The Value of a Quality Education

Michelle — Thu, 26 Sep 2019 19:04:21 +0000

The Value of a Quality Education

Michelle Thu, 09/26/2019 - 12:04

Lauren Friedman

Student, Graduate Center for Jewish Education

Director, Early Childhood Education, Westside JCC

Lauren Friedman has served as the Director of Early Childhood Education since February 2019. She had been WJCC's Director of Family Programs for eight years prior. Before joining WJCC’s administrative team, Lauren was a substitute teacher in our preschool (and is a 2nd generation WJCC preschool graduate!), as well as a Graduate Student Intern. Lauren truly has grown up with us!

Lauren earned her undergraduate degree from Pitzer College, a member of the Claremont Colleges Consortium, in 2007 with majors in Jewish Studies and Psychology, and a minor in Sociology. Lauren continued her education in the Dual Degree program at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion and the University of Southern California, earning a Master of Arts in Jewish Nonprofit Management (MASJNM) and a Master of Social Work (MSW) in 2011. She is currently working towards a third Master's degree in Early Childhood Education at ��ý. Lauren has served on the Executive Committee and is an active member of Jewish Communal Professionals of Southern California (JCPSC).

Lauren enjoys working for the very organization that she credits with instilling in her the passion to do Jewish communal work.

Early Childhood Education

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I applied to this program because I thought one day, maybe, I might want to try my hand at being a preschool director. I had been working as the Director of Family Programs at Westside JCC since graduating from my first round of graduate school in 2011 (MSW from USC and Masters in Jewish Nonprofit management from HUC-JIR). First a bit of background – I am a graduate of Westside JCC’s preschool and began working in the preschool when I graduated high school, and continued through college and after. I also did my graduate internship at WJCC and didn’t leave until they hired me.

In my work with family programs, I found myself more and more involved with the day to day workings of the preschool. The more I contributed, the more I thought, “Hey, maybe I want to do this one day.” When I found out about the program at AJU, it all just seemed to come together. In the midst of our second semester, a big challenge was presented to me. The JCC was looking for a new preschool director and I was to act as Interim during the search, a search that would involve my candidacy. Flash forward to the present, I am now the Director of Early Childhood Education at Westside JCC. I can absolutely say without a shred of doubt that I would not have had the confidence, the knowledge, or the skills to even conceive of doing this job without the Early Childhood Education Masters at AJU. In our child development theory class, I wrote a paper which explored my own personal philosophy of early childhood education. This led to my leading my first ever professional development workshop for my teachers on the value of positive communication with preschoolers! The quality education, as well as the support of my professors, mentors, and classmates have been invaluable. They have helped me through times of frustration, tears, hopelessness, and simcha. I am so thrilled to have gone through this experience with them. It truly feels like it was b’sheret (meant to be).

Education

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Sociology of Education

Michelle — Wed, 18 Sep 2019 18:11:36 +0000

Sociology of Education

Michelle Wed, 09/18/2019 - 11:11

by Dr. Bruce Powell

Dr. Bruce Powell

Lecturer and Mentor

Graduate Center for Jewish Education

Dr. Bruce Powell was the founder and Head of School of de Toledo High School (dTHS), formerly New Community Jewish High School, in West Hills, California. In addition to founding dTHS, he has helped to found, develop, and lead two other Jewish high schools in the Los Angeles area over the past 37 years including the Milken Community High School, and Yeshiva University of Los Angeles High School. He has also consulted on the development of 23 Jewish high schools in cities throughout the United States.

Dr. Powell holds a Ph.D. in Education from the University of Southern California, and has won both the Milken Family Foundation Jewish Educator Award (2005) and the Covenant Award (2008) for his contributions to Jewish education. Most importantly, Dr. Powell has four adult children with his wife, Deborah, and they have personally invested 52 “child” years in Jewish day school education.

Education:

PhD, University of Southern California

M.A., California State University, Northridge

B.A., University of California, Los Angeles

Early Childhood Education

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Why study sociology of education?
Why study the sociology of Jewish education?
What does this course have to do with the reality of our classrooms in our Jewish schools?

The simple answer to all three of these questions is: “Everything.”

Our students are not blank slates. They are complex beings who live within the context of what is becoming a more complex society every day. Not understanding the “society” within which our children grow up, not understanding the pressures, the media, culture, and families in which our children reside, is to be terribly hobbled as an educator. Sensitivity to the nuances of our contemporary society, and to possess an historical perspective of how we have arrived at our current social contexts, become a vital element to provide truly effective and excellent educational models and methods of teaching.

Within our Jewish context, understanding the sociology of the Jewish community emerges as an even more essential element in educating our children. In our last class, we spent a full hour mapping the intricacies of the Jewish landscape in Los Angeles. And, that landscape is, indeed, intricate, complex, and even dizzying in its size and content. We discovered there are hundreds of Jewish organizations, schools, synagogues, community groups, and streams of Judaism, just to mention the obvious. The list, at the end of the day, felt endless and almost impossible to grasp.

Yet, not grasping it, not embracing its impact on our children and upon the education we promote, is, perhaps, to fail our kids. For us as Jewish educators, failure of any kind is a failure to ensure the Jewish people’s contribution to the greater American society. Indeed, failure is not an option.

Sociology

Education

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