Who Was Emma Lazarus, and What Made Her Famous? It's a Stumper!

Yesterday, I introduced the students in both sessions to an optional program that I've been running in my classes - the "Stumper/Challenge" program. Many years ago, I finally came to grips with the fact that a religious school setting was not going to provide the time I wished for, to share aspects of our wonderful Jewish world with my students that we don't have time for in our curriculum.

Instead, I developed an incentive program (the incentive being a $10.00 Toys 'R Us gift certificate) which would allow the students who participated to not only learn about what is happening in the Jewish world, but to become teachers and spread what they learn with their fellow Edot students. The program works as follows:

There are sentence strips hanging on the bulletin boards and walls of our Edot classroom, each with a stumper question or challenge written on it. At the top of the strip is the category for the stumper/challenge - "Jewish World," "Holidays," "Jewish History," "Israel," or "Tana'ch" (Hebrew Bible).

The stumper questions may have something to do with what we're studying, or not. In most cases, the stumper question is hanging close to a newspaper article or printout from the internet in which the students can find the answer. I've even made it easy for them to find the answer in the article, by highlighting in yellow important parts of the article, including the answer itself.

There are some questions the answers to which are found in books in our classroom - for example, many of the holiday stumper questions are taken from the "All About Jewish Holidays and Customs" book standing on our window sill. There are also worksheets hanging on the wall (especially in the holiday section), for which the students can receive credit toward the gift certificate.

When a student believes s/he has found the answer, s/he lets me know (out of earshot of the other students), and if the  answer is correct, s/he receives one sticker from me (currently I'm giving out dreydl and menorah stickers). These stickers are placed on a clean sheet of paper, with the student's full name at the top, and is kept in the student's folder on our counter.

Some sentence strips have challenges written on them, which take more time and effort to answer - for example, under the oval Hebrew calendar chart on one wall, is the challenge to memorize the 12 Hebrew months, beginning with the month of Tishrei in which we celebrate the High Holy Days. If a student succeeds with a challenge, s/he receives 5 stickers.

Once a student has accumulated 20 stickers, s/he earns the gift certificate, and can begin to collect more stickers toward another gift certificate - there is no limit to how many gift certificates a student can earn during the school year.

There is one more way to earn stickers - writing a book report. I have a page of detailed instructions on the counter in the classroom, if any student would like to write a one-sided, typewritten report. The report is worth 10 stickers, and I will accept up to 4 book reports from each student per year. At the end of the year, I photocopy the reports, and hand them out to all the Edot students to take home as an annotated summer reading list.

How do the learners become the students, you may ask? Once a student accepts a sticker for correctly answering a stumper question, s/he agrees to become a teacher for that question. If another student asks if s/he has answered a particular question, and s/he has, s/he is required to share the answer with the second student. If for some reason s/he can't recall the answer, s/he can come to me and I will check the chart I keep of which stumpers each student has answered, and if, indeed, the student has answered the question already, I'll remind her/him of the answer to share with the second student. This is my sneaky way of exposing the students to as many aspects of our amazing Jewish world as possible in the little time we have together.

I have told the students that they can answer stumper questions before class (if they arrive early and I'm in the classroom), during hafsaka (recess), but never after school, since our traffic situation is complicated and I don't want to have parents waiting for their children and holding up the line. The students are also very welcome to call me with a stumper answer or to e-mail me. If you don't have my phone number and/or e-mail address, please call Daniella in our JQuest office and she'll share them with you. Challenges do have to be done in person in front of me, since so many require memorization or pointing to a chart in the classroom.

Since I change the stumpers and challenges every 5-6 weeks (usually when we finish a unit of study, and more frequently to match the holidays), I've promised this year to make use of my blog to post the questions and challenges and keep them updated so that the students can refer to the questions even when they're not in class. Even after I remove a stumper or challenge from the wall, a student is welcome to answer or perform it until the very last week of school. You'll find a list of the current stumpers and challenges at the end of this post.

