Local News
Gray Academy excels at online teaching during pandemic with ‘Gray Away”
and Annie (Gr. 6)
By BERNIE BELLAN
It was March 13 when the Province of Manitoba announced that, effective March 23, all schools in Manitoba were going to close for three weeks – with the possibility that the closure might be extended.
While it shouldn’t have come as a major surprise, given the speed with which the novel coronavirus was sweeping across Canada and the United States, still, how do you prepare for something as huge as the closing of all schools?
For staff at Gray Academy, however, adapting to new technology has always been a strong suit. Within a period of days the school informed parents that almost everything that had been done in the bricks and mortar Gray Academy was now going to be carried over into what was titled “Gray Away”.
Now, after over two months of having transitioned to a totally new way of learning, the results are in – and it seems that everyone, from staff to parents to students themselves, are more than satisfied with how Gray Academy has managed to adapt so well to the demands that were thrust upon that school.
Staff forced to pivot to online learning in a very short time
On Friday, May 15 I spoke with three members of Gray Academy: Head of School and Gray Academy CEO Lori Binder, Director of Teaching and Learning Rob Dalgliesh, and Director, Marketing and Communications Andrea Ritter.
We discussed how Gray Academy has responded to the demands of taking an entire curriculum online and what the reactions of parents and students have been.
Lori Binder began the conversation by saying: “We’re phenomenally grateful to all of our staff for being able to pivot so quickly in the middle of March in caring for all of our students.
“No one could ever have imagined that within 48 hours we’d have to figure out an infrastructure to care for all of our students and our learning.
“It’s been going incredibly well. We have been able to solicit feedback along the way in the last eight and a half weeks. Feedback has been immensely helpful to help create “our Gray Away infrastructure.
“We had some things in place in the school before the pandemic hit that allowed us to pivot more successfully – especially in the upper elementary to the high school.
“I think it was caring for our littlest kids – nobody in this world would have fathomed children learning virtually at three, four, or five years of age, but I think the biggest drivers for us were insuring that our students in their isolation had very strong connections with their teachers and with their peers on a daily basis through having a timetable and live classes, also a solid structure.”
How the curriculum was developed
Rob Dalgliesh added: “Although our time line was very short, great care went into the creation of ‘Gray Away’ – our virtual academy. It wasn’t rushed. We spent a lot of extra time in the wee hours of the morning creating the pieces that went into it.
“We started with standard curriculum creation by looking at the principal foundations of what we would then carry forward. We looked at the research that is in the area of online learning.
“We looked at pillars – things that we could build on. We wanted to make sure that our kids felt that they were being cared for and safe, but to do that we wanted things to be somewhat familiar – that connection with their teachers, that connection with their peers.
“We also wanted to include a spiritual element. Being a Jewish school we wanted that to be there, so we have our ‘Kabbalat Shabbat’, we have things for holiday programming. Even during the Pesach break we had educators dedicate time to bring forward programming connected to the holiday.
“Another pillar was physical health. It’s easy for a kid not to get up and get going, so we wanted to make sure that there’s an expectation that we wanted them to continue with their phys ed programming.
(Another pillar was) “Mental health – we wanted to help kids with that; showing kids that there’s more to learning than reading a text book. We looked at calming exercises, at the integration of a variety of techniques that our teachers are great at using that help kids with their mental wellbeing.
“For instance, we had wonderful suggestions for creating art at home, also project based learning.”
Zoom for JK-Grade 2; Google Meets for students in Grade 3 & up
At that point I asked “whether the lessons for the kids are individually tailored or are they done in group Zoom sessions, for instance?”
Lori Binder answered: “We’re using the Zoom platform from junior kindergarten through to Grade 2 and we are using the Google classroom platform – which uses Google Meets, in Grades 3 through 12. There are live classes that occur every day – mornings and afternoons.
“We have also built in one-on-one time in our elementary so that teachers have a chance to connect with kids and do some assessment. In our high school there’s a little bit of one-on-time on a daily basis.
“We’ve also set aside blocks on day 3 for all teachers to have an open meeting.”
