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| Winter 2007 | |
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Why would sixth graders want to
study history? For our students, we
knew the answer would come if they
could see the connection to their own
personal history. That's why we
brought the first chapter of Jonathan
Sarna’s and Jonathan Krasner's The
History of the Jewish People, "The
Early Israelites: Adapting to a Changing
World," into the students’ homes.
What exactly is a changing world? What’s the connection? Our students were going to find out for themselves. We gave each sixth grader a form requesting information about their families, beginning with their greatgrandparents— when and where they were born and died, where they lived, and at least one personal family story as retold by their parents. At the same time, in order to integrate this study of the students' ancestors with our Matriarchs and Patriarchs, we taught them the Avot and G’vurot in the Hebrew classes. |
We then invited families to a Sunday morning program in which they transferred the information from their child’s form onto a beautiful family tree certificate. The twenty-two participating families then gathered together to hear the children share their family’s stories with the group. They were fascinated to discover that many families came from the same small towns in Russia and Eastern Europe.  |
We made the historical connection even more tangible—and colorful—by giving each family a string of pop-beads. As they completed their story they connected their pop-bead string with the next family. At the end of the stories all the pop-beads were connected and we had a superb visual representation of the families' link through their common Jewish roots. The sentiments of the group were warmly expressed by one participant: "We can't wait to frame and hang our family tree. This is a wonderful way to begin our family’s Bat Mitzvah year." Lynda Gutcheon is Director of Education at The Temple, Nashville, TN. You can reach her at lindagutcheon@comcast.net. |
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