At the start of each session yesterday, I introduced the historical novel that I'll be reading the first 10-15 minutes of each weekday and Sunday session during our first semester - "Out of Many Waters" by Jacqueline Dembar Greene. It is a wonderful introduction to our first unit of study - our very own American edah. It is the first of two books written by Ms. Greene which share the Sephardi (Spanish/Portuguese Jewish) experience during the Spanish Inquisition period; the first book, which I'm reading to the students, shares the story of how the first permanent Jewish community in North America was established in 1654, in New Amsterdam (present day New York); the second, called "One Foot Ashore," shares the story of the exiled Sephardi community in Amsterdam. I won't have time to read this last book in class, but I highly recommend it to my students. If any of them would like to write a book report about it, I have a copy to lend from my classroom and our Isaiah library has a copy as well!

We continued yesterday to have more fun with our Hebrew Through Movement program, reviewing more basic command vocabulary: (na = please; l'heestovev = turn; la'atzor al yad = stop next to; keer = wall; yafeh = nice; achshav = now; l'hatzbee'a al = point to; mapa shel yisrael = map of Israel; rosh = head; la'seem = put; yad = hand)

At the end of each session, we had our first music lesson with our new JQuest music director, Revital, and her music aide, Michaela. They had us play games this first session, to help us learn to sing a melody silently in our heads to improve our focus. We sang the "Oseh Shalom" prayer out loud first, then were asked to sing it silently and only sing three words out loud when they came up in the melody - "shalom," "yisrael," and "amen" and then, a second time singing out loud only the words "oseh," "ya'aseh," "aleinu," and "kol."

Revital is standing on the right, Michaela on the left; we're scheduled for a 15-minute music lesson every couple of weeks, together with the other two 5th/6th grade tracks.

During our t'fila (prayer) service between the two sessions, we listened to Rabbi LeVine sound the shofar (Jews all over the world are required by Rabbinic law to listen to the sound of the shofar each day except for Shabbat during the entire month of Elul). Rabbi Greninger finished the service by having us all stand and sing the Israeli national anthem, "Ha'tikva." We will  try to end each Sunday service with the anthem. When you click on the link to the "Hatikva" above, I hope you'll have a chance to listen to the recording made of Bergen-Belsen survivors singing the anthem on April 20, 1945. It's very moving!

STUMPERS AND CHALLENGES:

Jewish History/Jewish World Stumpers:
Who was Emma Lazarus and what made her famous?
What was Harry Houdini originally named?
Name 3 things that Haym Salomon did to help the U.S. become a free nation.
How many Jewish grave sites are in California's Gold Rush country?
Who was Louisa May Alcott descended from?
To which U.S. state did many Jews flee in the late 1400's, and why?
What patent did Levi Strauss take out for his "gold miner's" pants?
Where did Jewish peddlers get the things they sold?
What did the ship agents promise those who traveled to California during Gold Rush days?
Give one reason Jews became cattle farmers in California's Gold Rush country.
What did Barbra Streisand's grandfather do for a living?
Who was Uriah P. Levy, and how did he help preserve U.S. history?
 
Holiday Stumpers:
Why are we not allowed to blow the shofar on Shabbat?
How might you not fulfill the mitzvah of "hearing" the shofar?
The Talmud says, "Intelligence, not work." What does this have to do with blowing a shofar?
Name the major Jewish holidays which fall in each Hebrew month.
When and why did the Kol Nidre prayer come to have a greater and deeper meaning for Jews?

Calendar Challenge:
Memorize the 12 Hebrew months in order, beginning with Tishrei.

Israel Stumpers:
What is "Jerusalem Fever?"
Who is Israel's current Prime Minister?/current President?
What is the Knesset?
What is "Birthright Israel" and why is it so important?
Why was there a music "renaissance" in Israel during the 1990's which continues to this day?
Who are the peoples who live in Israel's borders with the Jews? 

Tana'ch Challenge:
Name all the 13 tribes of Israel. (Yes - 13! - Jacob had 12 sons, but his favorite, Joseph, did not have one tribe named after him;  instead, he had 2 tribes named for his 2 sons - you get an extra sticker if you can name Joseph's two sons!)