November at the JMM

A blog post by education director Deborah Cardin.

I just finished compiling stats for November 2010 at the JMM. Every month, I tally our on-site attendance with separate categories dedicated to walk-in visitors, adult group members, schools, special events, and rentals. I am now in my 9th year as “keeper of the stats” and it is interesting to compare and contrast the ebb and flow of visitation over the years as we try and track trends and determine the various factors (weather, season, new exhibitions, popular programs, etc.) that seem to encourage higher numbers of visitors. School groups, in particular, are a special area of interest. As we work to promote our programs and resources to even larger numbers of school groups, I always pay particular attention to our monthly totals in an effort to discern how we can continue to grow our program.

November was a banner month for school groups. During the month, we served 834 students, teachers, and chaperones (as compared to just over 400 last November). One of the most influential factors driving school group visitation during the month was our installation of the exhibition, A Blessing To One Another: Pope John Paul II and the Jewish People. While many groups booked visits to see this exhibition – and we also saw the number of walk-in visitors rise – Catholic schools, in particular, demonstrated a high level of interest in bringing groups to see the exhibition. During November alone, we served 606 students, teachers, and chaperones from Catholic schools and universities.

One of the challenges in serving such large number of student groups is the limited space within the gallery housing A Blessing To One Another. As many of our docents have pointed out, ideal group sizes for a guided exhibition tour is 15 or fewer and yet, the average size group of students is larger than 50. It, therefore, becomes necessary to break the classes into smaller groups and rotate each group through various stations. This also necessitates bringing on additional volunteer docents and staff to help facilitate.

On November 16, 75 students from The Catholic High School, an all-girls school in Baltimore City, visited for a half-day trip. The large number of students necessitated some creative thinking as to how we could break them into smaller groups and facilitate meaningful activities with each group. We decided to split them into four groups. Two groups were combined for an Introduction to Judaism program in the Lloyd Street Synagogue (which can accommodate larger numbers of students) where students learned about Jewish history, traditions, and customs. This station proved to be a terrific complement to the Blessing To One Another exhibition where students could ask questions and probe the significance of Jewish ritual items.

Catholic HS girls participating in an Introduction to
Judaism program led by JMM docent Lois Fekete.

The other two groups were split between A Blessing To One Another and The Synagogue Speaks! exhibition that explores the histories of the three different congregational groups (including a Lithuanian Catholic church) that occupied the Lloyd Street Synagogue at different times in history. The Synagogue Speaks! station included hands-on interactive activities that encouraged students to work together in teams and to solve mysteries of how the building changed over time.

Catholic HS students creating watercolors in The Synagogue Speaks!

The program culminated with a presentation by Holocaust survivor Rachel Bodner who shared her personal experiences of life before, during, and after the Holocaust.

Catholic HS students listening to Holocaust survivor, Rachel Bodner

Through these various activities and presentations, students received an intensive learning experience that touched on many aspects of their classroom lessons. One of the teachers from The Catholic High School shared his feedback about the field trip with JMM staff: “Thank you so much for helping to plan our experience at the museum. My students had an amazing experience and are still talking about it today. I cannot express how grateful I am for the museum, you, your staff, the volunteers, and the wonderful programs that you have available. The other faculty members and myself were discussing how we can incorporate the museum into our curriculum to make it a yearly event.”

The next day, we received a visit by a joint group of students visiting from St. Frances Academy and Shoshana S. Cardin High School. This interfaith gathering of students of Jewish and Catholic faiths was inspired by the Blessing To One Another exhibition. Students were split into small mixed groups and toured the exhibition with the assistance of worksheets looking for examples of how Pope John Paul II worked towards building positive relationships between Jews and Catholics throughout his life. As I walked through the exhibit asking students if they needed assistance finding answers to worksheet questions, I kept hearing from students that they were equally interested in getting to know their peers from the other school and they were conversing about mutual interest in sports, music, etc. I took this as a sign that the program was successful!

Again, we received positive feedback about the field trip from both teachers and students. “I just wanted to thank you for the experience yesterday. It proved to be a wonderful example of Judeo-Christian camaraderie and dialogue. I thought it went great, and my students were genuinely interested throughout the visit. I could not even get anyone to admit to liking one part of the day over the other, they said again and again, that it was great from beginning to end.”

