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Jewish Journal

Connect. Inform. Inspire.

December 23, 2004

Where Will a Teen’s Schooling Continue?

Leave a Comment / Education /

 

When Amy Cohen graduated from Adat Ari El’s day school in 2003, her family faced a decision: Where would she continue her education?

While eighth-graders at Orthodox day schools generally continue on to Jewish high schools, graduates of Conservative, Reform or community day schools matriculate to any number of school settings, including Jewish, public, magnet and private secular.

At this time of the year, parents and students face the task of setting priorities and examining realities that will determine where a Jewish teen’s education will continue.

As the Cohens discussed options, “It became clear that she didn’t want to continue in a religious setting,” recalled Amy’s father, Dennis Cohen. “She wanted to sample the wider world.”

The Studio City family briefly considered public school for Amy, but decided that she would be better served in a private school that could offer small classes and individualized attention. Amy was accepted into Pacific Hills, a private school in West Hollywood. Cohen says his daughter enjoyed the ethnic and socioeconomic diversity of the student body and quickly adjusted to her new setting.

Similarly, Cohen’s son, Geoffrey, now 18, left Adat Ari El after fifth grade to attend the gifted program at Walter Reed Middle School in North Hollywood. There, Cohen said, his son enjoyed “getting lost in the crowd and having a bigger social circle.”

Although Cohen said he would have been happy to send his children to a Jewish high school, he did not object to their preferences.

“You try to lay the foundation for their Jewish observances at home … and you hope it takes root,” he said. “Eventually, they’re going to go into the secular world.”

Although neither of his children is continuing with formal Jewish education, Cohen said that their synagogue remains a central part of the family’s life.

It’s difficult to determine the exact number of families like the Cohens who are choosing to leave the Jewish day school world after the elementary years. Gil Graff, executive director of the Bureau of Jewish Education in Los Angeles, said that one might conclude that fewer students are making the transition from Jewish elementary schools to Jewish high schools, given that last fall there were 685 eighth-graders in day school, and only 621 entering high school students this fall. That number also includes some who enter Jewish high school after attending a secular middle school.

At the same time, Jewish high school enrollment is substantially higher today than five years ago. According to Graff, there were 502 ninth-graders enrolled in Jewish high schools in 1999, compared to the 621 today.

With annual private high school tuition averaging from $18,000 to the mid-20s, the option is beyond the means of many families.

Debbie Gliksman sent her three children to Pressman Academy at Temple Beth Am in Los Angeles. But when it came time for her eldest child, Lianna, to start high school, “our options were limited,” she said. Gliksman would have liked to send her daughter to Milken Community High School, but “it’s a very, very expensive proposition to send three kids there,” she said.

Instead, her daughter enrolled this fall in the humanities magnet program at Hamilton High, her local school.

“There’s a big difference [between private and public],” Gliksman said.

She and other parents recommend that families who may want to send their children to a magnet school begin accruing points as early as possible. (For more information about points, visit www.lausd.k12.ca.us/welcome.html and click on “FAQs” under the “Discover LAUSD” tab.)

For other families, only a Jewish high school will do. In June, Maureen Goldberg’s son, Joshua, will graduate from Abraham Heschel Day School in Northridge. Goldberg said her family had been “struggling for the last couple of years” over the issue of where he should go next.

Several weeks ago, she said the family “came to an epiphany” while attending an open house for a secular private school they were considering. The school had put out an extensive buffet, and as Goldberg approached the tables and saw the ham and cheese.

“My heart sank,” she said.

She turned to her son and said, “I don’t think I can go back.” And he responded, “I don’t think I can, either, mom.”

“It crystallized for us that we weren’t ready to give up the Judaic experience,” said Goldberg, who added that she considered it even more important for adolescents than younger children to learn Jewish values. “He might get that at a secular school, but I know he’ll get it at Milken.”

Goldberg also said she was disappointed that although 75 percent of her son’s class went on to private schools, only three chose to go to a Jewish one.

Like many other parents sending their children to private school, Goldberg said the family had to sacrifice to afford the steep tuition.