School still starts at 9 a.m.
I asked: “Can you give an idea how much time a typical student would be online – either individually or within a group setting?”
Lori Binder: “I’ll paint you a picture of elementary: At 9 a.m. every student comes on to Zoom – JK through elementary. The whole school is welcome, but it’s mostly elementary. There are live announcements and the anthems (both O Canada and Hatikvah), and then they head straight to their live classes. They start with a live class with their general classroom teacher, then they continue on either to a live specialist class, which could be French, guidance, music…and then they’ll continue on live.
“I wanted to clarify that in an hour for instance in the high school, it’s not just live teaching.” (Later Lori explained that there is also time set aside for students to study on their own during the school day – just as if they were in the actual physical school.)
Rob Dalgliesh added: “One of the pillars (upon which the virtual school was built) was having a balanced day so that there is online collaboration, for example, small group work.
“At the high school level, there is a teacher giving a lesson, then there is Q and A time afterward – just like in a bricks and mortar school.
“Sometimes the collaboration with other students is just over the phone – like we are right now, having a conversation. It’s not necessarily in front of a screen.
“There are off line working sessions with students doing homework with paper and pen. There are research and innovation projects – personal passion projects that a student wants to research and carry on by him or herself.”
Lori Binder: “I would say it’s about 41/2-5 hours a day (spent in the virtual classroom), but again – it’s not sitting and staring at a screen.
“We’ve got some incredible things going. For instance, a couple of nights ago, the Grade 9 science teacher invited all the students at 9:30 (p.m.) to hop on to a live meeting to look at Venus. It was a particular night that Venus could be visible in the sky.
“Our younger kids would be spending less time (in the virtual classroom) – more around three hours a day, divided up into smaller chunks.”
Close monitoring of each student’s performance
I asked: “Are you able to monitor individual students to see how much time each student is actually spending online?” (I asked that question because I was skeptical that all students are responding with equal eagerness to adapt to the “virtual classroom”).
Lori Binder: “One of the most amazing ingredients to this has been the very close connection between the teachers, the students, and the families. Every three days there are phone calls home.
“If a child has not arrived in the classroom and we have not heard from the parents, then we’re following up. We have very high engagement. I would say that almost every kid is learning.
“Where there’s a differential is in the junior kindergarten – kindergarten, where it’s a little more challenging to be regimented. But, because of the technology (we’re using) all our classes are recorded (and remain on our password protected website for five days), so that if a child did miss a class the parent could go on at any time (and play that lesson for the child).”
Andrea Ritter explained that the younger children spend about 20 minutes at a time online, then they go off to do something on their own, such as art , music, or gym. The teacher is available live, but the student can go and do their work on the dining room table for instance. All the students may be doing their math work, but the teacher is on their screen if they need help.
I asked whether there is a full slate of classes, including Judaic studies, for all students?
Lori Binder answered: “Every single program is running, including English as an Additional Language, our special education department, our guidance department.”
I wondered whether the curriculum being followed thus far in the virtual classroom is keeping apace with what would have occurred in the actual physical classroom?
Lori Binder: “It’s hard to compare going completely virtual. I would say that we are confident we will have achieved the proper outcomes of the curriculum by year end.”
Rob Dalgliesh added: “We’re carefully mapping what’s being done, what’s completed and what’s not. We will be able to determine what a student hasn’t completed before the next year begins.
Rigorous timetable being followed
Lori Binder: “We made a decision to exceed the provincial requirements. We decided to have a rigorous timetable that was also balanced so that, for instance, the lunch hour is a little bit longer than what students would have had in the actual school because we thought the students would need a ‘quiet hour’ getting off the screen time.
“There’s a break of half an hour in the morning and afternoon for the elementary kids so that they can get up and stretch.
“The schedule ends around 3:15 instead of 3:40. Instead of starting at 10 to 9 we’re starting at 9 o’clock.”
I said: “What I’m getting from this is that the kids are adjusting to a situation that would be as comparable as possible to the actual classroom situation.”
