Archives in March 2011

It was that rare commodity: a stress-free Purim carnival. Gateways' Purim carnival attracted more than 50 families from its Jewish Education Programs, as well as several preschoolers with special needs and a few families checking out if Gateways might be the right fit for their child.  Organizers planned the event to offer enough activity to create a happy buzz, but without the crowds, long lines and most importantly, chaos.

The activities were designed to provide both challenge and success for children with a variety of special needs. Visual supports and a color-coded map of activities helped them select the games and learn the rules ahead of time. The activities were also spread out into different rooms for gross motor and sensory activities, and a quiet room for children needing a break. There were also plenty of sure-fire crowd-pleasers including cotton candy, popcorn and – naturally -- hamentashen.

For Anna, the highlight of her first-ever Gateways Purim carnival was the Moon Bounce where, unlike many other carnivals, there was no line, no time limit -- and no pushing. "It's even better than the popcorn, and she loves popcorn," said her mother Vivian Glassman-Grosser.   As Jamie enjoyed the carnival from her wheelchair, stopping to try her hand at adaptive bowling, big brother Tom was impressed. "You can see by the way the aides are interacting with all of them that the kids really feel comfortable here."

The second session carnival ended with a grand finale, a magic show by Gateways Sunday program alumnus Noah Bittner. It was a jubilant performance where objects disappeared and reappeared, ropes stiffened and went limp, balls changed color and shape, all before the amazed eyes of the children.

Noah also made magic happen with his fellow students, many of whom he invited up as volunteer magical assistants.

This connection between the students and the community they and their families have built over the years is part of the larger Gateways magic. "This is a place where it's guaranteed my daughter will be truly successful and feel like a leader," said Rachel Katz who brought her daughter, Genevieve, and little sister Sydra. "It's something that doesn't always happen in other venues."

The carnival's lead staff, Gateways Jewish Education Programs Coordinator Nancy Mager has a theory about why the students had such a wonderful time. "First of all, they were prepared," she says – the week before they'd worked with a social story all about Purim carnivals.  "We also wanted them to start their day like they always do – in the classroom, only this time planning their carnival experience," Mager adds. "And the teen volunteers understood the goals of the day included each child feeling feel like a winner. They were able to adapt a game – often on the fly -- as needed, cheering on the children, whether they won or not."  As an educator, Mager's favorite games included "Ahasuerus' Moat," featuring a floating fleet of pirate-garbed plastic ducks, and "Dig for Mishloach Manot" where carnival-goers sift through sand for plastic gems which, when added to a crown, made them a winner. As Gateways music therapist Miriam Greenbaum played the children's regular Good-bye Song on her guitar as the carnival's first session drew to a close, many of them sang along, and several jumped up to dance.

"These are all kids who are on the fringe in many ways, but at this moment," said Rachel's dad Frank Murphy, "they are all in sync. Gateways really is Rachel's way of being part of the community."

"She's been a great resource for me over the last three years," says Lauri Cohen, who teaches 3- and 4-year-olds at Temple Beth Shalom Children's Center in Needham. The "she" in question is none other than Gateways' Community Special Education Services Coordinator Sherry Grossman, a familiar face in Jewish preschools and congregational religious schools around town, where she regularly collaborates with their staffs around creating more welcoming classrooms to a wide range of learners.

"In preschools, the success of each child is directly related to the environment. The routines and physical set-up are critical," says Cohen. "Sherry always has great ideas about how to set up the classroom for everyone's success … from snack time to conversations with children. She's also helped me and my co-teacher work better as a team."

Another area where Grossman helped out was strategies for seating arrangements for circle time, a system where different learning styles are now accommodated, adds Cohen. "She pointed out that it's unreasonable to expect non-auditory learners to sit and focus for the entire time, so we offered them ways to move around when they need to."

Gateways OT Shana Krell has also played a part in the classroom helping the teachers focus on children's muscle use positioning. "We now make sure our chairs work so all the kids' feet touch the floor. We were surprised at how something that seemed so minor affected the kids' behavior and improved their learning!"

There’s a tradition at  Tufts Hillel that when we say the motzi on Friday nights, everyone reaches  their arm toward the center of the table and puts a hand on the challah.  Last Friday night, for the first time,  several of those hands belonged to young adults with special needs.  As I looked around the room at  students, professors, Hillel staff and even the university’s President  connected to one another and reciting the motzi in unison, I realized that, at  that moment, no one could really tell who had special needs and who did not.

That was a highlight for  me, watching the vision that has lived only in my mind for quite some time come  to fruition before my eyes.  I grew  up with a younger brother who is hard of hearing, and it only took witnessing  one teasing comment from another kid, a family friend who called my brother  “ear boy” because of his hearing aids, to ignite my passion for advocating for people  with special needs at a very young age.   Fortunately, in high school I found a program that provided me with a  deeper understanding of the special needs population through a combination of  formal education and hands-on experience.   The Gateways Sunday Program (then called Etgar L’Noar) provides a Jewish  education to children with a wide range of special needs, and trains 50 to 60  teen volunteers each year to be one-to-one aides for the students.  I wrote my college essay about my  experience in this program, and went on to study Child Development at Tufts University,  graduating magna cum laude in 2009.

