The following suggestion was made on the Lookjed List a
few weeks ago and, with the author's permission, I am sharing it with the
readers of this blog. I think this is a great trigger exercise to experiment to
see where your students are at with regards to tefilla, regardless of
their age:
I've been doing this for several years; it does wonders towards sensitizing our talmidim towards the importance and beauty of tefilla.
1. Each student writes on a piece of paper their answers to the following two questions:
a. What does tefilla do for and/or mean to me?
b. What is my favorite tefilla and why?
2. I then collect and read the responses to the entire class (I do it anonymously as to not emabarass anyone). The kids always listen eagerly to what their classmates write and feel.
3. I then type all of this up, with a cover letter, for each student and parent to keep as their own. My method: I write the first question followed by all of the responses, and then the same for the second question.
May we all be inspired by our talmidim!
Avi Herzog
Moriah School, Englewood, NJ
This is a powerful idea, and could possibly be even more powerful, if it the questions and responses were posted online (in a safe environment) and could be commented on in realtime.
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