“I’d rather live in the smallest house in the worst neighborhood and send my kid to a private Jewish day school, than live in the largest house and go to public school,” she said. “The sacrifice is worth it. I have a really menschy, kind kid, and he got a lot of that from Heschel.”

 

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To Live and Teach in L.A.: A Difficult Job

Leave a Comment / Education /

 

Eight-year-old Danielle dashes to the front of her third-grade classroom and shows off her drawing of an equilateral triangle.

“That’s fah-bulous, dah-ling,” the teacher says.

Danielle flashes a satisfied smile and prances back to her seat. The other students look admiringly at her.

Then, one asks, “What’s fabulous mean?”

Danielle’s (all the children’s names have been changed in this story) classroom is one of about 25 bungalows — detached, concrete rooms — that constitute Wilshire Crest Elementary School on West Olympic Boulevard near South La Brea Avenue.

Like many classes in the Los Angeles Unified School District, where 75 percent of the nearly 1 million students failed to meet state performance standards in 2003, this class has it challenges.

At least half of the students live in a single-parent household. Most of the parents work two or three jobs and do not speak English.

“They’re just trying to survive,” says teacher Cindy Berger.

In a district that is 90 percent minority and whose per-child spending ranks among the lowest in the nation, Berger has her work cut out for her.

Colorful decorations cover the walls. “We love to learn about everything!” shouts a blue sign. “Read!” says a poster of a furry animal holding a book. One wall displays pictures of “star students” above essays stating their goals for the year. An American Flag graces the back of the room.

Nineteen children sit at desks that form a horseshoe opening to Berger, 44, who stays warm in the chilly room by wearing a long, gray skirt, black boots and a white scarf.

Through her black-rimmed glasses, she surveys her students, black and brown, none white.

“Bubbelas,” Berger says, “listen up. Tell me the shapes on your desk that are quadrilaterals.”

Hands shoot into the air, waving for attention.

“This is the best class I’ve had in 21 years of teaching,” Berger boasts.

But her enthusiasm gives way to a desperate, worried look.

“They wonder why test scores are low. It’s not because teachers aren’t teaching. These kids have so many obstacles,” she says.

Berger points to Laticia, a girl who moves slowly, dragging her body as if it were made of stone. Laticia’s father was murdered about a year ago, Berger says. The child cries every day.

Berger says she sent Laticia home with the paperwork needed to get school counseling, but the student’s mother did not return the papers.

“A week ago, Laticia came up to me and said, ‘I don’t want anyone ever talking to me. I want to be left alone,'” Berger says. “A few days later, she came back to me and said, ‘It’s just not working out. People are still talking to me.'”

Then, there is Victor, who got in trouble during recess for teasing another child. Last week, when he was asked to describe himself, Victor said he was bad, mean and ugly, according to Berger.

“There’s no one who’s said he can be more,” the teacher says. “He’s not getting the nourishment he needs.”

Berger says police came to the school a few weeks ago after one of her students blurted out, “My dad was beating up my mom. I tried to help my mom, but then I got hurt.”

The teacher keeps a book labeled, “Guess What?” where the children can write to her anything they wish. When students start to reveal something personal in the middle of class, she reminds them about the book.

Berger says Jewish values influence her teaching.

“There’s an emphasis in Judaism on education and advancement” and on performing mitzvot, she says.

The teacher spends up to $5,000 of her own money on supplies for the class, on “all this — their treats, art projects and things to organize the room.”

“But the issue is not materials,” Berger says. “It’s the extracurricular.”

Berger wishes someone would volunteer to tutor or mentor a student or to take a kid on a field trip.

“I hope someone will say, ‘I have tickets to a basketball game.’ These kids need experiences.”

“OK, bubbelas,” the teacher says, turning to her students. After winter vacation, she explains, the class will watch a movie about Helen Keller, who learned to write despite being unable to see or hear.

“There are no excuses in learning,” Berger says.

The 8-year-olds sit on this thought for a moment. One student raises his hand high into the air.

“Mrs. Berger,” he says, “is it time for recess?”

