by Tamar Davis, CEO
We are now in the heart of this High Holy Days season, when we are all praying and preparing for a sweet new year filled with good health, prosperity, success, peace and so much more. And as our schools also begin their new school year, educators are praying and preparing for those exact same things for their students.
So how are school leaders preparing thoughtfully and intentionally to create a dynamic and fruitful (Rosh Hashanah pun intended) experience where all students can discover the joy of learning? One way is by taking part in one of Gateways’ professional development workshops, where educators from supplementary religious schools and early learning centers come together to learn from Gateways experts on a range of topics.
Leading into this school year, several schools asked us for a workshop focused on addressing behavior proactively in the early childhood classroom. The goals of this workshop were to establish how to define challenging behavior and its impacts, understand why children engage in challenging behavior, and to identify strategies that will decrease challenging behavior and enrich the environment for all children in the preschool classroom. One participant shared, “I so appreciate how [this workshop] gave us concrete tools, time to practice, and a theoretical framework that can be applied beyond the tools [that were provided].”
I hope we are all giving ourselves the gift of time during this season to reflect on what we are praying for in this coming year, and perhaps even more importantly, on how we are preparing and educating ourselves in our own ways to make the lives of the young people in our community a little bit sweeter. Shabbat shalom and Gmar chatimah tovah – may we be sealed for a good year.
Tamar Davis,
Chief Executive Officer