Hanukkah Cuteness

A blog post by Education Director Ilene Dackman-Alon. To read more posts by Ilene click HERE.

The JMM piloted its successful Museum-School Partnership program eleven years ago, working with four Baltimore City schools and met with great success.  This model includes moving beyond the one-time annual field trip and one-time classroom activity.  The JMM provides 4-8 programs over the course of the year, some at the Museum and other at the school.  Independent evaluations, participant-observer reports, and direct testing of knowledge, documents the value and productivity of sustained engagement between the Museum, the school, and the students. In each partnership, Museum education staff work with individual teachers and administrators to adapt JMM program offerings to meet the specific needs of the specific schools and students.

Our Museum-School partnership has become a signature achievement of the JMM’s education department since it was launched eleven years ago.  During this academic school year, we are working with five specific schools, that are our neighbors in East and West Baltimore- Patterson Park Public Charter School, City Springs Elementary/Middle School, John Ruhrah Elementary /Middle School, Morrell Park Elementary/Middle School and Windsor Hills Elementary/Middle School.

During the holiday season, it is a thrill to go inside the classrooms and expose children to the  Jewish customs and traditions of Hanukkah.  The importance of multicultural education in our schools is so important especially in today’s world where our schools consist of children from a wide array of cultures including people from Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, Eastern Europe and Africa; whereas, in earlier generations immigrants came from mostly western and northern Europe. Our schools play an important role preparing students for the responsibilities of an ever-changing diverse and global society.

Over the past 3 weeks, the JMM has spent a lot of time inside the classrooms of our museum/school partnerships schools serving more than 300 students and teaching them about Hanukkah.  In many instances, our education programs are the first time that many children have ever heard about other religions, or customs other than their own.    Our staff had so much using storytelling, dreidel spinning and dancing to teach students about the Jewish customs and traditions of Hanukkah.   We hope that you will enjoy some of these special moments with area school children!  Happy Hanukkah!