Anyone wishing to volunteer as a mentor or tutor should contact the school at (323) 938-5291 and ask for Cindy Berger.

 

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A Student’s Plea

Leave a Comment / Education /

 

Often I find myself staring at walls or lying on my bed staring at the ceiling, blank-minded. But I am not one who has the luxury to

be blank-minded. There is too much to do — not by will, but by force. There is work to be done — two lessons of math homework, 26 pages of AP English reading, eight terms a day to study for the AP test, probably some science homework that I don’t remember and the indefinitely intimidating SATs, looming in everyone’s mind. I/we, all students, are collapsing under the weight of our responsibilities, high school beasts of academic burden.

So I will explain to those who ask, such as parents, teachers or siblings, “Why are you not working?” Why I am not working? It seems nothing we students can do is enough. One day there is a chemistry test, the next an essay due, the next an English test, the next a much-needed break, which is not really a break because we still have everyday homework and SAT studying, followed by another test, another essay — and eventually the lines begin to blur. Eventually, all worries and all concerns about school, grades and college just don’t seem worth it.

“Of course they’re worth it,” say parents and educators, and we know they’re worth it. We know we need to study, we know we need to do well in school, well on the SATs, well on the APs, we know it’s all important. So maybe we could find some system of working, making a schedule that encompasses both work and rest that would suit our needs and keep us sane. Not so, friends, not so.

There comes a point where we students are no longer inspired to learn. (Were we ever?) Yes, we enjoy learning what we find interesting, whether it be history, chemistry, philosophy, etc. for each individual. But as the requirements build up, and the pressure rises, our only motivation to work is to avoid being scolded for not working. We no longer care about our grades; it isn’t worth it. We don’t connect the drudgery of studying for tests or the SATs with their necessity. What I mean is that when separating ourselves from work, we understand that we need to do it in order to get into college, to have a stable life and just to learn things we didn’t know before. But when we have to get our hands dirty, get right into it with those pencils, books and calculators, and put C-clamps on our brains, the amount of work we realize we’re facing dismisses all of those long-term accomplishments for the immediacy of stress. So we shut down our brains like blocks of concrete, and stare at the walls.

In my experience, education is no longer about learning; it’s about how a student looks on paper. Letters and numbers that represent our intellect, and how many extracurriculars represent our involvement. They mean little to me. But they mean plenty to parents, schools and colleges, though, so we have to put up with them. But when they become so important that our lives need to revolve around them, it is much easier to ignore them to the extent that we can, so that parental or academic authorities won’t bother us. Not to say this is right, but it’s honest. And not to say we don’t enjoy intellect; I spend much of my free time reading, writing, talking religion or politics, enjoying or creating art, etc. These things are valuable, but, sadly, they don’t appear on our transcripts — the mindless drone of SAT, AP and GPA percentiles do. Sad how five letters and their numbers are likely to define our lives, even if we’re artists and writers and scientists and philosophers and politicians without the papers to prove it.

I do not expect to change any of these things with my words. If I did, I would also ask for a unicorn pony and to be a teenage ninja. I only hope to help parents and educators understand why we students at times are so disheartened and disconnected from our education.

I don’t speak for all students. Of course there are students who don’t feel this way, but they’re sparse. And in a way, I feel real compassion for those who don’t have the ability to disconnect themselves from their responsibilities, their worries of the SATs, the right college, the right jobs, the right mate, the whole right life, and run wild and untethered on the beaches of their own minds. But plenty of us students with our stress-roasted minds understand and relate. Someday when we inherit the world, we’ll change the system so that our children’s children will enjoy their preadulthood wholeheartedly. Someday, my brothers, someday.

Seth Lutske is a senior at YULA Boys School and editor of the school newspaper.

 

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Teens Gear up for Bicycle Tzedakah

Leave a Comment / Community, Education /

 

With their hands all but frozen, lips blue and feet soaking, nearly 50 South Bay teens and a large handful of adult volunteers braved the storm on Sunday, Dec. 5, to devote their afternoon to testing, cleaning and repairing bicycles.

