Congregation Beth Am, Los Altos Hills, CA

Shabbaton Family Education Program

The RE-IMAGINE Project of New York, Sponsored by UJA-Federation of New YorkRE-IMAGINE is a project of the Experiment in Congregational Education of the

Rhea Hirsch School of Education, Hebrew-Union College, Jewish Institute of Religion, Los AngelesCopyright, 2004

The primary goal of our lifelong learning program is to create a community at Beth Am in which our congregants will value Jewish education highly and engage in it regularly so that they may become committed, knowledgeable, participating, Reform Jews. They will be able to make informed Jewish choices and will live up to the highest ideals of our tradition. Using our lifelong Jewish learning map as a content guide, we will employ a variety of teaching methods designed to attract, engage, and challenge learners of all ages, interests, backgrounds, and abilities. We will create a program that is integrated, enabling our congregants to make connections among various Jewish content areas and experiences. We commit ourselves to recruiting and retaining lay leaders, teachers, and staff of the highest caliber. We will continuously identify and address obstacles and barriers to learning so that no congregant will be inhibited from participating fully in our programs.

Congregation Beth Am Education Vision

Written 1992, Revised by Board of Directors 2000

Original Shabbaton goals Developed by ECE Task Force (BAEC)

circa 1993:Shabbaton is for families to celebrate Jewish life by:

•Having fun together while learning on Shabbat.•Developing a stronger sense of Jewish family identity.•Building friendships with other families in the Beth Am community.•Engaging in Jewish prayer.•Developing a broad repertoire of Jewish music.•Becoming active participants in tikkun olam.

Current Shabbaton Goals Written by participants during feedback session, 2002

A Jewish family education program committed to providing a nurturing and engaging environment in which high quality, relevant content stimulates all family members to pursue a path of lifelong Jewish learning and living.

Objectives are to:

• Build community, expanding Jewish friendships for parents and children

• Build and foster Jewish identity in parents and children• Help parents and children feel pride and joy about living

Jewishly and feeling competent in their practice of Judaism

• Help families feel comfortable at Beth Am • Provide a meaningful Shabbat experience • Increase parents’ and children’s knowledge and

understanding of Judaism, Jewish history, thought, practice, music, and culture

• Provide a foundation and motivation for all participants to advance their Jewish development

Accomplish objectives by:

• Modeling lifelong learning for our children• Helping parents, children, and families teach each other• Recruiting, training, evaluating and supporting teachers

so that they can support the objectives of the program• Conducting the program on Shabbat, incorporating

Shabbat practices and rituals – Torah study, singing Jewish songs, Havdallah

• Providing a setting for learning both as families and in age-appropriate groups

• Supporting opportunities for families and individuals to interact outside the classroom

Shabbaton – 10 Years of Continual Evolution•A series of experiments

•Feedback sessions with participants and staff each year focused on understanding progress towards goals

•Focus groups•Empowerment evaluations•Surveys

•Willingness to allow the program to shift based on participant experience

•Focus on adjusting program structure, participants’ role, and interactions

•Curriculum is completely rewritten each year to address new theme – no curriculum has been repeated

YEAR 1: Limited family education. Traditional curriculum

PILOT: 6-8 Snack and storytelling sessions

YEAR 2: Full parent attendance. Theme based education. Family projects

QUESTION: When is it best for families to spend Jewish time together?

LEARNING: 4-6PM on Shabbat afternoon

LEARNING: Underestimated interest in families learning together

LEARNING: Themes work. Community building needs help

QUESTION: How do you structure the experience so that families will learn together?

QUESTION: How will theme based education work?

QUESTION: How can we build stronger community?

Innovations: Pilot – Year 2

YEAR 5: Congregant teachers

YEAR 6: Advanced adult learners

QUESTION: How do we create learning experiences for all levels of adult learners?

LEARNING: Small group adult learning satisfies some but not all

QUESTION: How do we create and sustain a teaching staff that understands goals?

LEARNING: Teacher training and relationship building

YEARS 3/4: Community building

LEARNING: Community building works when it’s planned

QUESTION: How can we build stronger community? Innovations: Years 3-6

YEAR 9: Lay leadership/administration

QUESTIONS: How do we encourage more lay ownership of the program? How do we engage the next generation of families?

LEARNING: Work is divisible with lay people playing big role. Parent orientation helps.

YEAR 10: Rebalancing social and learning time

QUESTION: How do we create more opportunities for community building?

LEARNING: Return to more all-school learning days with social time. Add all-school potluck dinners

YEAR 7/8: Graduating students and parents

QUESTION: How do we integrate graduates into other programs?

LEARNING: Need to work in cooperation with other programs

Innovations: Years 7-10

And on and on and on…

Other experiments over the yearsLength and scope of family take-home projectsAmount of adult reading between sessionsAge-based class potlucks

Still wrestling withAdvanced adult learnersTefillah beyond HavdallahAdding Tikkun Olam opportunities in addition to post-Shabbat

tzedakahMoving some sessions to Shabbat morning/interaction with

Shabbat morning Hebrew programCreating a community for older siblings

In Year 10Steady enrollment of 60+ families (at capacity)Joint professional/lay leadership of programFour of six mishpachot taught by congregants

Your Future Reflection and Evaluation

• What aspects of the pilot helped us experience our vision?

• How can we incorporate these experiences into the next phase of our pilot?

• What did we learn from the pilot that influences the vision?

• What capacities of ongoing change have we maintained/developed to help move us up the spiral?