Lori Binder: “Yes, we really felt that our kids needed routine, that in their isolation they needed to be connected to the school, to the school community, and to their classmates.”
She went on to explain how the timing of having to switch to the virtual classroom was quickly interrupted by the Pesach break: “In a normal Peasach break we would be off and relaxing, but we knew that our kids would not have the luxury of a Pesach break where they could go out of town so on the non-Yom Tov days we put together a program (with about 20 volunteer staff) where we went on Zoom and we had everything from a pet parade, story time for the young kids, we had an author (Jon Waldman) read from his Jets book, we had teachers eat lunch with the kids – because we just couldn’t go from 13 days of virtual school to a Pesach that was quiet.
“It was during the Pesach break that our leadership team formulated the next phase of Gray Academy, which was Gray Away 2.0, where we finessed our timetable and we finessed our learning hub, especially with the younger kids, so that we found a way to bring the families into a good structure.
“What about other schools that might not be in as good a situation as Gray Academy?” I wondered.
“Are kids in other schools going to have to repeat the year entirely because they might not have had access to the kinds of technology that Gray Academy kids have?” I noted that in Quebec, for instance, “they’re abandoning the school year for kids who live in Montreal.”
Lori Binder explained that “there is an answer from the province actually.” She asked Rob Dalgliesh to expand upon what the province has asked schools to do.
Rob Dalgliesh picked up: “The province does not want children to be held back based on what’s happening now.” There is a possibility that there may be summer schooling for students who have fallen behind, he noted.
Lori Binder also noted that the province has asked that in report cards at year’s end, for students in Grades 9-12, it will have to be cited whether a student requires recovery learning in the fall or whether they do not require recovery learning. That will help guide students who are moving between schools.
Plans being laid for eventual reopening of the school
“Are you making any plans at all for a possible return to the classroom with social distancing in place?” I asked, or “is that too far ahead to think about yet?”
Lori Binder: “We were just in a town hall meeting with Dr. (Brent) Roussin (Manitoba’s Chief Public Health Officer) yesterday, along with about another thousand administrators from across the province and they just released a draft guideline called ‘limited facility school use’. It’s incredibly limited; it doesn’t involve plans for the fall. It deals with a child needing to meet with a guidance counsellor one on one, for example, or with a therapist.
“We are anticipating planning for a number of scenarios and, therefore, we’re planning with about five or six different things in mind, such as: ‘Are we going to have fewer students in spaces?’ We’ve been looking at what social distancing might look like in a classroom, whether we’re going to have to look at mixed days.
“We are very, very involved with our Canadian accredited independent schools. We meet with the Department of Education weekly. We’re also very connected to the Manitoba Federation of Independent Schools. (I happen to be vice-chair of that right now.) We’re all working together.”
Post script: Following my conversation with the three administrators from Gray Academy on May 15, the Province of Manitoba announced new guidelines for schools. We received the following note from Andrea Ritter on Friday, May 22:
“As you know, the provincial directives have changed since we spoke. Throughout the entire process of building and delivering Gray Away, we’ve had to be on our toes for ongoing changes!
“Right now we’re exploring possibilities of what we might be able to do in terms of allowing limited groups students into our building (and our outdoor spaces) for occasional group activities, one-one-one guidance, exams, etc. There will be no in-class learning; the Province has re-iterated that in-school classes are still suspended for all Manitoba schools. Gray Away remote learning will continue for the remainder of the year, but it could be wonderful to be able to give students the opportunity to visit their teachers and friends, with strict adherence to physical distancing, etc.
“Even with new directives from the Government of Manitoba, we will only open our doors to students when we are fully confident that we can meet all provincial expectations for protecting the health and safety of our school community – staff, students and families. While we do not have all the answers today regarding what will over the next month or so, we will definitely keep our families informed every step of the way.