So, after graduating and exploring  the desolate job market for a few months, my next move was to call Arlene Remz,  Executive Director of Gateways: Access to Jewish Education, to ask if she would please let me intern in her office,  hoping that I had made an impression as a teen volunteer.  Graciously she complied, and my  internship quickly turned into a real job, as Program Associate.  During one of my first days on the job,  I attended a meeting with a group of parents who wanted Gateways to design a  Jewish education program for their young adult children with special needs, who  were all about my age.  I was  thinking about the role Judaism had played in my life for the past few years and  realized that, like most young Jewish adults in the US, my campus Hillel had  shaped my Jewish identity as a young adult, providing a forum to explore  Judaism through education, socialization, volunteerism and spirituality.  Then it occurred to me that people with special needs were simply not a part of this experience, and that if I had not  found a way to incorporate this population into my definition of my Jewish  community since I left high school, then most other people probably hadn’t  either.

The idea came rushing into my head: to design a program that incorporates fundamental elements of the Gateways Sunday Program, like using one-to-one peer aids, but to adjust everything --  content, structure, location -- to be appropriate for young adults.  The program would have to take place on  a college campus, I imagined, and be designed to include young adults with  special needs in existing programming at the respective Hillel with the support  of undergraduate volunteers, who would also participate in a concurrent  training program.  In addition to  providing necessary Jewish engagement for young adults with special needs, this  program would leave an impression the greater Hillel community, thereby influencing  the standards of future Jewish leaders around inclusion.

Lucky for me, Tufts University, my alma mater, was poised and ready to take on this mission. Tufts  Hillel, through their Repair the World initiative, partnered with Gateways,  Boston’s central agency for Jewish special education, to pilot this innovative  new program that aims to challenge -- and change -- the way we view, treat and  interact with people with special needs in our community.  Now, the greater goal is to develop  emerging adults who are not only aware of people with special needs, but who  value and expect a community that is inclusive of all Jewish people.

With the support of Gateways and my CJP/PresenTense Fellowship, and with the partnership of Tufts  Hillel, I was able to launch this brand new program last week. And, it was a  huge success. Everyone in the program -- the volunteers and the young adults  with special needs -- had a fabulous evening.  “The best part,” according to Marie, a bright young woman  with Down Syndrome who is enrolled in the program, “was when we did the Kiddush  together. The whole table and the whole room, it was like one big community and  I felt part of it.”

When she was a new bride, Michelle Alkon had a dream: celebrating Shabbat with her husband and their future children, complete with candles, challah and wine. But things didn't turn out as Alkon had envisioned. On Friday nights, her son, who is on the autism spectrum, would sing Happy Birthday, blow out the Shabbat candles and run off with the challah. "Pretty soon I decided a family Shabbat was just another dream I had to give up," she says.

But her son's Gateways experience gave the Newton family their Shabbat back. Seeing her son in his class reciting the blessing over the candles, Alkon realized that he could do this at home too. "I dusted off my candles and tried again," she says. "This time it meant something to him – and it worked." Cindy Kaplan has also seen the impact of her daughter's Sunday morning Gateways class at their Shabbat table. "She beams when we sing Bim Bam as we welcome Shabbat into our home," says Kaplan. "She bounces with joy as we sing the blessings and she takes pride in her role of removing the challah cover."

The value of a child with special needs making Shabbat their own is also brought home for Laurie Gershkowitz each time her son pores over his Shabbat book – a project Gateways Sunday school students created as part of his class' Shabbat unit. "The book is something he can hold in his hands, a real connection to all the Shabbat symbols, blessings and the music he loves," she says. "It reinforces what he's learning and makes Shabbat his own."

Creating their own Shabbat book is just one way Gateways educators have of conveying the magic of Shabbat, enriching and enlivening the Sabbath experience for students and their families. Others include a selection of "social stories" and "file folders activities," tasks designed to divide Shabbat rituals into clear, easy-to-understand and sequential pieces. At the end of the unit, a Temple Book prepares the students for the multiple joys – and potentially overwhelming stimulations -- of a synagogue visit.

"Our students come to Gateways to learn, but also for a rich Jewish experience each week," says Gateways' Jewish Education Program Coordinator Nancy Mager. "Since each child learns differently, we make sure ours is a multi-sensory environment. By the time they leave on a Sunday, they've sung it, heard it, tasted it, felt it and seen it – all our activities are designed to reach them at a level that is meaningful to them."

It's a philosophy that helps the students at varying ages and stages (they span the ages 4-18) engage in everything from simple recognition of the symbols to learning the blessings to the deeper meanings of Shabbat. In addition, in the bar/bat mitzvah class, a greater emphasis is placed on the Shabbat service and Torah reading.

Mager reports her teachers continually adapt and refine the materials to work for each student. An unexpected bonus: parents and educators alike are finding "Gateways' user-friendly materials help all children relate to Jewish traditions."

In addition to strengthening a child's personal relationship with Shabbat and enriching a family's Shabbat rituals, Gateways also works to build the kind of strong Jewish community that's kept Shabbat alive for generations of Jews. Snack time, for instance, naturally facilitates social interaction. "When you learn and eat with friends – a time-honored Jewish tradition -- you automatically build community," says Mager.

That's something Cindy Kaplan is learning from her daughter's Gateways experience. "What our daughter learns in the classroom with her peers -- blessings, songs, holidays and rituals -- she carries over to our home, our synagogue, and beyond," she says. "Gateways has helped our daughter learn that Judaism belongs to her, each member of her family and the larger community."