The second of four Arachim programs, this event focused on tzedakah. Taking over the entire parking lot behind the Palos Verdes Bicycle Center, the volunteers worked on more than 125 bicycles that had been donated by community members for distribution to children at Vista Del Mar Child and Family Care Services and several other local agencies.

“This ended up being a great community event,” said Robin Franko, director of the Jewish Federation/South Bay Council. “We had more bicycles donated than we could have dreamed of and amazing support from local businesses.”

Steve Bowen, Palos Verdes Bicycle Center owner, said, “We had been looking for ways to get involved in the community, to be good citizens. This project made us feel like we were helping out in a big way.”

Bowen provided the space, tools, training and expertise that allowed the volunteers to refurbish the bicycles.

The goal of the Arachim program is to help teens discover the opportunities that exist in their neighborhoods and communities, where their contributions make a significant difference in the lives of other people. The unique project is being observed by numerous synagogues and may serve as a model for communities trying to develop similar programs.

Franko developed Arachim with five South Bay synagogues. Jewish teenagers in eighth and ninth grades meet youngsters from neighboring congregations, while learning about the obligation of mitzvot.

“The South Bay has an incredibly vibrant Jewish community,” Franko said, “and one of my objectives as director for the past year has been to develop programs that will build cohesion and unity within this relatively large geographic area.”

The South Bay encompasses about 35 miles, stretching along the Pacific from Westchester to San Pedro, and is home to nearly 40,000 Jews. It is estimated that only 20 percent are affiliated with South Bay synagogues. Franko said that programs such as Arachim help bring the unaffiliated together and give them a sense of the larger Jewish community.

Teens from B’nai Tikvah in Westchester; Congregation Ner Tamid (CNT), Palos Verdes; Congregation Tifereth Jacob, Manhattan Beach; Temple Beth El, San Pedro; and Temple Menorah, Redondo Beach are expected to be the primary participants, however, students from other synagogues or those unaffiliated with a synagogue are being encouraged to participate.

“We have a very dedicated group of synagogue educators planning these events,” Franko said. “They’ve worked extremely hard to spread the word that kids from all over the South Bay are welcome to participate in these projects.”

Many of the religious schools’ teachers attended the event, fixing bicycles and supervising their students.

“This was an important activity for my class,” said Adam Allenberg, a ninth-grade teacher at Congregation Ner Tamid and a rabbinic education student at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. “In our last session, we discussed the meaning of tzedakah so that the kids would understand the context of the tradition.”

The point was not lost on the students.

“This was one of the highest forms of tzedakah,” said Mickey, one of Allenberg’s students. “We don’t know who will get the bikes, and the kids who get them don’t know who gave them.”

After the bicycle repairs were completed, Jeff Catania, Vista Del Mar vice president of development, spoke to the group about the children and teenagers who live at Vista Del Mar and the circumstances that brought them to the group home.

In October, more than 40 students gathered at Congregation Ner Tamid, which is located between a nursing home and a residential care facility, for the first Arachim program. Participants were provided an opportunity to perform two mitzvot: bikur holim (visiting the sick) and hiddur p’nei zakein (honoring the elderly).

“This program tapped into the kindness of our students,” said Cheri Ellowitz-Silver, CNT education director. “The children were comfortable and compassionate, and the residents were visibly moved and delighted by their visit.”

Prior to the event, the students participated in a classroom discussion about what these mitzvot mean, and why they are such an important tenet of Judaism.

“It was really neat,” said Adina Knell, an eighth-grader from Manhattan Beach. “It made me feel good to help people in my own community, like I was making a difference.”

Afterward, the students walked back to Ner Tamid for pizza and a social hour, before returning by bus to their area synagogues.

“The social aspect of these events is significant,” Franko said, “and will be a part of all four projects. Again, the purpose of our program is twofold: to give these kids the opportunity to perform meaningful mitzvot and, equally as important, to provide them with a fun and comfortable atmosphere where they will develop strong friendships with other Jewish teens.”

Two more Arachim activities have been scheduled for next year. On Jan. 30, teens will learn about teshuvah (repentance) and sh’mirat ha-guf (respect for one’s body). The students will visit Beit T’Shuvah in West Los Angeles, a residential treatment facility and an agency of The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles. Beit T’Shuvah provides emotional and spiritual healing to Jews with addictive and behavioral disorders.

