Update from RS Meeting

RealSchool members had a lot to do as we gathered for the first time since Chanukah:

Religious Identity and Video Production

The Religious Identity and Video Production teams met to discuss the content of the 2-3-minute video they plan to film about how to make prayer more meaningful for students. As RS members brainstormed ideas for the video, Marni came up with a great tagline for the Religious Identity team in general: 

Turning Practice Into Purpose

We love it, Marni! Thanks!

Religious Identity is also gearing up for its next discussion on prayer, which will be on December 26 and will cover Tefillah in Talmud. Since we began the discussion series with a look at how prayer appears in Tanakh, we thought one next logical step would be seeing how prayer is addressed in the Talmud. Frisch has agreed to allow RealSchool to host a minyan on the days that we run a discussion group, so we'll do so that morning. Penina came up with a headline for the flyer we'll post to advertise the minyan:

Be the minyan you want to see in the world.

Great stuff, Penina. Thanks go out to you, too!

Karen, who heads Graphic Design, is going to make us a logo for with the line, so we'll be able to use the logo every time we run the minyan.

Last week many of RealSchool's Religious Identity members led discussions with the freshmen about where to draw the line between Judaism and the secular world. The discussion was part of an integration program at Frisch called Greek Week. For more information about Greek Week, see Greek Week at Frisch: Cougars Draw the Line. The Religious Identity team liked the way the discussion went and wants to have more of them with the freshmen. Therefore, what came out of tonight's meeting is a three-pronged approach to creating more mindfulness in student religious practice:

1) Videos, made for and by students, about the search for religious meaning
2) Additional discussions about prayer and a RealSchool minyan on the day of the discussions
3) Continued informal discussions with the freshmen, led by RealSchool: Religious Identity members

Graphic Design and Health and Environment

Religious Identity and Video Production weren't the only teams that got things done tonight. Graphic Design also laid out an action plan for the next few weeks, so we can realize our goal of having student-made logos for each of our RS teams. Health and Environment team continued work on the green cookbook we plan to make, although we're rethinking whether we want a formal cookbook or an app/website that we update, so we have a virtual recipe folder. Health and Environment team members also decided they want to focus on giving healthy makeovers to unhealthy recipes. Whatever else we decide on, one thing is clear: a recipe for kale chips is a must!

Soon you'll be able to make these kale chips yourself,
thanks to RealSchool's Health and Environment team and
Frisch's Environmental Club

Thanks to everyone who attended tonight. We got a lot done and also managed to get in some ad hoc discussions of one of our favorite topics at RS: education reform.

Finance and Fashion

Next on the to-do list:

Finance Team events
The Frisch Fashion Show, which we'll plan this year with the school's dance team

Getting to God: Religious Identity Explores Prayer

This past week, on Wednesday, November 28, RealSchool's Religious Identity team began the first of a series of discussions about building a relationship with God. The year-long discussions series will be moderated by students and will explore different ways of grasping God. The first discussion, which was moderated by Akiva Mattenson, Penina Warburg and Solomon Wiener, was about Tanakh attitudes towards prayer. The moderators found different verses from Torah, Prophets and Writings and used them as jumping off points for students to explore various ways Tanakh approaches prayer.

The approximately fifteen students who took part in the discussion spent part of the time analyzing three verbs the Torah uses that might shed light on what is meant by prayer:

The above whiteboard notes illustrate some of the key points of the discourse: 

Is prayer . . . 

1) an encounter? If it is an encounter, does it happen by accident, fate, or does one prepare for it?

2) a two-way conversation?

3) a moment to stand and allow the worshiper to express his thoughts?

An interesting debate that emerged from the discussion is whether prayer IS an encounter with God OR prepares us to HAVE an encounter with Him.

Here is one student's thoughts from the evening:

When talking about prayer, one is faced with the question of whether it is an encounter, a conversation or an active stand with or towards God. An encounter is when one happens upon someone else. This is a very casual and passive way to think of prayer. A conversation is when two people talk to one another. This is a two-way street. God and the person praying must actively talk back and forth. An active stand is when one moves and it takes effort for one to pray. I think prayer is a conversation, because as Yaakov [Jacob] said [loose paraphrase here of Genesis 28:20], "If God does stuff for me, I will do stuff for God." -- Sammy ('15)

And here's a timely blog post by Eddie Maza reminding us why talking about prayer is so important:

My Soapbox by Eddie Maza

Computers in Class

Here are the top eleven activities students are using their computers for in class (And guess what? Taking notes didn't make it onto the list!)


