“It's all about relationships.” -Ron Wolfson, Relational Judaism: Using the Power of Relationships to Transform the Jewish Community
It’s true. The most important thing you can do as a religious school teacher is create and foster opportunities for your students to build relationships with each other, with you and the other people in your synagogue community. How to get started? Jump in – before school even starts.
Here are three things you can do right now to get ready:
- Send an email to your students’ parents. Ask the parents to send you an email (before the first day of school) sharing a few interesting things about their child. Suggest they share the child’s favorite extracurricular activity, a hobby or something special the child did over the summer. Ask for a picture too!
- Jot a few notes to yourself about each child (pictures help!). This way when your students arrive, you can use this information as a conversation starter (and continue with these conversations over the coming weeks). Won’t the students be surprised when you know something special about them already?
- Consider hanging up the photos of the students on the door or bulletin board – add a few words of welcome, or consider a bulletin board titled “Did you know…” and add an interesting ‘fact’ about each child. Of course, creating the bulletin board could be a good first day activity, with each student contributing his/her own ‘facts’.
Welcoming your students on the first day is just the beginning of building a relationship that will grow throughout the year.
Next posting… Opening Circle: A way to build community
Diane Zimmerman is the Assistant Head of Education Department at Temple Sinai in Washington D.C.
