Raising the Bar: Professional Training for B’nai Mitzvah Tutors
Submitted by: Storahtelling and Hebrew Helpers
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The Big Idea
Responding to the absence of national and local programs to train and support B’nai Mitzvah tutors, Raising the Bar brings educational excellence, cutting-edge creativity, standards, benchmarks and professional development to the educators who prepare pre-teens for their quintessentially Jewish rite of passage.
Tutors will gain tools and knowledge to enrich and structure the year-long preparation for the B’nai Mitzvah celebrations. The training will also teach tutors how to go beyond their roles as teachers of Hebrew and basic Jewish concepts, to provide more dynamic, meaningful and inclusive celebrations of this important milestone for teens and families of all backgrounds, interests, and needs. Raising the Bar will partner with local institutions to train 15-20 local B’nai Mitzvah tutors of all denominations during its pilot year and will scale up towards the goal of training tutors nationally by year three.
Why Is This Idea Unique or Innovative?
The B'nai Mitzvah experience is often diluted and frivolous, and is an off-ramp from Jewish life for many. Storahtelling and Hebrew Helpers successfully engage teens and their families in a thoughtful reexamination of this meaningful rite of passage and its relevance to their lives. Addressing both affiliated and unaffiliated families, Raising the Bar creates exciting new opportunities for modern Jews to come of age, connect to their community, cherish their legacy, and place themselves on a trajectory of increased involvement, connection and affiliation with Jewish learning, institutions, and life.
What makes this idea innovative is that it refocuses attention on the process of B’nai mitzvah, the experience, rather than the celebration. One of the keys for restoring the B’nai Mitzvah experience as an entry-point into Jewish life is investment in the training of the B’nai Mitzvah tutors. Currently, there are no standards, certifications, or guidelines for B’nai Mitzvah trainers at the national or denominational levels. Typically, freelance B’nai Mitzvah tutors, ranging in quality and credentials, are the only option available to families. Raising the Bar will professionalize the field, empowering local tutors to provide creative and deeply informed education to all members of the community, thus impacting the quality and depth of the B’nai Mitzvah educational process.
Why Is This a "Big" Idea?
Our Big Idea is simple: the Bnai Mitzvah rite is restored as an entry-point to Jewish life, through a year-long experience with a passionate, trained, and supported Jewish educator who can inspire teens and families. Raising the Bar suggests that bringing a child and a family to the Bar or Bat Mitzvah celebration is a journey of discovery, of affirmation of Jewish relevance, and a process of identity-building. Our vision is of a world of trained guides who draw on deep wells of knowledge and educational practices to shape that journey for families.
The Impact
Our overall goal is to re-imagine and re-shape the B’nai Mitzvah experience into one that connects both affiliated and non-affiliated Jews in meaningful ways that will inspire their continued engagement with Jewish life. To achieve that goal, B’nati Mitzvah tutors need new educational tools and professional development that will give them the skills to teach not only Hebrew and cantillation, but also to be guides for the B’nai mitzvah and their families on the journey towards adulthood and community within a rich spiritual and cultural tradition.
In its pilot year, Raising the Bar will serve as a lab, working with 15-20 carefully selected B’nai Mitzvah tutors of all denominations to create the new and improved B’nai Mitzvah curriculum and to develop the training tools for teaching B’nai Mitzvah educators how to deploy that curriculum. Therefore, our anticipated impacts are on the knowledge, skills, attitudes and behaviors of the tutors themselves. They will demonstrate mastery of new teaching techniques, a new orientation towards the entire family, not just the teen, and greater skill in creating B’nai Mitzvah celebrations both within and outside of institutions that are sensitive to the diversity and experiences of B’nai Mitzvah families.
We expect these impacts to be corroborated by families and teens, who we expect to express greater satisfaction with the process, richer learning, and increased engagement in Jewish life. We will work with an evaluation professional to study the impacts of the training on tutors, and the impacts of tutors on families, teens, and their community.