11. Fantasy football
10. Looking up ESPN/NFL/NBA scores
9. Games
8. Facebook/Twitter
7. Shopping
6. E-Mail
5. Ichat/messaging
4. Movies with subtitles
3. Other school work
2. Youtube

And the number one answer -- because it utilizes two technologies! -- is

1. Hiding a phone behind the computer to text

Occupy Standardized Testing!

A RealSchool-like project in AP English Language has Oriel, a junior at The Frisch School, researching standardized testing. The impetus for the research topic was Oriel's SAT prep; Oriel says the test has nothing to do with real life or any skills he may or may not have. Here are Oriel's preliminary thoughts on standardized testing:

In recent years, standardized testing has moved to the forefront of discussions concerning the American educational system.  While standardized testing does have its merits, it is criticized by many experts to be an ineffective and unfair way of determining the breadth of a student’s knowledge.   Standardized testing, dating back to the 1920’s, has been the most efficient way for colleges and other groups to objectively rank students based on their knowledge, allowing colleges to sift through hundreds of college applications at the blink of an eye in order to focus primarily on those with the higher test scores.  While standardized testing is an efficient way of categorizing students and processing college applications, standardized testing is very limited in scope: it can only determine a given student’s knowledge in specific areas (and even this it cannot truly do).  Standardized testing steals students’ identities and replaces them with scores.  Standardized testing does not measure a student’s creativity, imagination, and thoughtfulness; on the contrary, these values, which are essential to life in “the real world,” are being destroyed by standardized testing.  Standardized testing believes that there is only one right answer to a given problem – creativity has no place in the realm of standardized testing.  Although standardized testing achieves much in terms of efficiency in evaluating students, its flaws outweigh the good it effects.  Standardized testing has been a way to evaluate student performance over the past 90 years, but a change in the system is clearly necessary.

Like Occupy Standardized Testing on Facebook:

Occupy Standardized Testing Facebook page

What's New in Religious Identity and The Arts

The Religious Identity team has decided on a topic for a series of discussions it wants to have this year about Judaism. The topic is -- drumroll, please! -- Relationship with God, and members of the Religious Identity team will moderate discussions about different approaches Judaism takes to building a relationship with the Creator. Those different approaches include:

* Prayer
* Philosophy
* The Torah
* The Halakha, the Jewish legal system

The first discussion will take place on November 28, 2012 and will be on Prayer!

Meanwhile, as usual, The Arts is supporting Religious Identity's endeavors. The team is going to the Jewish Museum this Sunday, November 18, to see an exhibit on Hebrew illuminated manuscripts from the Bodleian Library collection. That exhibit will kick off a year-long study of Hebrew illuminated manuscripts that will result in an exhibit at RealSchool's Second Annual Yom Iyun, Day of Learning,which we call Sikhot b'Emunah, Discussions in Faith.

While the Religious Identity team will get you ready for the Festival of Lights by enlightening you about Prayer, The Arts team is using the following lecture on Chanukah by Menachem Leibtag as a jumping off point for an exhibit that will hopefully enhance your holiday:

Lecture on Chanukah by Rabbi Menachem Leibtag

Even More 5 1/2 Entrepreneurship Facts

David Solomon has this round of 5 1/2 facts from RS: Social Entrepreneurship:

Columbus Circle from Time Warner Center

1. The company Applied Immune Technologies is trying to create antibodies that will kill malignant cells.

2. The startup companies only need a couple of million dollars at most to start their companies.

3. USIBC [US-Israel Business Council] started the WE Summit to give six brilliant Israeli female entrepreneurs the chance to raise start-up funds their companies.

4. BrandsForce is an innovative social media marketing platform. Here people can recruit customers to support their brands.

5. Watching the networking before the program gave me a better understanding of what it takes to make connections and get customers. Everyone was talking to each other about their respective businesses.

5 1/2. The Time Warner building was really cool because it was very technologically advanced and ornamented with interesting flashing light figures that stood out to me.

5 1/2 More Entrepreneurship Facts

Here are Yisroel Quint's 5 1/2 facts from the Women Entrepreneur's Summit on Monday, October 22, 2012:

Five and a half things I learned were:

1. "Orville Wright didn't have a flying license": You don't need to be an expert to have a genius idea.

2. You need to be able to sell your product just as much as you can create the product.

3. "There's nothing new under the sun": Most of the ideas presented at the conference had lots of competition and weren't anything revolutionary, but small innovation makes them worthwhile.

4. It's important to acknowledge an imperfect idea and be able to take constructive criticism because only having "yes men" around you will cause stagnancy.

5. Money will be lost before it's gained. Most of the people, when presenting, showed losses for the first couple of years.

5.5. You don't want to present last at a long conference because most people will be itching to get out of the door.

Yisroel Quint