Close your eyes and think of a problem you have at your school or organization. Now imagine a team of people coming together to discuss the problem, dissecting it from all angles, then working together to create a solution that benefits all of the stakeholders. That isn’t just a dream scenario, it is a reality offered by a Teacherpreneur Program to upgrade Jewish Studies in the Diaspora.
The Israeli EdTech pioneer MindCET connects entrepreneurship and learning by pairing educators from around the world with tech developers to address solutions for education in the digital age. They designed a program for educators who are agents of change, embrace entrepreneurship and innovation in their professional lives and encourage it among their students.
One joint program, funded by the Miami-Yerucham Partnership, was designed to prepare Miami Jewish day school teachers to become “teacherpreneurs,” helping them to embrace entrepreneurship and innovation in learning and inspire their students to do the same. The program is also intended to equip Jewish day schools with educational advances to better strengthen Jewish identity and peoplehood. It is not a coincidence that one of these “teacherpreneurs” selected to be part of the initiative is a student from the Melton Centre for Jewish Education.
My name is Barbara Schpilberg and I lead the Jewish Studies Department of the Innovative School of Temple Beth Sholom in Miami, Florida. It became second nature to me to apply all the knowledge I was gaining from my studies at the Melton Center in the innovative school that I work for more than a decade. In the midst of that rally, between forums, papers and assignments, I became the Director of Jewish Studies and Hebrew of the Lower and Upper Elementary levels of the Innovative School. Suddenly, all these projects and opportunities started to knock on my door. This particular project was very intensive and it required an investment of both time and resources. But how could I refuse the opportunity to be an agent of change after all? How to refuse the opportunity to travel to Israel to develop an innovative solution that would strengthen Jewish identity?
In January 2023, the inaugural MindCET Miami partnership kicked off with bi-monthly Zoom meetings where MindCET’s experts in program design, management, and education met with seven educators from across Miami Jewish day schools to explore the design cycle - a process that takes ideas from problem to solution. Educators collaborated with MindCET tech experts to identify a specific educational challenge they currently face, research this challenge from a variety of angles, and formulate an initial idea for a solution. We looked at the big picture, broke down issues to smaller bites, and began to form solutions that could provide short-term and long-term benefits.
To my surprise, the educational challenge that I face at my school is not unique or a typical challenge that “small schools face” (like I thought). In the diaspora, many Jewish schools face the challenge of balancing two distinct curricula: the national curriculum, which is aligned with the country's educational standards, and the Judaic studies curriculum. These two curriculums often operate independently, without meaningful integration or dialogue, which can create a disconnect for students and hinder the development of their Jewish identity. As Jewish educators, we want learners to develop a stronger connection to their Judaism, strengthen their Jewish identity, and recognize the relevance of Jewish teachings in all aspects of their education.
By the time I traveled to the desert town of Yerucham this past July, I knew that I wanted to create a valuable tool that could enable general studies teachers that work in Jewish schools to seamlessly integrate Jewish content, values, and traditions into their lessons. I believe that by creating meaningful connections between subjects, learners can develop a stronger sense of their Jewish identity while also deepening their understanding of general studies topics.
We spent six days meeting with MindCET’s team of programmers, designers, managers and other Israeli ed-tech experts to develop our ideas. We named our product idea “EdJEWcator: Connecting General Studies with Judaism” and we created our own logo and landing page. The programmers and designers helped us to develop our beta-testing product, which focuses on an email reminder about upcoming holidays and integration ideas for subject areas. Teachers who sign up into the EdJEWcator app will get email reminders two weeks before a Jewish holiday with ideas to integrate their subject area and the holiday. Moreover, they will have access to each other's shared content such as activities and lesson ideas. Our emerging library will provide examples and ideas of how Jewish values, culture, traditions, practices, and holidays can be integrated into other secular subjects like science, math, literacy and art.
By the end of our trip, we left with a solution in beta level that will allow us for initial testing with educators during this 2023-2024 school year and it contains a library that is currently being fed with lesson ideas, videos and tutorials. It is my hope that EdJEWcator becomes an interactive community-based library of integrated content organized by subject matter where educators around the world can collaborate and share their lessons and experiences to upgrade Jewish studies.
Barbara Schpilberg is a Melton Center MA graduate