At Pressman Academy of Temple Beth Am, a Conservative Jewish day school in Los Angeles with 500 students from pre-school through 8th grade, and 10 Hebrew teachers from K through 8, decision making about curriculum and teaching is a research based and data driven enterprise. Whether a newly hired teacher is brand new to the field or a veteran teacher who is new to Pressman Academy, the school takes responsibility for the professional learning of its newcomer teachers, to create a cohort of reflective practitioners, and so that teachers’ perceptions and practices become aligned with “how things are done in our school.” The administration does not rely solely on the background and training that teachers bring with them from university, graduate school, and prior teaching experience, because Pressman Academy’s approach to teaching and learning has its own spice and flavor. During the first few years on the Pressman faculty, newcomer teachers receive intensive instructional coaching from a senior mentor teacher in their discipline, not only in Hebrew language instruction but in Judaic studies and general studies as well. For the duration of their career as veteran teachers, less intensive instructional coaching is continued as part of the Pressman way. 

Member School Highlights recently sat down with Pressman’s Judaic Studies and Hebrew Principal, Yonatan Rosner, and with Dr. Gila Azrad, Hebrew Department Chair, to learn how new Hebrew language faculty members are onboarded, mentored, and professionally socialized to Pressman Academy’s professional educational culture.  

Dr. Azrad already had a master’s degree in teaching Hebrew as a Second Language and years of experience as an instructional coach before embarking on her recently completed Doctorate in Modern Languages at Middlebury College. She also taught the practicum course at Middlebury, through which she gained significant experience observing teaching and learning in action at various schools and settings. Her doctoral research focused on teachers’ beliefs and perceptions regarding interactive classroom activities, specifically how to bridge the gap between educational theory and practice. Dr. Azrad’s conclusion: Changing perceptions is much easier than changing habits. Changing both perceptions and habits is most effectively accomplished through reflective practice. 

As Department Chair, Dr. Azrad is responsible for Hebrew language education from pre-school through 8th grade. As instructional coach and learning specialist, she is responsible for teaching and learning in grades 3-8 while her colleague, Ilan Yona, is Pressman Academy’s ECC through 2nd grade Hebrew language specialist and instructional coach. Ilan Yona is also a doctoral student at Middlebury College and this is the seventh year that Yonatan, Gila, and Ilan are working together at Pressman Academy. So it is no exaggeration to say that Pressman Academy’s Hebrew language department is on the cutting edge, based on their leadership’s deep and significant experience in both theory and in practice as pedagogues and as researchers. 

According to Dr. Azrad, “Our primary goal is for all Pressman Academy’s students to function in Hebrew, to speak and to write in Hebrew, whatever it takes. We are not Proficiency Approach purists, but we align our curriculum, instruction, and evaluation on ACTFL 2024 standards.” A supporting goal is for students to feel connected to Israeli culture, so the tools Pressman’s faculty use to achieve Hebrew communicative skills are authentic Israeli materials in units of instruction that they develop in-house. Another supporting goal is to develop cross-cultural literacy, so the tool to achieve this goal is a strong and stable relationship with an Israeli school, through whom Pressman Academy students communicate on an ongoing basis with Israeli peers. Since learning a second language is more difficult for students with language based learning differences, Pressman Plus is a toolbox to strengthen Hebrew language learning for students with special learning needs. Finally to encourage the engagement of parents who do not have deep (or any!) Hebrew language knowledge, adult Hebrew language instruction is now offered through Pressman’s Beit Midrash. 

There is too much goodness from the cutting edge to share about excellence at Pressman Academy, so the focus is to describe how Pressman Academy goes about achieving its primary goal. Simply put, the road to students’ achievement of Hebrew functional fluency and literacy is teacher professional development. The tools to achieve excellent professional learning are provided internally by Hebrew instructional coaching (Gila and Ilan), and externally through partner organizations that align with Pressman’s goals. These external partners include Hebrew at the Center and Brandeis University for curriculum and instruction and AVANT and MADYK for assessment of student progress in L2 skills. 

Deep teacher learning and growth needs to be both personalized for each individual teacher and aligned with Pressman Academy’s professional culture and expectations. To that end, Dr. Azrad created a reflective pedagogy for both newcomers and veteran teachers. Newer teachers and veteran teachers who need more support or who are working on changing specific habits meet weekly with their instructional coach, either Ilan or Gila. Other veteran teachers have bi-weekly one-on-one meetings with their instructional coach. One very practical reason to sustain ongoing coaching for veteran teachers is to revisit, refresh, or rewrite previously created and taught units of instruction, based on the makeup of this year’s class. “There is no such thing,” says Dr. Azrad, “as reteaching as-is a unit of instruction from a previous year. The students change, so the instruction must change. For the instruction to change, teachers’ pedagogical habits must constantly evolve and change.” 

In advance of one-on-one meetings between teacher and instructional coach, the teacher is provided with a reflective question or two, to work on independently for intrapersonal reflection. All teachers in a band (The school is broken up into 3 bands: grades K-2, 3-5, and 6-8) receive the same questions, and in the one-on-one sessions each teacher’s unique responses are explored and probed with the instructional coach. At bi-weekly band-wide departmental meetings, group processing reveals the wide array of responses and directions triggered by the common reflective questions. This is where band-wide and school-wide alignment occurs. Each teacher brings their own individual perspective, while the role of the instructional coach is to steer the faculty toward Pressman’s unified goals.  

Up to this step, the process is meant to change perceptions, but the endgame is changing habits. How does the leadership team ensure that changed perceptions become changed habits? Through reflection and modelling. Parallel to the cycle of reflection is the guided work on developing pedagogic practice. In their role as learning specialists, the instructional coaches push into classrooms, help teachers, help students, co-teach lessons, and present demonstration lessons that are observed by the classroom teacher. During and after demonstration lessons, the classroom teacher takes notes, learns, and reflects. After the demonstration lesson, the personal reflection deepens and is discussed with the instructional coach. The teacher then implements the modelled pedagogies in subsequent lessons, at times while being observed by their instructional coach. After the teacher’s observed lesson, the teacher will do a written reflection. The next one-on-one meeting between teacher and coach will serve as a debrief, and a targeted joint reflection and discussion. One outcome might be to plan for a second reflective cycle to continue working on the new pedagogical practice or might be to determine the goal of the next habit-changing cycle. 

According to Yonatan Rosner, it is easier to change perceptions than it is to change habits. We increase the chance that changed perceptions result in changed habits through this cycle of intrapersonal reflection, interpersonal professional learning, observation, feedback, return to intrapersonal reflection, and launch of the next cycle. Alignment to the Pressman way is the added benefit of bringing together individual reflective practitioners for group thinking and learning on a band-wide basis. 

For questions about Hebrew at Pressman Academy, contact Dr. Gila Azrad. To learn more about Hebrew at the Center membership or explore transformative change opportunities in Hebrew education, please reach out to Dr. Esty Gross or Nili Pinhasi at Hebrew at the Center.