I graduate in nine days. It's surreal to think that four classes and three finals are all that stand between me and the end of my undergraduate career. Unlike some of my friends, this is not the end of school for me. I'm really excited to be starting the next phase of my life at HUC. But the Penn State chapter of my life is almost ever. It's hard to believe that four years has gone by so quickly. 

It feels like yesterday when I was complaining about living in an all girls dorm in East, the furthest possible building from anything on campus except the BJC and Beaver Stadium. Freshman year, it took five minutes just to get out of my quad. I remember my first week when I downloaded a map of Penn State onto my phone so it wouldn't look like I was a lost freshman when I was a lost freshman. I didn't want to be one of the newbies carrying around a map as I got lost on my way to class. So I carried my phone and got lost anyways. One day I was wandering around campus and managed to find my way down near the nuclear reactor. After that excursion, I quickly learned how this campus was laid out. 

Sophomore year, I moved into sorority life. No I did not join Greek life, I just lived one floor below and above them. I could hear them clacking in the stairwells as they got ready to go to a party and I could hear them in their common rooms as they practiced initiation rituals. It certainly was an experience. Sophomore year, I was finding my groove. I was a member of the Hillel student board, a teacher at Brit Shalom, a member of the PLA, and on a THON committee. I was getting involved and finding my niche at PSU. 

Junior year was a challenge, I had just changed my major, spent a trying and course-loaded semester without my boyfriend who was studying abroad, and learned that my dad was fighting cancer. I changed during the summer between sophomore and junior year. I had many new challenges thrown in my face and had to learn in a short amount of time how to handle them in my own way. I grew up a lot that summer. And the beginning of junior year I had to again figure out how to handle these struggles in front of my friends. I wasn't the same easy-going girl they had left three months earlier. I was scarred and scared, nervous and emotional, while trying to put on a brave face. 

Senior year was kind of a break. Things were working out with my family. I had a plan for graduate school. I was working on my thesis. My classes were not so hard. This semester is one of the lightest semesters I've taken at Penn State. I have two days off without classes and am only taking four classes MWF, three of which are freshman level courses. Most of my friends are stressed trying to complete end of the semester assignments while I'm sitting here, reflecting on my time at Penn State and trying to make the most of the nine days I have left here. 

It has been an incredible journey and if I could do it again, I wouldn't change anything, because all of my experiences, the good, the bad and the ugly have all made me who I am today. I would not be the person writing to you right now if weren't for Hillel, Brit Shalom, and the PLA. As you can read in my various essays and blog posts, these organizations have shaped my Penn State career into something that I will cherish forever. 

For the Glory

This week, Steven wrote in his blog about the end of the semester blues. And while I have been in his shoes, I am thankful that this semester I am not. He spoke about the influx of school work that really make him question what's the purpose of his work here. He knows what he wants out of school, but has to work that much harder to see the purpose of theory and discovery as he calls it. I admire his comment where he said he just needs a reminder from the people around him of why he's here studying at Penn State. I guess one of the big differences between myself and Steven is that he came to Penn State knowing what he was going to study and what he was going to do after school. I however came thinking one thing and then found my passion during my career here. When I got overwhelmed and lost sight of my purpose, rather than looking for reminders of hope, I found a new direction where my classes and extracurriculars reminded me everyday of what and why I was studying here. When Steven asked, "why am I stressing about an engineering question" he answered it knowing that application of what he was learning was much more important in the long run than the specific details of chemical orientation. On the other hand, when I asked myself the same question two years ago, my answer was "I don't know" and promptly switched my major. I give Steven credit for sticking with his program and I wish him all the best of luck in the next two weeks! I, however, am enjoying the last weeks of senior year from the comforts of my apartment and the various lawns around campus as I relax with some netflix and a good book. :)

Well, it's finished. All 99 pages of it. It's hard to imagine that I could write 99 pages on a single topic in the course of a 16-credit semester and four part-time jobs. While yes this semester was a "light" course load for me, writing 99 pages did not feel as cumbersome as I thought it would. And I'm quite proud of the finished product. 
For my honors thesis, I wrote about the Hebrew school curriculum in two synagogues that I'm connected with. They both use the same curriculum and have interesting similarities and differences that could potentially affect the effectiveness of the curriculum. CHAI was developed by the URJ (Union for Reform Judaism) as a way of nationalizing Reform Jewish values in American congregations. There are seven levels, sub divided into strands that are continuous throughout all the levels. The lessons plans are carefully outlined to transfer enduring understandings or big ideas to students focusing on Reform Jewish values. There is a lot of front matter, introductory material that contextualizes the lesson for the teacher before the lesson outline and learning activities. As a teacher and a college student, I can say first hand that the front matter typically gets ignored by my peers and they head straight for the learning activities when planning their lesson for the class. Without that introductory material, the teachers potentially miss learning about the importance of certain questions or activities. 

