Welcoming Prayers and Advice on How to Pray

There is the old adage "those who can, do - those who can't, teach". As a teacher, and holder of a Masters Degree in Education I find this aphorism particularly annoying. But whenever I reflect in shul, which is often, I see that there is very little instruction on how to actually make your davening meaningful. There are plenty of texts (many of which will be reviewed in this blog) on the perfunctory steps that need to happen to effect a prayer experience and lots of equipment that is needed to give atmosphere, but very little practical advice on what to actually think about as the davening happens.

This is a forum to explore how to make prayer in general, but particularly in our schools, a more meaningful educational expression of this holy tradition. One of our first conversations will be about how to evaluate the success of these prayer sessions in schools and if there is a way to assess how the students improve and the instructor inspires and educates.