Rena Rosen wears several hats at Schechter Westchester. In addition to being the Middle School director of experiential education, she’s also the eighth-grade dean and Israel trip coordinator. While others might find it difficult to juggle so many responsibilities, Rosen relishes the opportunity. She believes that experiential education should take place both inside and outside of the classroom and challenge students to use their whole minds. Rosen says, “By approaching learning through a variety of experiences, we can ignite passion, interest, and enthusiasm in many different subject areas that highlight the unique gifts of each student.”
Rosen has a rich history of teaching in nontraditional contexts. Before joining the SW team, she created a school field trip program for LANDMARK WEST, and a walking tour designed for school groups focusing on the Jewish history of NYC’s Lower East Side. She has also spent many years on the senior programming team for Camp Ramah in Nyack, New York. Her philosophy is “school can and should be a place where kids have fun.”
One of the first projects that Rosen introduced when she came to SW was a Rosh Hashanah mural project developed in collaboration with Upper School art teacher Sarah Carey. They painted a giant scale outside the lunchroom and asked students from all over the school to consider their actions from last year. The students then wrote those actions on notes, affixing those they would choose to leave behind in 5777 on one side, and those they would like to exhibit more of in 5778 on the other. “It encouraged them to tip the scale toward kindness,” Rosen says. “We don’t want to just talk about kindness. We want to do it.”
That’s why Rosen is organizing hands-on chesed afternoons for eighth graders, such as a recent trip to deliver turkeys to a local food bank in the run-up to Thanksgiving, and another to prepare lunches for a mobile soup kitchen. She favors volunteer projects that are high-impact and person-to-person. And she has already begun planning the spring bnai mitzvah trip to Israel for eighth graders, collaborating with Middle School Social Studies Chair Rachel Weber to relate the itinerary to a curriculum that locates each destination not just on a map, but also in a timeline of the State of Israel. “We want to prepare the students to get the most out of their trip by orienting them and helping them understand each destination as a part of the larger story of our land, our people, and our history.”
You might find Josh Ull at a Broadway show with the Culture Club, delivering sandwiches to the homeless with the Midnight Run Club, or accompanying eleventh graders on their spring trip to explore colleges in the Philadelphia area. In his role as Schechter Westchester’s High School student life coordinator, Ull oversees afterschool clubs and plans out-of-classroom experiences. Before joining the SW team, Ull served United Synagogue Youth as regional director for New Jersey and was a group leader for USY on Wheels, their annual cross-country leadership and community service trip.
Ull enjoys taking students on the road because he believes in the transformative power of travel. He makes use of the down time in between activities to get to know students one-on-one, which helps him steer them on a path toward success. “I get teenagers because I listen,” says Ull. “I identify kids with leadership potential who are not obvious stars, and help them develop into the people they want to become.”
Ull also tries to infuse meaning into the activities he oversees. “I want these experiences to create not only safe spaces, but brave spaces,” says Ull, “spaces where teenagers can speak out, have adventures, and grow.” Since joining SW last fall, he has completed many Shabbatonim experiences and school trips, including an eleventh-grade trip to Manhattan’s Upper West Side in which students explored Jewish life, visiting synagogues and running their own service. He also coordinates the ninth-grade trip to clean up a Jewish cemetery with the Hebrew Free Burial Association, teaching students that this type of service is the highest form of Jewish giving because it cannot be returned.