The purpose of my thesis was to explore the effectiveness of this curriculum in a setting of mostly college-student teaches versus part time professionals (most of the teachers at the other school work full time and teach on the side, they are also older than their students, especially when compared to the age differences between college students and elementary school kids. The different learning philosophies of the education director and the emphasis on education within both synagogues also has affects on the effectiveness of the curriculum, in addition to classroom size and congregation size. 

I surveyed teachers, students, and education directors at both schools with the hope of equalizing the questions in order to effectively compare the differences of the schools. In addition to analyzing my survey in the paper, I provided background information on education in the Reform movement, backward design, which is the educational theory on which CHAI is based, a brief history of the schools I worked with, and examined previous studies similar to the one I was about to conduct. 

This is the largest work I have ever written. And besides its length, I am proud of my thesis because the topic is something I am deeply passionate about. This kind of work is what I will be doing after graduate school. Not on this scale, but analyzing curricula is an important job of the education director at a school to make sure that the lessons that are being taught first are taught well but also that they fit with the philosophy of the school and synagogue. When I went for my interview at grad school, I was able to talk about what I was researching and the interview committee was impressed. Some of the teachers and education directors I worked with were curious to see the finished product to see what I had come up with. I hope that this thesis exemplifies my ability to research and synthesize material as well as present and analyze my findings in a clear and explanatory way. 

Tuesday night marks the end of my last Passover at Penn State. I had the honor of leading the women's Seder for e third year in a row. I compiled this Seder during spring break of my sophomore year and we have been using it at Hillel ever since. The wonderful Elise led with me and it was a very enjoyable experience. This year was a little different at Hillel since we had six Seders occurring simultaneously. Their were two conservative style Seders, a Freedom Seder, an LGBTA Seder, the women's Seder and a Seder on one foot (all the important parts very quickly). This set up was nice for two reasons. The first is that attendees had their choice of which seder they wanted to attend. The different themes allowed Hillel to cosponsor and advertise this event to a larger audience. Finally, cleanup was a breeze this year thanks to two reasons. One, the Seders were all finished at different points; the cleanup crew did not have to break down three hundred table settings in one shot. Additionally, the HRIM catering club helped us out setting up, serving, and cleaning up from Passover. This event would not have gone nearly as smoothly without their generous help. 

The women's Seder was lovely. We had about 15 people attend, the majority of whom had been to the Seder before. We went around the table and everyone participated in reading from the Haggadah (the book with the prayers and story of the exodus from Egypt). I loved this Seder when my mom started leading it at our synagogue at home. For some reason it just felt more comfortable than the large impersonal Seder that the synagogue typically had. I wanted to bring that same experience to Hillel, and I hope I accomplished that through this Seder. 

I hosted 15 people at my house for the second night Seder. I spent most of the day Sunday after Hebrew school cooking and preparing for Tuesday's festive meal. Passover is my favorite of all the Jewish holidays, mostly because I love the Seder meal. I spend a lot of time last week on the phone with my mom getting recipes and trading menus. We did a lot of the cooking for Passover together at home, and now I got to take what she taught me into my own Jewish life. I used a few recipes from our Seders at home, but added a few of my own additions. I wanted to have a vegetarian Seder for two reasons. One, a few of my friends are vegetarian and second, I didn't want to cook a chicken. So we had my aunt Norma's matzah ball soup in vegetable broth for the first course. Spinach salad, sweet potato casserole, roasted asparagus, broccoli and potato gratin, and applesauce were the sides. for the main course, we made shakshuka, an Israeli tomato and egg dish (essentially poached eggs in spicy tomato sauce). It was really delicious (I can say that because my friend made the dish :)) For dessert, I made macaroons (two different versions because the first recipe didn't work well), meringue cupcakes (because the batter would not whip enough to form cookies, and my personal favorite flourless chocolate cake. It was a really yummy meal. But the best part, besides the food, was that the Seder felt like family. Everyone wanted to be there. We were all talking and singing and joking throughout the entire evening. It was a just a really nice night. I'm sorry I waiting until my senior year to host a Seder, but this was the first year that it was feasible for me to do so. 

