atlanta | Jewish educators now believe it is possible to begin giving children a Jewish education before they’re even a year old.
“By 9 months of age, children ‘play’ with a variety of sounds they hear in their environment. If they are exposed to Hebrew sounds — through language, music or Israeli songs — in a legitimate way, [the sounds] can be ‘hard wired’ into the brain and the children can pick it up later,” Ilene Vogelstein, coordinator of the newly established early childhood department at the Coalition for the Advancement of Jewish Education, told Jewish educators here earlier this month.
Vogelstein spoke to some 100 preschool educators from across the country who gathered in Atlanta to discuss the latest findings in brain research, Hebrew teaching techniques and curriculum development at the Union of Reform Judaism’s Jewish Early Childhood Education Conference.
At one session, Vogelstein cited research indicating that critical brain development occurs from birth until age 6 and that by age 14, the brain gradually “prunes” the number of synapses — the brain’s connections between neurons through which nerve impulses travel — down to adult levels.
“We know that we can modify or determine the structure of brain centers in these critical years,” she said. “We need to build pathways through culturally rich Jewish preschools to hard-wire children to be part of the Jewish community.”
Joy Salenfriend, director of the Schiff Preschool at Atlanta’s Temple Emanu-El, said early Jewish learning also benefits a child’s family.
“We’re not only educating the child, we’re educating a family,” said Salenfriend. “We have so many people who never celebrated Shabbat or Havdallah. We help make it comfortable and easy to celebrate and practice Judaism.”
Salenfriend also discussed how to teach more topics “from a Jewish perspective.”
For example, Temple Emanu-El preschoolers recently learned about Martin Luther King Jr. in the context of Jewish values — the mitzvah of welcoming guests, the creation of a shalom bayit (peaceful home) and the similarities between African slaves and the Jewish slaves in Egypt.
Nancy Bossov, the URJ’s director of early childhood education, says this month’s conference, now in its fourth year, is proof of the status and importance of preschool education in the Jewish community: “Preschool educators are finally getting recognition for the value that they contribute.’