Rabbi Jim: Still Learning

While studying at Teachers College, I took a class on Education Law that was co-listed with Columbia Law School. For those of us in the education program, the professor provided additional readings and took the time to explain foundational legal concepts such as contracts, torts, and property law. He also offered a simple yet elegant framework for analyzing legal cases : The Three P’s - Power, Process, Product. In some cases, the key question revolved around power - who had it, who didn’t, and whether authority or jurisdiction had been properly exercised. Other cases turned on process – the procedures, steps, or barriers that determined how actions were taken or blocked. Finally, the product referred to the outcome or judgment—the relief granted and its potential implications for future cases. The Three P’s are deeply interrelated. Power shapes process. Process influences product. And product can change reality, including power and future processes. This approach helps explain wh...

My career in Jewish Education began as an inexperienced, underpaid camp counselor. My training consisted of someone telling me that if I could be a Dugmah Isheet – a role model – and be passionate about being Jewish, I’d be a good counselor. Years later, while pursuing education degrees, I realized, of course, that being an educator is a much more complex endeavor.  In fact, as I worked as a Head of School, attended conferences, read education journals, and called colleagues for advice, it became very clear that I, as an educator, was forever destined to be a work in progress. The various skill sets I needed to run a school – budgets, personnel, curriculum, board work, fundraising, technology, public speaking, and marketing – developed with time and experience and continue to do so. But from those early years, through several decades in the field, I’ve come to realize it’s not just what an educator knows or can do , but who they are as an Educational Leader . What is a Jew...