Solel, Har Zion Congregation, Beth El Congregation and Temple Beth Israel.

Har Zion's Pieces of Our Past program brought families into the synagogue to work with their sixth-grade children in a series of workshops, she says. The focus was on the family tree, family traditions and family history.

She recalls that Beth El's Pieces of Our Past program brought in four grandparents of students, some of whom had grown up in Phoenix. They shared their experiences of growing up Jewish in Phoenix, their Jewish history and their religious school experiences with the students.

Gealer recalls participating in Emanuel's Pieces of Our Past program with her fourth-grade son, Isaac. Parents came to religious school with their children and helped make a scrapbook and dialogue about their own past, as well as a family tree. Open-ended questions fueled discussions on ancestry, memories and Jewish holidays.

"It was a great morning. People were just so thankful to spend time with their kids - to have two hours uninterrupted to talk about this subject. ... To have two hours to talk about your Jewish ancestry is not something people would normally have or do," Gealer says.

For more information about the Whizin Institute, visit its Web site at www.whizin.org.

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