Andrea also sent links to three videos that provide good illustrations of how Gray Academy has been adapting to the current situation:
Thank You Teachers –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnNg-dPmTdg
Gray Academy Grad 2020 Tribute –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTH9dET_Ig4
Song Festival Greatest Hits Vol. 1 – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikx858JUxhU&t=1080s
Local News
Young pediatrician Daniel Kroft and his Jewish history podcast
By MYRON L0VE It has been said that if you want to make sure to get something done, give the task to the busiest person in the room. That adage would certainly apply to Daniel Kroft.
Although only 30 years old, Daniel, the son of community leaders Jonathan and Dr. Cara Kroft, has emulated both of his parents by being a community leader as well as a pediatrician. In the former category, Daniel is a member of the Jewish Federation of Winnipeg’s Community Planning Committee (His father, Jonathan, is a Past President of the Federation).
The younger Kroft is also a co-founder of the Manitoba Maccabim – a young Jewish advocacy group. He recently joined Belle Jarniewski, executive director of the Jewish Heritage Centre of Western Manitoba, in a presentation to the Internal Medicine Department of Health Sciences Center on the subject of antisemitism.
Professionally, the Gray Academy graduate (class of 2012) is a member of a clinic run out of St. Boniface Hospital, is on staff at the Children’s Hospital, puts in time at the Health Sciences Centre, and serves as a consultant pediatrician at Brandon’s regional hospital. He also takes trips to northern Manitoba to offer his services.
In addition, he is a member of the Jewish Physicians Association of Manitoba.
With all that on his plate, you wouldn’t think that Kroft would have time for much else. If so, you would be wrong. Four years ago, he launched a new initiative, a podcast – “The Jewish Story” – intended to teach interested listeners about Jewish history.
The idea came to him, he says, back in 2021, when he was still a medical student. “It was the time when Black Lives Matter was in the news,” he recalls. “At med school, we were learning all about Black history and Indigenous history. I realized that I actually didn’t know much about my own Jewish history.”
The first source he turned to was the Anglo-Jewish historian Simon Schama and his book, “The Story of the Jews”. He followed up with online courses from Oxford and Harvard as well as a lecture series led by prominent historian Henry Abramson.
Setting up a podcast, he notes, required another learning curve. “It takes me about a year to do the research and organize my podcasts,” he reports. “I had to learn how to do a podcast and about which equipment to buy. I set up a recording studio in a room in my house.”
On his website (rss.com/podcasts/thejewishstory/), Kroft describes “The Jewish Story” as “a Jewish history podcast for the 21st century”. “We use the latest in archaeology, linguistics and historical methods to sculpt the history of the Jewish People from the exodus from Egypt until the present,” he notes.
He started his series of podcasts going back to the beginning – from the earliest evidence of Jewish existence through the establishment of the Jewish kingdom, its conflicts with neighbouring empires, to its destruction by the Babylonians.
And that is just the first episode.
The first season – seven episodes – encompassed Jewish history up to and including the Roman invasion of Jerusalem and destruction of the second Temple in 70 CE. Kroft points out that some of his podcasts feature guest commentators. In his first season, for example, in the third episode, he interviews Rabbi Matthew Leibl about the relevance to modern Jewish life of the first eight centuries of Jewish history.
In the seventh episode, he discusses with his former elementary school teacher, Sherry Wolfe Elazar ,what lessons modern Jews can learn from the Greco-Roman period for Jewish history.
The second series of podcasts focuses on the development of Jewish life in the first centuries after the Diaspora and the effects of the new Christian and Muslim religions on the Jewish people. The seventh and last episode of season two features Rabbi Anibal Mass, the spiritual leader of the Shaarey Zedek Synagogue, talking about a wide range of subjects ,including the breakaway Karaites, he definition of Jewish music, and how technology has shaped modern Jewish practice.
The third season covers the 11th-15th centuries while the most recent series of episodes spans the period from 1500 to 1650. Kroft reports that the next group of podcasts will provide an overview of Jewish life in the 17th and early 18th centuries, including the beginnings of Jewish life in North America.
I asked Kroft when he finds the time to work on his podcasts. His response: in his spare time – weekends and holidays.
The podcaster reports that when he started, he was getting 30-40 listeners per episode. Now his numbers are up to 200-300 from all over the world.
