Tiered Tefilla Options

The following was posted on Lookjed on July 15th asking an important question of educators to reapproach how davening happens in schools.  Please share your experiences and ideas:
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As an administrator in a middle school, I am sure I share a passion and concern with many others to consider new options that might help engender a more interested and involved connection for our students to have during Tefillah. While individual programs, speakers and Yemei Iyun have certainly brought about short term interest, I am eager to touch base with anyone who has seen or used an approach that has brought about a more sustained and inherent growth, relative to what they had previously observed.  

In our school, we are currently considering offering three tiers of Tefillah options. One would be designed for those students who feel most ready and capable of being self-motivated throughout Tefillah. Perhaps there would be 1 teacher on each side of the Mechitza to facilitate, but the students would really run the Minyan. A 2nd option would be for the group of ms students who benefit from reminders to open their siddur, not to have side conversations etc. This group would benefit from the largest presence of teachers. A 3rd option would be for those students that have real difficulty or disinterest in the concept of Tefillah and would possibly benefit from a shortened Tefillah enhanced with more discussions, readings, etc.
If anyone has tried a similar approach and could help guide our attempt by sharing your successes or challenges met, I would greatly appreciate it.  

Tavi Koslowe
tkoslowe@yeshivatnoam.org

Rav Schachter's Advice for Teaching Tefilla

I have been meaning to share the following interview With Rav Schachter about leading tefillah in day schools (I found this and other resources on tefilla at YU's High Sschool Chinuch Community website).

Whether you know who Rav Hershel Schachter is or not, I think that this video offers a candid glimpse into Orthodox Judaim's educational approach and qualms about tefilla.   Rarely in life do you see an interview of someone tops in their fields talking about the basic A, B's and C's of their subject field and pedagogical approaches for high schools students.

I am amazed at this interviewer's (Rabbi Kenny Schiowitz) approach to the challenging scenarios for contemporary educators and what questions were posed and not posed to this scholar.  Further, it is important to note how Rav Schachter is very open that he doesn't have much practical experience with implementing such approaches in the classrooms "with younger children".  The following are my gleanings from the Rav Schachter's answers:

• Tefilla should be considered optional in schools were students would want to opt out.
• Teaching the siddur is more important than teaching gmera (Talmud)
• Even Rav Schachter abbreviates his tefilla to accommodate what the community does - but it is important for teachers to be with their students, even if you have to interrupt your own tefilla.  
• The repetition of the leader (hazerat ha'shatz) could be dropped from school tefilla as was the practice of Morrocan Jews following the legal ruling of the Rambam (which reflected a low level of interest in the practice).
• Orthodox kids are not connecting to davening and this needs to be addressed seriously and with educational flexibility. 

As an educator, I think this session opens a lot of questions regarding how tefilla is working in schools today.  Are there Orthodox schools that are implementing any of Rav Schachter's approaches?

Best to end with his final words, "oy, we all have to improve in our davening!"

School Prayer

Last week, I visited/participated in tefillot at high school in Los Angeles.  Oh, what a way to start your day!  Perhaps it is just an impossible task to harness the energy of a teenager at 7:45 in the morning, especially when they don't want to daven.

I am curious - and would love feed back from high school teachers - if your school has one, are you obligated to go to morning minyan?  Is it part of your compensation package or job description?  Do you enjoy it and find it transcendental?

Perhaps this post is just a venting of my frustration but I must point out that something is just not working in this school.  Most of the kids were not into it and the measure for this statement was the level of participation.  Cleverly, the school recites the entire Shema aloud which I think shows both its theological importance and teaches proper pronunciation (one person told it me it was also because they students usually had to wait for the rabbi to finish which led to a lot of chit chat). It was the teachers who were mostly chanting the tefilla, and I noticed that barely about half of the students were moving their lips, let alone saying it aloud.

The atmosphere of the tefilla was such that one teacher stood in the center of the room near the Torah table, frowning most of the time. Seemingly his job there was to record who was on time or late, and to wake up or refocus those that were drifting away.  He worked the room, ambling over to awaken a few sleepy heads and silence a few conversations (I saw one kid hide his iphone as this teacher drew close).  This was the model of tefilla management that I remembered but thought had disappeared. Are there schools that have empowered their students to daven?   In the coming days I will be reviewing one project by a community day school that davens as a community twice a month and has successfully changed the culture of prayer.

As for my experience in Los Angeles,  I am praying that the next time I visit this school something, anything would be different in the davening atmosphere.

Confessions of a Third Grade Tefilla Teacher

The following post was submitted anonymously. Care to share, agree or disagree?

The way I see it, there are two sides to our dilemma on Tfillah. Them and me.

THEM: Do children in third grade know what they are saying when they daven? Should they know the meaning of what they are saying? When kids (or anyone) read words that are unfamiliar and hard to understand, it can help turn something potentially meaningful into something meaningless.

Secondly, I think the fact that the children say the tfillah with the same brachas and the same songs each day can get very old and boring for them. On Rosh Chodesh actually, I always find that there is some excitement and more participation, as we say Hallel- a tfillah which is not recited every day.

Finally, let’s consider the developmental aspect of it all. How much can an 8/9 year old truly grasp when it comes to the whole concept of tfillah?

ME: In my years teaching and parenting, there is one thing that has become very clear. You’re excited, they’re excited. You’re bored or uninterested? They sense it in an instant, and they turn bored and uninterested as well. I have to be honest; I always found it very hard to connect with the tfillah. My personal feelings towards tfillah undoubtedly spill over into the class. And my brilliant students sense it, that I’m sure.

I always dread the parts of the day where I have to ask the children to do an activity or go to a specialty I am sure they do not enjoy and are not interested in. I always find that the disciplinarian in me becomes stronger as I almost force certain children to a dreaded music class or Hebrew grammar group. This is the way I feel sometimes about tfillah. At 8:30 every morning we must daven. We have no choice. Making the children do something they do not want to do is never fun.

Lastly, (it is confession time) The first half hour of the day I want to be preparing for class. My mind is very often on our lessons for that day. I would love the extra prep time like the English teachers have. While I know that tfillah is part of my job and essentially part of what I ‘teach,’ I am still struggling with making it feel as part of my curriculum as opposed to a separate entity.

WHAT I’VE TRIED: My most successful ‘trick’ in getting the children more “into” tfillah is what I like to call the “color war captain” method. When I stand on my chair and punch my fist, when I cheer them on and tell them that their tfillot sound beautiful, it can create this energy in the room that is infectious. My class has been known to do the “bang-bang-clap” to aleynu. I’m into it, they’re into it… The problem with this is that it is extremely draining for me. And by the time 9:00 rolls around I’m exhausted.

In third grade one can always fall back on bribery. Charts, stickers, checks, homework passes etc. I have always had mixed feelings about bribing children to daven. Maybe at such a young age where the concept of tfillah is a hard one to grasp it’s ok?

Finally, we began a program called “tfillah-minute” in school a couple of years ago. After davening each day the children sat down, and for one minute, we spoke about a certain aspect of tfillah: the meaning of a bracha, the reason for saying a bracha etc. It was an organized and systematic program where we focused on one part of tfillah at a time. I had success with this in my class for one year. The next year was not as successful because of the nature of the group.

While I think I understand the issues, and have come up with a few solutions, I have not been able to nip this in the bud completely. How do I become more into it? How do I get my students to become more into tfillah?