A workshop about workshops (papercutting meets Inception)

[PUBLISHED SIMULTANEOUSLY ON THE DREAM LAB BLOG]

I had a fascinating experience the other night. I was teaching a workshop in papercutting — but I do that a lot. What made this a different experience was that I was in a class of graduate school students in an education program, and I wasn't really teaching them papercutting; I was actually teaching them about teaching papercutting.

Each of the fellows in the AJU Dream Lab program that I'm a part of this year is doing a similar thing – doing what we do in the classroom but for this graduate school class instead, as part of our efforts to figure out how we can incorporate the arts into traditional Jewish education, to reinvigorate and revitalize it.

The class was led by Dr. Rachel Lerner, Graduate Center for Jewish Education at AJU. The first half of the night was taught by Rabbi Adam Greenwald, who shared with us some fascinating ideas about Passover (and teaching Passover). My workshop went as most of them do – I introduced the subject, the tools, and did a bit on knife safety… and then we got into cutting. Everyone worked on a papercut related to Passover, which they designed themselves. What made it so different for me was that every time I had a moment where I was internally thinking about my process, I was allowed and, in fact, encouraged to speak aloud about the process and generate a discussion. Very meta!

The work that all of the students created was wonderful, and I'm always impressed at how people who have never held a knife before can nonetheless create such beauty with such relevance to our tradition. But on top of that, I was really able to think about how I present and teach, and how I can tell if/what my students are hearing and understanding what I'm saying. The feedback I got from this class enabled me to fine-tune my approach, and think more deeply about my intentions and ways to measure my results.

I think I naturally have a bit of self-doubt when I'm leading a workshop – I don't believe that it affects the process, and students seem to really enjoy it and get a great deal out of it, but nonetheless I do – in my head – sometimes find myself asking myself questions about my approach and efficacy. This was an opportunity to voice those questions out loud, and to improve my technique through interaction with this class and their suggestions and feedback.

In the end, it proved really useful to me – because I think one of the hardest parts of being in a classroom setting in leading a workshop is not always getting feedback on the process from the students. Sometimes they're too young, or they just lack the background to provide feedback on what they've experienced. In this case, the participants were perfectly suited to deliver feedback and suggestions for improvement, and I am grateful for the opportunity to have been in the classroom with them.

Dream Lab Think Tank at AJU: Post #1

This is first in an occasional series of posts about the American Jewish University (AJU) Dream Lab – a think tank of artists and educators developing a programmatic vision for infusing the field of Jewish education with creativity through the arts.

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I'm honored to have been chosen as one of the Fellows in the AJU Dream Lab program for the 2015-2016 academic year. I'll share more about the program and our plans in future posts, but for now I wanted to write up a few thoughts on this week's Torah portion, after a discussion we had at today's session, the first for our team.

Miriam Heller Stern, the Dean of Graduate Center for Education at AJU, led a discussion on a teaching from Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, former chief rabbi of the United Kingdom, and technically a "lord" as well as a knight. (Knighted! A rabbi!) He wrote that the creation story consists of three parts:

1. God says, "let there be..."
2. And there was...
3. And it was good.

Miriam followed Sacks' idea that this is a reflection of the creative process: we intend to create, we create, and then we evaluate. But it occurred to me that it also served as a good analogy for the teaching process, which is (of course) part of what we're discussing in the Dream Lab. How so?

1. We need to get our students to accept the role of creator/artist – willing to undertake the effort to make something.

2. The students must engage with the materials and create something, in an authentic and sincere process.

3. The students must be able to acknowledge that they have made something of value – that they are, by definition, creators and artists, and that their work is meaningful.

This all goes to my point that everyone can be a creator – everyone can find the spark within them to make something, in whatever medium they like... but they often need to be first told that they can do this. They need to be told – and shown – that art isn't something other people do, but rather something we all can do. And that the work of our minds and hands is valuable and important, and we are worthy of the title creator/artist.

After all, we are told that the process of creation which began at the birth of the universe is an ongoing process even to this day, and that we must partner with God to continue it. On Shabbat we remember that we are partners with God in creation, and that we must work to make something valuable and important – that is our role, and our destiny.