To round out my Passover festivities, I went to my friends dorm Wednesday night to make chocolate covered matzah. Every year, we have gotten together during Passover to make this delicious treat. He doesn't observe Passover except for this tradition.  Making and eating chocolate covered matzah using the box our synagogues sends us is his way of marking this holiday. Not everyone celebrates Passover in the same way. Many argue about which foods you can and cannot eat, how specific and religious you have to be about food labeled kosher for Passover etc, but I think it's mainly important to consider how you will observe the holiday. As long as you are thinking about how it will be significant or meaningful for you, you are considering how to make the holiday your own, how to start living your own Jewish life, which is so vitally important in college. 

It was a really good week for me, and I hope for you as well. חג פסח שמח!

Last week, I had a very hectic Sunday. First, I woke up to teach Hebrew school. My 4thgraders finished up learning the four questions just in time for Passover. The four questions are the beginning of the telling of the story of the exodus from Egypt. "Why is this night different from all other nights?" The next four sentences give specific examples of ways this night is special: we eat matzah, we eat bitter herbs, we did our food twice, and we recline. Throughout the rest of the Seder (the festive meal), the reasons for why these customs are performed are supposed to be answered. In Hebrew school, we spent the past month learning the roots and definitions for the questions, decoding the words and determining our own answers.

In 5th grade, we continued our study of Jewish communities, this week focusing again on the Holocaust. I used a lesson derived from the plans on Hitler's Daughter found on the Monkey Baa website (the production company that produces the play of the same title). Hitler's Daughter is based on the novel by Jackie French where school kids are playing a game waiting for the bus when one imagine what life would have been like for the fictitious daughter of Hitler. The lesson asked students to perform a series of scene excerpts from the play in an effort to understand the bigger ideas and messages that the play was trying to convey.

After Hebrew school, and a wonderful lunch with the education director, I made my way to Eisenhower Auditorium for the production of Hitler's Daughter. The hour-long show was very well done. Only one set and four actors, yet a story that jumped from modern day Australia back to 1940s Germany. It was a play that delved more into the ideas of parent-child relationships than the conflict of the Holocaust. The actors asked, are we, children, responsible for the actions of our parents? How do you know what's right and what's wrong? They brought up some interesting thoughts like is something right just because your parents say it is? How do you know? Topics that I'm curious to know how my 5th graders will respond to on Sunday.

After the play, I went to the creamery with some friends to talk after the show and kill some time before PLA class. PLA this week had the director from Career Services, Jeff Garis, come and talk to us about leadership personality and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator analysis. He spoke about the different categories, defining each one in relation to its opposite and giving examples of what pairs of characteristics correlated with certain job paths. We got our tests results back at the end of the session. I am an ISTJ: Introverted, Sensing, Thinking and Judging. The test defined me as "dependable practical, sensible and realistic" among others. This is the same classification I received when I did the test in middle school some ten years ago. It's curious to think that I haven't changed as a person, at least in these categories. Maybe I've just developed the skills I've had over the past decade. But it's a little disconcerting to think that I haven't changed as a leader in that long of a time span. Who defines their leadership style that young?

After class, I made my way quickly up campus to the Nittany Lion Inn for a wonderful dinner sponsored by Hillel, Schreyer Honors College, and the Presidential Leadership Academy. My table of Hillel and PLA students, Hillel Assistant Director Audrey, Hitler's Daughter cast member McKayla and techie Kate, had a wonderful conversation during the evening ranging from questions about the performance to snow to travel plans and topics about Antisemitism. It was a quite fascinating evening. While my day was long, it was very rewarding and thought-provoking day. 

Last week, Steven wrote about Mary Robinson's visit to Penn State as part of SPA's Distinguished Speaker Program. Like I, he was quite impressed with what she said during her hour-long talk. He commented on two aspects of her speech on which I would also like to reflect. The first point he brought up was women's rights: 
In the case of woman's rights in Western Asian countries such as India and Pakistan, I'm right there with her. I agree that women should have equal access to secondary education, jobs, and leadership opportunities. However, I'm of the impression that no level of pushing and prodding from the UN or other international figures, no matter how renowned they are, will make lasting change...Rather like all change, through education and outreach from many within the affected communities, can change of social traditions be brought.
While I agree with Steven that change has to come within the society for it to have lasting effects, I do believe the UN and international prodding is vitally important. Without the resources that these entities can provide, the education and outreach cannot occur. I did a project for my English 202H class last semester that focused on the Half the Sky Movement. Husband and wife team Alex Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn went to several countries around the world to "turn oppression into opportunity for women world wide." Their book, Half the Sky, highlights the various struggles that women face on a daily basis. But the book is not all pessimistic; they share the success stories of women who have turned their lives around, mainly through education or supporting themselves in a self run business. I encourage you to read the book (Half the Sky) go to their website (halftheskymovement.org) to learn more.  

