Musings from Students of the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem
Posted on March 11, 2014 by Andrea Wiese
From my blog:
I put teaching in quotations because even though it was my first day at Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School (JDS for short) in Rockville, Maryland, I definitely didn’t teach. I observed, a lot.
I had a couple of tours of the school, met many wonderful people, half of whom I hope to remember their names tomorrow, and sat in on classes. Besides the Judaic Studies classes I sat in on, I went to a jazz class which was very cool (and impressive).
After meeting the tennis coach after school, we agreed that I would coach with her until April with the boys team every Monday-Thursday.
Shabbats are already being planned! This Shabbat Yaffa will be in Maryland and I’ll get to spend time with her. Maybe I’ll miss Pardes less when we’re together. Although, everyone at JDS is so nice and welcoming, it’s hard to not love every second and very hard not to be excited about going to “work” everyday.
My first day of real teaching will be next Monday. Until then I will be doing more observations and prepping my lessons for teaching. (Also, there are a lot of Pardes alumni that work at my school which makes it feel very homey!)