An Overview of the TI Teen Ed Program

Temple Israel Teen Education Program
"We have all grown and changed in this community through the simple joys of singing together, working together, planning and leading activities, chanting torah, staying up late for senior line, sharing personal beliefs, and eating together each Monday."

Temple Israel's Fain Award-winning Teen Education Program serves our 8th-12th graders and their families. Teens can participate in any or all of our offerings: Monday Night School (MNS), the Madrichim (student teaching) Program, and RYFTI, our teen youth group.


Overarching Goals

Temple Israel's Teen Education Program seeks to:
  • Engage teens as participants in Jewish educational experiences that are relevant to their day-to-day lives and that is lived as well as studied.
  • Create a curriculum and environment that encourages students to advocate for themselves and their needs and to grapple with the full set of human and individual concerns.
  • Develop teens as leaders who have ownership and agency over their education and what their Judaism means to them.

Monday Night School

 As students continue their Jewish education in the Teen Education Program, they are challenged to clarify their own ideas about Judaism and their Jewish identities. Monday Night School meets weekly on Monday evenings for dinner and classes (5:45pm-8:30pm) throughout the school year.
Students participate in a mix of grade-specific and mixed grade classes that cover topics in four key identity areas: Critical Readers, Reflective Ritual Practitioners, Social Justice Activists, and American Partners with Israel. These identity areas are a continuation of the focus areas now in place in our K-7 program, but in Monday Night School teens will have opportunities to explore the topics in new ways related to their lives and communities. 8th graders entering Monday Night School will begin the year in a semester-long 8th Grade Orientation designed to introduce the teens to each of the identity areas as well as build community in this new stage of their Jewish lives.
It is expected that students and parents who seek the privilege of Bar/Bat Mitzvah celebration in the Temple Israel community will also make the commitment to continue their Jewish education at Temple Israel through Confirmation (Grade 10) and graduation from the High School.

RYFTI (TI's Teen Youth Group)

Temple Israel provides a broad array of informal, fun Jewish experiences for our teens outside of the classroom. In RYFTI (Reform Youth Federation of Temple Israel), Temple Israel's teen population has the opportunity to experience Judaism within a very specific community. RYFTI holds monthly informal activities that range from scavenger hunts in Harvard Square to apple picking.
Along with the monthly informal activities there are two weekend Kallot held each year: RYFTI Fall Kallah (November) and RFYTI Clergy Weekend (May). These weekend getaways are a time for the teens to bond, have fun, and engage in excellent peer-led learning. Every other year a group of our teens also have the opportunity to attend the RAC L'Taken High School Seminar in Washington, D.C. This opportunity is for Reform Jewish teen to come together in our nation's capital to lobby to our Massachusetts elected officials on topics that they feel are important.

Madrichim Program - Student Teachers

Each year, a number of Temple Israel teens lead their community as TI Religious School Madrichim, or student teachers.  The goal of the Madrichim Program is to help our teens develop as classroom leaders and teachers, and to provide our Religious School students with excellent role models for youth involvement at TI.  Teens apply to the program in the spring and are offered positions over the summer.  Madrichim begin their work by attending an orientation, which coincides with one session of Religious School Teacher orientation, where they are introduced to the skills on which they will concentrate during the year, and to the teachers with whom they will collaborate.
Throughout the year, Madrichim will attend meetings with Mike Fishbein, Director or Teen Education, and with other educational specialists, at which they will focus on developing the skills of small group facilitation, classroom management, and experiential lesson-planning.  Our Religious School teachers will work with their madrichim on the implementation of these skills in the classroom.  Madrichim will research and craft a lesson which they will teach to their classes in the spring.  Madrichim receive a modest monetary stipend for their work.

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