For readers who may want to hear Daniel Kroft’s story in person, he will be one of the presenters at the upcoming Limmud Winnipeg. Kroft will be presenting on Sunday, March 23, at 1:30 at the Campus.
For more information aboutLimmud, contact coordinator@limmudwinnipeg.org or 204-557-6260
Local News
Former Winnipegger Ezra Glinter to discuss his new biography of Rabbi Schneerson at upcoming Limmud Winnipeg
By MYRON LOVE The Chabad-Lubavitch movement is one of the world’s largest and best-known Hasidic groups. Driven by the belief that we are on the verge of the messianic age. Lubavitch, under the leadership of the charismatic Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson , has, over the past 70 years. engaged in an outreach program to the Jewish world which may bemunprecedented in Jewish history. Wherever there is a Jewish community in the world, no matter how small, you will find a Lubavitcher Rebbe.
I have seen one survey that more younger American Jews – almost 40% -have developed a connection with Chabad than another branch of Judaism.
Last October, former Winnipegger Ezra Glinter published “Becoming the Messiah: The Life and Times of Menachem Mendel Schneerson,” the first biography of Rabbi Schneerson to combine a nonpartisan view of his life, work, and impact with an insider’s understanding of the ideology that drove him and that continues to inspire the Chabad-Lubavitch movement today.
On Sunday, March 23, Glinter will be introducing his biography to his home town as one of the presenters at the 15th Limmud Winnipeg Festival of Jewish Learning.
(Limmud was founded in England in 1980 with the aim to build bridges between professional and nonprofessional educators and between those of differing religious commitments. Today, the Limmud Festival is held in more than 90 Jewish communities in over 40 countries around the world.)
The New York-based son of Nancy and Harry Glinter has had an interesting life journey of his own – a journey that has included his own immersion for several years in the Orthodox world – making him an ideal individual to explore the Rebbe’s life and work and impact on Judaism.
“It was helpful hat I could apply the skills that I learned in Yeshiva to the research,” Glinter notes.
The fact that he is also self-taught in Yiddish was also helpful.
Glinter in a graduate of Talmud Torah. At the age of 16, Glinter chose to pursue a more religious lifestyle. With his parents’ support, he enrolled in Ner Yisroel in Batimore.
In 2004, after four years in yeshiva, he enrolled at McGill, graduating with a BA in English (in 2008), followed by a year at New York University. Since then, he has pursued a career as a freelance journalist. For five years, he served as deputy arts director for the Jewish Daily Forward. Over the past eight years, he has contributed book, theatre and arts reviews and lifestyle stories to numerous prestigious American publications, as well as the Israeli newspaper Haaretz,”and the Paris Review.
The Schneerson biography is his second book. In 2016, he published “Have I Got a Story for You” – a compilation of 42 stories – published in Yiddish in The Forward over its almost 130—year history.
The stories are an assortment of wartime novellas, avant-garde fiction, and satirical sketches about immigrant life in New York – with short biographies of the contributors. Glinter served as editor of the project – with the stories being translated into English by leading Yiddish translators who were able to capture the sound of the authors and the subtleties of nuance and context.
Glinter notes that he spent four years doing the research for his current book. He reports that his Shneerson biography has been generally well-received – although, he adds, there haven’t been a lot of reviews.
“It seems that both followers of Chabad and secular readers appreciate the book,” he comments.
For the past two years, he has been working as the senior staff writer and editor for the National Yiddish Book Centre, which is located in Amherst, Massachusetts. “We have our own press and newsletter,” he points out. “We translate newly published Yiddish works into English.”
Readers who may be interested in attending Limmud this year can cal l204 557-6260 or email coordinator@limmudwinnipeg.org. Ticket prices are $55 for the full day (which includes lunch and snacks) and $30 for a half day attendance. Reduced rates are available for younnger adults (under 30), students and children.
Local News
Bright future for Israeli-born University of Manitoba Science student Erele Tzidon
By MYRON LOVE Erele Tzidon, a second year Science student at the University of Manitoba, seems to have a bright future ahead of her.
