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Herzlia teacher Shimpa (Chaim) Moch recently completed the two-year programme offered by the Mandel Teacher Educator Institute (MTEI) in the United States. Not only is he the first South African to graduate from this course, he was also the only foreign student in his cohort.

The Mandel Teacher Educator Institute (MTEI) is pleased to announce its eleventh Cohort of Jewish educational leaders who have been selected to participate in the two-year, intensive professional development program designed to transform how we think about teaching and learning. These exceptional “teachers of teachers,” as the program describes its participants, will come together for the first of six, four-day seminars March 3-6 in Chicago. 

As I write this, I am heading into my final seminar for the Mandel Teacher Educator Institute (MTEI, 2023). It has been a two-year journey of professional development with Jewish educators from around the world (rabbis, heads of schools, administrators, department heads, and more), all of whom share a passion for growing the capacity of their faculty.

As another school year comes to a close, many of us take stock of which teachers are returning for the following year. As Jewish education leaders, consultants, and coaches, we begin to ask ourselves: How do we retain teachers? How do we recruit teachers?

During a chevrutah study at a virtual MTEI learning session, a colleague posed, “If we aren’t changed by Torah are we doing it ‘right’?” This was an “ah-ha” moment for me, because I assumed we are somehow changed by Torah each time we study it, but until then I hadn’t considered what that idea really means.

At the MTEI (Mandel Teacher Educator Institute) graduate conference on Singer Island, Florida, in December 2022, we were asked to take a pad of sticky notes and jot down each task we accomplished in the previous week at work.

What I appreciate most about MTEI gatherings is that they provide the gift of getting me off the dance floor and into the balcony. What do I mean? I spend (too) much time dealing with the urgent and seemingly important: designing yet another flyer, reminding teachers to submit lesson plans and lesson summaries, and organizing supplies.

Welcoming Shabbat in my professional role looks very different from my previous Friday evening Shabbat practice! Our learners come together Friday afternoons for our Shabbat-based religious school program, and our weekly family Shabbat service is the cornerstone of each session.

Words matter. They shape a child’s mind: opening landscapes while fencing others off, carving streams of ideas and emotional associations while setting up dams elsewhere.

We feel such enormous gratitude to have had the opportunity to learn with Cohort 8 of MTEI. Over the last few years since we graduated, we have continued to look to the MTEI principles to guide us and our work.