Building a learning community and feeling comfortable in challenging situations are just two of the lessons Jewish educators from around Boulder County will get to experience during this year’s Chidush Educator Workshop.

Facilitators from the PassageWorks Institute will guide our community educators in principles developed by Rachael Kessler, z”l, to promote social, emotional and academic learning and guide teachers in forming their own intentional teaching practice.  Specifically, this training will examine this information through a Jewish lens.

The event will also honor Morah Yehudis Fishman as this year’s Grinspoon-Steinhardt Award for Excellence in Jewish Education given in partnership with JESNA.  The award is “designed to recognize, honor, and support, outstanding classroom Jewish educators on the local level” and comes with an education stipend for professional development  (JESNA website).

Fishman was chosen for the award by members of BET – the Boulder Educator Team – comprised of directors from Jewish supplementary schools from Boulder.  She has worked in Jewish education for about 50 years and has touched many people with her teachings.  Fishman teaches across denominations and connects with students of all ages.

She is a well deserving recipient of the award as revealed from the following quotations about her and her teaching:

 Morah Yehudis is outstanding because she truly loves every Jew and makes every effort, to great success, to make Torah available to them…she believes in us…This is a labor of love, a true devotion, and an encompassing passion.”

Your love of HaShem and Torah are so obvious when you teach that it radiates from you.”

Fishman is unique as an educator because she has the capacity to “move from one organization to the next, from one event to the next, always giving her Torah-Positive, Jewish-Positive message with integrity but being able to adapt the method of delivery to the crowd at hand.  She teaches…with humor, joy, humility and force.”

For so many people, Morah Yehudis is “THE bridge to Torah and Judaism.”

Morah Yehudis has been and will be an amazing resource” for our community…”She will be the teacher that so many [students] remember the most.”

The Chidush workshop is provided by 18 Pomegranates to support Jewish educators with professional development focused on new and innovative ideas in the field of education.

If you are a local Jewish educator who is not currently affiliated with a school but would like to attend the workshop being held on October 28, 2012, please contact Amy Atkins, Dare to Do Coordinator with 18 Pomegranates, at amy@18pomegranates.org by October 19.