Rabinovich-Nikitin
The year before last, the Israeli-born graduate of Gray Academy received a University of Manitoba undergraduate research award, which allowed her to pursue research as a member of Dr. Inna Rabinovich-Nikitin’s research team at the Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences, (ICS) researching the link between pregnancy complications and the risk for heart disease.
The world-renowned institute, directed by Dr. Lorrie Kirshenbaum, studies heart disease and heart function with the goal of researching means to repair damaged heart cells and prevent heart failure.
This past November, Tzidon was presented with a second award – the Dr. James S. McGoey Student Award – based on the quality of her cardiovascular research at the ICS, which operates out of the St. Boniface Hospital’s Albrechchtsen Research Centre.
“We are very proud of Erele and her achievements,” says Dr. Inna Rabinovich-Nikitin. “We believe she has a promising future in medical research.”
Originally from Moshav Ginaton in central Israel, Tzidon came to Winnipeg in 2018 with her parents Ofer, formerly regional manager for a car rental agency in Israel and now an RBC branch Manager, and Sharon, an emotional therapist in Israel who is currently working as an educational assistant at Gray Academy. Tzidon also has three younger brothers.
The 19-year-od reports that it was through a connection she forged with Rabinovich-Nikitin at G ray Academy (where the latter has three children enrolled in the elementary program) that opened the door to a summer position at the ICS in 2023. She notes that she is at the ICS two days a week and at the U of M three days a week.
“I have always wanted to do research,” she says, “because I have an unlimited number of questions. And I love working with the great team at the ICS.”
One of the primary focuses at the ICS in recent years has been on women’s heart health. Three years ago Kirshenbaum created a new research program within St. Boniface Hospital specifically for the study of heart disease in women. Dr. Rabinovich-Nikitin was the first faculty member seconded to the new research program
In an earlier article I wrote about her in the Post (in 2021), I noted that she, like Erele Tzidon, is originally from Israel, having arrived in Winnipeg in 2016 with her husband Sergey, and their two children (a third child was born here) to further her scientific knowledge through working in Kirshenbaum’s lab.
Rabinovich-Nikitin is graduate of Tel Aviv University with a Ph.D. in biotechnology.
“I was always interested in science, how things work,” she notes. “I have a particular interest in women’s cardiac health.”
Four years ago she herself was presented with the Winnipeg Foundation’s Martha Donavan Leadership Development Award. The award is intended to provide leadership development opportunities for women in the Rady Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Manitoba. Eligible applicants include women who are full-time or part-time academic faculty members, students of the Rady Faculty of Health Sciences, and students as well as post-doctoral trainees (including residents), presently enrolled in a program of study within the Rady Faculty of Health Sciences.
In 2022 Rabinovich-Nikitin, was the winner of the Louis N. and Arnold M. Katz Basic Science Research Prize for Early Career Investigators awarded by the American heart Association (AHA). This award is the highest international recognition of research excellence for an early career investigator to receive, and Rabinovich-Nikitin is the first ever Canadian scientist to receive this award.
That same year she joined the University of Manitoba Department of Physiology and Pathophysiology as an assistant professor, studying heart disease in women. Rabinovich-Nikitin observes that heart disease in women presents itself in a different way than in men. She notes that one of the new lab’s initial findings was that there is one specific gene that leads to cardiovascular issues in some pregnant women that can point to heart disease later in life, and also have negative implications for the development of their children. Those children are smaller at birth and, as adults, are prone to hypertension, diabetes and obesity,
“We are looking into how that particular gene increases the risk of heart disease.” she says.
Rabinovich-Nikitin would like to invites readers who may be interested in learning more about women’s heart health to a free program the ICS is offering on Sunday, February 23 at the Wellness Institute at 1075 Leila Avenue from 1:00-4:00. The afternoon will feature speakers, children’s activities and Zumba sessions.
“I would encourage everyone who has questions and wants to learn about women’s heart health to attend,” she says.
You can find more about the event at https://megaheartevent.com/
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