The second point Steven made was about taxing carbon. He explained that taxing carbon would cause people to adapt to more environmental means of transportation and emission. His argument: money talks. And I agree that money makes a much better case in our capitalist society than the "we have to save our environment" line of reasoning. I wonder though if taxing would solve the problem quickly enough or if there were other methods that could stop or decrease our carbon usage more efficiently. 

To those who celebrate, I wish a zissen pesach, have a sweet Passover!

Last night, I had the opportunity to hear Mary Robinson, the first female president of Ireland speak as part of SPA's Distinguished Speaker Series. I went into the talk only knowing this and wasn't really sure what to expect. I was very impressed by her biography, her extensive work on behalf of human rights, and the young age at which she started. I was also impressed that she spoke for a solid hour without taking a break or drinking water :) But seriously, the amount of work this woman has accomplished in such a short time span is to be commended. She spent the evening telling her story, how she got to the various posts and positions she occupied, all recounted in her memoir that was just released in the US. 
She said that she owes her courage to her four brothers. Having to be the only girl in a family of five children would give most a reason to speak up. Her parents were both doctors; she pointed this out several times when explaining that politics were not in her family. After a year in Paris, a gap year her parents asked her to take before joining the nunnery, she decided against the Church and went to law school at Harvard, where things changed. She saw the power of young people standing up to have their voices heard and she was impressed. I want to point out that her family history is important to consider. No there wasn't a history of politics in her family and yes she was the only girl amongst four boys, but she had a privileged life. Her parents were doctors, they encouraged her to do what she desired and supported her with what she wanted, the watched out for her and wanted her to make the best decisions, she was smart enough to get accepted into Harvard Law School--she was a very lucky girl. 

I was very impressed when she spoke about her work as the High Commissioner for Human Rights at the UN after 9/11. She talked about how she knew this situation would be very difficult to manage appropriately. She wanted to treat the terrorist attacks as crimes against humanity and charge the offenders as such. However, the language was not "crimes against humanity" it was a "war on terror." Without the definition or any regulations, the US was violating human rights when they went into Afghanistan to search for the offenders to fight a war on terror; President Robinson said that the US would have been in the right if they were trying to bring perpetrators of crimes against humanity to justice.  When the US started decreasing their standards for human rights standards, it changed the world culture, other countries would look at the US and be able to justify their lack of respect for human rights, making the High Commissioner's job that much more challenging. It was enlightening to look at the after-effects of 9/11 from an outside perspective. 

These are just two of the ideas I took away from Mary Robinson's presentation last night. Overall, I was very impressed with her work and am excited to see what her work on climate justice will do! 

So, as you may or may not know, I have been accepted into graduate school! Yay :) but more exciting than just knowing I have somewhere to go, is being accepted into my top choice. I have accepted their offer of admission and will be attending Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion beginning this summer. The three year program beings in Israel for a year and finishes the final two in New York. I am so incredibly excited to begin this new journey. If you have been reading my blog, you know that Jewish education is a huge priority for me; almost everything I do relates in some way to Jewish education. So to be able to take this next step and earn a masters degree in the field I love is just amazing. 

One of the aspects of HUC that I love is the community. I was able to go to the institute for an open house in October and experienced what the community looks like. We went to Thursday morning services where the Torah is read. The tunes were familiar, everyone was participating and a rabbinical student gave a d'var, a short speech about the current week's Torah portion. This is a requirement of the fourth year rabbinical students, to practice sermonizing in front of a group that is supportive and critical at the same time. After shacharit, the school went down to the social hall for brunch and a discussion of the D'var. His teachers critiqued and congratulated, his peers questioned and commented, and everyone was supportive. It was a really nice experience and you could just feel the connection between everyone, something that's not really possible at a school with 45,000 undergrads. 

Something else that I am really looking forward to, and one of the reasons this school was at the top of my list is the year in Israel. I have been to Israel several times before, mostly with family or friends for two week tours of the small country. But this time, I will be able to study abroad for a whole year. Studying abroad has been something I've wanted to do since I arrived at Penn State but always felt that the cost was a major inhibition. But now, since it is part of the program, I have the opportunity to study abroad in a country I love. 

But with this amazing opportunity comes a few big stresses. Mainly obtaining a visa and an apartment. The visa shouldn't be much of a problem, mostly just time consuming. But apartment hunting across the ocean is very daunting. The HUC website has a few helpful suggestions, but there are many decisions that need to be made, and leases that need to be signed before I even step foot in the country. So now that the initial excitement has faded (only slightly) I can start to being the administrative tasks of moving to Israel for the year. Wish me luck! 