On April 17, the students will perform their final mitzvah for the school year, ma-achil r’ayvim (feeding the hungry). They will work at the Project Needs food bank in Redondo Beach, helping to stock shelves and prepare Passover baskets for Jewish families in need of assistance.

The Arachim program is open to all eighth- and ninth-grade students, regardless of synagogue affiliation. For more information or to become involved as an adult volunteer, call Robin Franko, (310) 375-0863.

 

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Pacino Adds Depth to ‘Merchant’ Villain

Leave a Comment / Entertainment /

 

There is little doubt that the first film version of William Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice” will find its detractors.

Literary purists may be horrified by liberties taken by director-screenwriter Michael Radford, including a 50-minute cut in the play’s original three-hour length.

Champions of family values may object to the rather obvious homosexual relationship between Venetian noblemen Antonio (Jeremy Irons) and Bassanio (Joseph Fiennes).

And Jews may wonder what good is served, in this day and age, by reviving the most famous anti-Semitic stereotype in Western culture.

Yet this is a movie well-worth seeing for the fine performances of its Anglo-American cast, its colorful, teeming recreation of 16th century Venice and, most, for the complex and heart-wrenching portrait of Shylock, the Jewish moneylender, evoked by Al Pacino.

I first encountered “The Merchant of Venice” in 1939 as a brand new immigrant and sole Jew in an eighth-grade class at Lower Merion Junior High School, outside Philadelphia, and the traumatic impact has stayed with me since.

For those who were deprived of this experience — and of the visceral American anti-Semitism of that time — here’s a brief refresher on the plot line.

In the Venice of 1594, then the most powerful and liberal city-state in Europe, the profligate young Bassanio needs money to woo and marry the lovely and accomplished Portia. He turns to his older friend, the merchant Antonio, who, temporarily short of cash, asks Shylock to lend him 3,000 ducats. The moneylender, who has been consistently humiliated by Antonio, demands no interest but instead a pound of flesh should the merchant not repay the debt on time.

When Antonio defaults, Shylock appears before the duke to execute the penalty but is foiled by Portia, disguised as a young lawyer, who turns the tables on Shylock. He leaves the scene as a broken man, the more so since his daughter, Jessica, has run off with a Christian, taking along much of her father’s fortune.

A New Yorker cartoon in the 1940s showed Hitler bestowing a Nazi medal on Shakespeare for writing the play, but as times have changed, so has the villainous caricature of Shylock.

Nevertheless, to make a film of so embedded a stereotype is a challenge, as even the daring Orson Welles learned when he had to abandon an identical project.

In the present case, director Radford and his cast have done well. On a technical level, the intimacy of the camera conveys facial closeups and character expressions not perceived in a stage play, while the beauty and bustle of Venice form a handsome backdrop.

While it would be condescending to label the film as politically correct, a great deal of care has been taken to place Shylock within the context of his time and place.

An on-screen prologue, accompanied by an elegiac Hebrew melody and the burning of prayer books, explains that Venetian Jews were confined to a district containing a cannon foundry (“getto” in Italian), restricted to the occupation of money-lending, forced to wear a distinctive red hat and were frequently brutalized.

In the very first scene, Shylock civilly greets Antonio in a market square, who responds by spitting in Shylock’s face.

But ultimately, it is the talent of Pacino (who played another reviled Jew, Roy Cohn of McCarthy infamy, in HBO’s “Angels in America”) who elevates Shylock from a two-dimensional, vengeful villain to a fully fleshed, tortured and humiliated human being.

In the classic monologue, “Hath not a Jew eyes?” to the closing, “The villainy you teach me I will execute,” Pacino conveys centuries of hurt and persecution.

And in the final scene, a distraught, impoverished Shylock, forced to convert to Christianity, stands bareheaded outside a synagogue — as always, the eternal outsider.

“The Merchant of Venice” opens at theaters nationwide on Dec. 29.

 

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