nancesea

Tag: Teaching

  • But How Do you Know?

    As part of  my course work in the Mandel Teacher Educator Institute (MTEI)/Hebrew Union College Graduate Certificate in Educational Leadership, I was asked to research my own practice as a teacher. I immediately knew my research topic! Does learning in my classroom empower young people to be Upstanders? If so, what experiences in my Jewish… →

  • Making Abraham an Upstander

    Parashat Vayera D’var 5786 – 8 November 2025 (A video of my reading this d’var is linked at the bottom) Years ago I heard Rabbi Donniel Hartman speak about the Abraham of Genesis 18:16 – 33 versus the Abraham of Genesis 22. Rabbi Donniel taught that our choice of which Abraham speaks to us said →

  • Don’t be Jonah

    Darshan Jonah Yom Kippur 5784 Nance Morris Adler (I was honored to give the sermon on the Book of Jonah at my shul this Yom Kippur. This is my teaching. I dedicated it to my students who are always my teachers.) In 6th grade Jewmanities – that is what I call my classes at JDS →

  • Ich Judenwochen – A Lone Jew in the Kraichgau

    “Oh wait! Are you Jewish?”  This was said to me in a lecture that I sat in on at the Jewish Studies Institute in Heidelberg. The lecture was in German and I had been doing my best, aided by Google Translate, to follow along. It also helped that it was on the Crusades and Jewish →

  • Q&A in Germany – What the questions asked say about how the US is viewed abroad

    Many of my sessions in classrooms have been opportunities for students to ask me questions. Questions about the US, questions about Judaism, questions about my life, questions about the Holocaust, about history. Anyone who has been in my classroom, or had a child in my classroom, knows I love questions and discussions. Some questions were →

  • Teaching the Holocaust in Germany

    Teaching about Jewish resistance during the Holocaust as a Jewish visitor to German schools. (Again out of order chronologically, but fresh, and heavy, on my mind…) This week I spent two days teaching at a gymnasium – “college prep” high school – in Heilbronn. I was speaking in their Religious Education classes, a History class →

  • Nance in Germany – Sinsheim visit 8 July

    This post is out of order chronologically but was written right after my visit. On Friday I went to Sinsheim, a town near to Eppingen to speak to students in a variety of classes. This was set up by Jutta, another Centropa teacher, who is the Catholic Religious Education director. A short train ride away →

  • Nance in Germany 2022 – Natzweiler KZ Lager

    While folks back in the US were deciding if or how to celebrate The Fourth of July in this year where our rights, freedom and liberty seem at high risk, even for those whose privilege generally has kept them insulated from previous or ongoing injustices and inequality, I joined the Year 9 students of the →

  • Nance in Germany 2022 – First weekend

    In response to my frustration at finding myself finally able to travel but without a plan for travel and learning for this summer, my awesome friend Alan offered up that “perhaps I could come and be a visiting scholar at his school for a week…or two.” I immediately said “That would be wonderful.” So Alan →

  • A Pandemic Poem by a Teacher…

    It felt good…and awful at the same time… It all began with having to tell 8th grade we weren’t going on our trip to Israel. Heartbreaking. Disappointing. 9 years of waiting, and now nothing. Then talk of having to go remote. Our small school managed the beginning really well. We were prepared – already planning →