This year's THON was different from years past. My freshman and sophomore years I was a member of an OPP committee, meeting once a week throughout the entire year. THON was constantly on my radar. Last year, two of my best friends were dancing for Hillel Benefitting THON, and I spent the majority of THON weekend in the BJC, only going home to sleep during the pep rally. This year, I was not on a committee nor did I feel the need to stay and support our org's dancers all weekend long. My sister came up for THON, and I wanted to give her the very best experience. I tried to warn her that we would be standing for more than 24 hours this weekend--and she seemed okay with it on the phone, but I knew in the back of my mind that she would not last that long. 
Our org needed to move to the upper bowl early Sunday morning because there was just not enough space where we were standing. I really didn't want to go up into the nosebleeds and decided to stay in the lower bowl with my sister. She was getting exhausted, the one friend who decided to stay with us had gone home, and I was starting to feel nauseous. So we left. With about seven more hours to go until the end of THON 2013. And on some level, I'm really glad we went home; I was not feeling well and my body really couldn't stand any more and my sister was exhausted and bored. However, this was my last THON as a student and I wish that I had stayed until the end. Maybe if we had moved upstairs and had the company of my org I could have stood the weekend, but I don't know. 

THON is an impressive organization with the amount it can accomplish in a single year. However, the dedication it requires from its volunteers is quite astounding. There's a joke that some of the overalls "major in THON," focusing all of their attention to working for this one weekend. Some have to stay on for an extra semester just to complete their schoolwork because they took time off for THON. The GREEK pledges who have to stand in the stands during "shifts" just to hold seats for the upperclassmen who are coming back for specific events. The independent dancer wannabes who work all year canning and fundraising just to be entered into a lottery to dance and not get selected. The people who stand in line for hours trying to get into the BJC, only to be angry when the R&R captain turns them away because the BJC is at capacity. 

But then you meet kids in the Four Diamonds Families and you get reminded that this event is not about any Penn Staters, it is about these families and making sure they don't have to worry about anything other than taking care of their sick child. The focus of this event shouldn't be the total. While it is a very impressive number and the orgs who raise over half a million dollars in a single year should be proud of themselves, it is the families who need our focus. All of the statuses on facebook that say "I have 12.3 million reasons why my school is better than yours" have the wrong focus. This event should not be about the money. It is about and for the kids. I must commend the Daily Collegian for not putting the total on the front page, but rather a Four Diamonds Child (Hillel's THON child to be exact), because this is really the purpose of this weekend--making these kids feel like kids again. 

In his blog this week, Steven discussed the different values administrators at Penn State have for how excellence can be achieved in the next few years. Dr. Burlingame talked about co-curricular activities and how what we learn in the classroom is just as important as what we learn in extra-curricular activities. Dr. Foley wants people to expect more, to not settle for what is, and strive to make something better. It is written as if these two perspectives are exclusive--if we focus on the importance of co-curricular activities, we can't expect more in the future. Maybe this was just the way I read these messages, but I feel like they are both incredibly important. Balance, which is basically what Dr. Burlingame is talking about is important in any field. If everyone focused solely on one thing--THON, schoolwork, writing, clubs, cooking, etc, our lives would be very boring and uninteresting. By emphasizing the value of extra-curricular work, students are more well-rounded individuals. Additionally, by expecting more from everyone, there is a sense of evolution--things can always get better. Students should strive to make their experiences the very best they can be, by working to improve the situations they are in and by becoming involved in a well-rounded set of activities. 

Felix spent his blog discussing his new adventure into the world of tutoring. He is working for a tutoring center teaching students English as a Foreign Language. He got interested through his work in the applied linguistics department. Finding the right balance between teaching so that your student understands how to write a sentence and teaching so that they understand every detail of the construction and meaning of that sentence is a hard balance to find. As a tutor, I can appreciate how much Felix wants his students to know and understand as much as possible, especially because they will only be working together for a short period of time. However, his objective isn't to teach them everything, his goals are to improve the English skills of his tutors, and overwhelming them with minute details can derail any progress that potentially could have been made. When I was tutoring adult learners last semester for my ENGL 202H class, one of the first things I did with my students was clearly establish the learning objectives for this session--what did they want to do? I had to have some idea of what was reasonable to accomplish in a given setting, but I wanted the work we were doing to be something the learner wanted to work on. That way, everyone wins.