Start Small and Think Big: The AVI CHAI Harvard Experience

AVI CHAI will once again sponsor day school leaders to attend one of two institutes at The Principals’ Center at the Harvard Graduate School of Education this summer. Not only will participating leaders gain from the Harvard education – they also will become part of a year-long project-based school change process to enhance and advance the Judaic mission of their school.
Curious what such an experience and project could look like? Below is a guest post from a program participant describing what she has gained and how it is affecting change in her school. Read it and then apply to participate this summer! Deadline is March 20, 2015.
Amy Platt, Ph.D, Bialik Hebrew Day School (Toronto, Canada)
In July 2014, I participated in “Leadership: An Evolving Vision” (LEV) at Harvard as part of the AVI CHAI-sponsored yearlong school enhancement program.  The high-calibre Harvard speakers, group facilitators and participants, combined with the nightly AVI CHAI sessions for day school leaders, created a rich experience which I continue to reflect on and learn from eight months later.
At Harvard, I was encouraged to reflect a lot about school culture and how to shift it effectively.  What culture did I want in my school?  For me, the answer was clear – I wanted a school where adult learning is valued, and where all teachers – Judaic and secular subjects together – are committed to the Jewish mission of our school: raising students with strong Jewish and Canadian identities. My summer experience, which combined incredible learning at Harvard and a Jewish lens supplied by AVI CHAI, helped me develop a concrete and exciting plan that merged these two goals: engaging faculty leaders in a Jewish learning program.
My project started small, but with huge potential. Five times this school year, ten teachers – an even split between general and Jewish studies teachers – met to study Jewish texts relevant to Jewish life in our school.  The purpose of these sessions was to help teachers better understand our school mission and thus more consistently infuse their work with its central Jewish values. Each session included 90 minutes of teaching by a “Guest Jew,” a respected member of the Toronto community, on a topic pertinent to Jewish values at Bialik, with Jewish texts at the core.  In the subsequent 90 minutes, we connected our learning to our school culture, and looked at how relevant educational issues could be processed through a Jewish lens.
This project has been deeply influenced by inspiring ideas from Harvard about building school culture and facilitating effective groups. Rather than focus on specific curricular areas or find something that would be instantly relevant for all teachers, we used the school’s Jewish mission to unite these ten teachers.  Not only are these teachers working hard to infuse their own curricula with Jewish values both explicitly and implicitly, but they are also becoming a central pillar of strength in our school.  A new cohort of faculty already signed up to do this next year, evidence that the culture of learning and growth around Jewish texts is catching on. The potential for future participation is great, and will impact the school for years to come.
From Harvard I learned to start small and think big; from the AVI CHAI sessions, it became clear to me that every teacher in our building is a Jewish educator; and the yearlong framework helped me to strategize my project and see it through.  It was the perfect professional development program.
The AVI CHAI Harvard experience offered me a week of intense personal and professional growth, and gave me a set of skills, concepts and strategies that I brought home with me for the benefit of my school, my faculty but most of all our students.  Don’t miss this incredible opportunity!
Apply for your Harvard experience today!
Amy Platt, Ph.D. is Director of General Studies at Bialik Hebrew Day School, Toronto, Canada