While we are always pleased to serve high numbers of students and teachers, we are even more concerned with the quality of the programs. Feedback that we receive through teacher and student surveys (such as the comments shared above) provides guidance as we plan new programs and activities. We are grateful to all of the JMM staff and volunteer docents who provided such superior service for school groups this month and look forward to developing new tours, resources, and activities in the months ahead.

While it was an exhausting month, comments from students such as this St. Frances Academy student, truly make it all worthwhile!

Programming Done Right

A blog post by Rachael Binning, outreach coordinator.

Because I only started my job as Outreach Coordinator a few weeks ago I currently have the luxury of observing and shadowing the other staff members on their various project. I got to watch Jobi lead a collections meeting where the Collections Committee decided on what objects should be accessioned into JMM’s vast collection. I’ve followed Deborah and Elena while they led school groups galore through the “A Blessing to One Another” exhibit, and most recently I got to be a participant in Ilene Dackman-Alon’s “Student Immigration Stories.” For the past two Mondays I have traveled to Patterson High School to visit Ms. Franklin’s English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) Class. My experiences were so positive that I decided that I must share a few of them with you .

A few blog posts ago Ilene wrote a bit about “Student Immigration Stories” so I won’t go into the minute details of the program. Instead I’ll give you some visuals to accompany my story.

First, before the class started Ilene, Ms. Franklin, and myself pushed the desks to the side and made a big circle so that the students and teachers were able to sit together and talk. I love the idea of everyone sitting in a circle together because in this class everyone is equal and everyone has a story.

Preparing the room.

Soon the after the bell rang around sixteen students from countries as varied as the Dominican Republic, Nepal, and Eritrea rushed into the classroom. After the class settled down Jennifer Rudick Zunikoff, the storyteller and facilitator, asked each of us to say our names, where we are from, and how to say hello in our native tongue. What impressed me the most today was that despite the fact that there were about six students who spoke Spanish, they were from countries ranging from Mexico to Honduras. Although they spoke the same language, they each had their own accents and terms unique to their country. Lisbeth, who is from the Dominican Republic said that Dominicans tend not to pronounce “s” so when she says good morning in Spanish is sounds like “bueno dia” compared to “buenos dias.”

Lisbeth is from the Dominican Republic and Katie is from Honduras.
Both girls speak Spanish, but have different accents.

Ms. Sally Franklin and her students sitting together as we introduce ourselves.

Jennifer leading the class in a storytelling exercise.
Notice how the students face each other when they share their stories.

The three translators in the class who also shared their stories with us.

The premise of the class is to get students to share stories about their lives with each other. Each time I have participated in these storytelling exercises I have been extremely humbled by the students’ amazing tales and many hardships they have already endured.

I’d like to finish this blog with one final special moment from my experience. Jennifer told the class to think about a family member and a special memory we had with them. She had us actually travel in our minds back to a time with that person and visualize what we were doing with them. For this storytelling experience I was partnered with Agatha, a translator in the class from West Africa. I told Agatha about my memory with my Grandma Sharon. Grandma Sharon didn’t have a lot to give us monetarily, but she was so generous with her love and time. When my sister and I would stay over at Grandma Sharon’s house we would always have a tea party, which consisted of drinking tea heavily diluted with milk in special mini teacups and saucers. We would also have special frosted animal cookies, which was a big treat because we were not allowed to have those at home. Over glasses of tea we would sit around the table and talk and share stories. This was always the highlight of our trip to grandma’s.

Agatha heard this and was immediately reminded of her memories with her grandmother. She would travel from her urban home to her grandmother’s rural house to spend time with her. She would share stories with her grandmother while sitting around a fire and roasting maize. Agatha and I come from extremely different places and from different times, but we both had the same memory of sharing time with our grandmothers.

My entire experience at Patterson High School has been so moving and meaningful. On one hand I’ve realized how lucky and easy my childhood was compared to most of the students in Ms. Franklin’s class. At the same time, I’ve also realized how many similarities and common values I have with my new friends.

Student Immigration Stories

The Baltimore Jewish Times recently. wrote a great story about our student immigration stories program. Check it out here!