education – Page 32

Chai Lifeline in the city

A group of nine Jewish boys from Toronto was in Vancouver recently, courtesy of Chai Lifeline Canada. (photo from CLC)

A group of nine Toronto boys, aged 10-15, recently enjoyed a three-day, all-expenses-paid trip to Vancouver, courtesy of Chai Lifeline Canada, a national charity that supports the families of children or parents who suffer from serious illnesses.

The boys – each of whom has a sibling or parent who is sick – were invited on the trip as a diversion to their family challenges and as an opportunity to bond with other kids in similar situations. Students of seven different Toronto schools, the boys didn’t previously know one another, but came back from the Feb. 28-March 2 trip with strong, new friendships, said Chai Lifeline caseworker Shmuel Rosenberg.

Welcomed by the Vancouver Jewish community, the boys arrived in the city to a group of local boys handing out care packages and then joined them for an excursion to a trampoline park.

A special Shabbat was hosted by Congregation Schara Tzedeck, where the Toronto boys had the opportunity to bond with more of the local community and experience a walking tour of the city, led by Schara Tzedeck’s Rabbi Andrew Rosenblatt. Other weekend highlights included skating on the top of Grouse Mountain and hiking amid spectacular views.

Based in Toronto, with an office in Montreal, Chai Lifeline Canada has nearly 600 volunteers helping more than 2,000 family members nationally. The organization provides dozens of free initiatives to help give children stability and their families a sense of normalcy. Initiatives include counseling, tutoring for children missing extended periods of school, family retreats, sibling programs similar to that of Big Brothers, Big Sisters, and summer camps for kids. For more information, visit chailifelinecanada.org.

Gotta Sing! Gotta Dance! deadline April 1

(photo from Gotta Sing! Gotta Dance!)

The deadline to apply for Gotta Sing! Gotta Dance! at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver July 7-30 and Aug. 4-27 is April 1. With participants ages 9 to 19 from various parts of Canada and elsewhere in the world, director and creator of the program Perry Ehrlich will be joined this year by faculty including musical directors Wendy Bross Stuart and Diane Speirs; director Chris McGregor; choreographers Jason Franco, Keri Minty and Meghan Anderssen; acting coach Amanda Testini; and Mariana Munoz, set construction and costume co-ordination. The final production of each session will be Wild Wild West Side Story, featuring an original script and a repertoire from Broadway and movie musicals. Also being offered is the finishing school, for serious musical theatre students attending Gotta Sing! Gotta Dance!, and a boot camp dance program. Scholarships are available.

Supporting gender diversity

Ara Morris, principal of Brock Corydon School, left, and Naomi Finkelstein, co-founder of Parents Family Friends of Transgender Individuals. (photo from Morris and Finkelstein)

The Winnipeg School Division recently assembled a panel to discuss ways to best support trans and gender diverse children and youth, especially in school settings.

Ara Morris, principal of Brock Corydon School, was invited to sit on the Jan. 22 panel, which took place at Prince Charles Education Resource Centre. “Our school has been very active in talking about gender,” said Morris. “We’ve been making changes to our school as a result of having children in our school who are transgender. We want all of our students, all of our families, to feel included, important, and as equal members of our community and so, to do that, sometimes we have to reflect on the different ways that we are speaking, the different language that we are using.

“We know that many times children identify themselves in all different ways,” she said. “We want to be respectful of that. We have had a lot of professional development for our teachers and that has included programs from the Rainbow Resource Centre,” which offers support, counseling and educational programs for LGBTQ2S+ individuals and allies.

Brock Corydon has invited the parent of a transgender student to speak with school staff, and teachers have led sessions among themselves, as well as having had other teachers come to share how they work on being inclusive in the classroom.

“Our school division has a policy and it was updated in June 2018 for diversity and equity,” said Morris. “With all the research that our school division has been doing, I’d be surprised if other school divisions weren’t doing the same.”

Morris has received many phone calls from other principals asking for suggestions, and she works with parents to identify any needs, such as the need for a gender-neutral bathroom, which the school now has.

Even though full-time staff has been educated on the topic, part-time or causal staff also need to be informed about the proper way for teachers to speak at the school, including the use of gender-neutral language.

Naomi Finkelstein, a retired teacher and the mother of a trans child, was also on the event panel. Finkelstein was dealing with the situation 13 years ago and recalled having tried to find proper supports, which were lacking. She started a support group with another parent, called Parents Family Friends of Transgender Individuals (PFFOTI).

“I had a daughter and, when she was about 20 and a half, she came out and shared that she was transgender,” said Finkelstein. “I knew that this was something I was going to have to get support for, so I went to the Rainbow Resource Centre.”

PFFOTI started out with the two founding members and is now providing support to 170 parents. “Of course, that many do not come to all the meetings and, really, what happens is people kind of grandfather out. Their children are older now, they’ve made their transitions … maybe some have had surgery and they don’t feel the need to attend anymore. We’re always getting new people,” said Finkelstein.

“Our group is specifically for parents,” she continued, “because there are some parents who have just found out and they need the support. And there are always Kleenex boxes on the table. For some parents, it is a real shock.

“I was shocked, too, but I did my crying at home in the shower, which was really very good. There was something, I don’t know why, it was almost like being in a womb, feeling protected in there…. We want the parents to be able to share their fears and concerns; you can’t do that if a child is there.”

Over the years, Finkelstein has developed a list of do’s and don’ts for parents who suspect that their child might be trans.

The do’s list includes respecting your child’s identity and following your child’s lead and listening to them about what trans is all about. Each child is different and there’s no right way to be trans. As Finkelstein pointed out, “some go on hormones, some don’t, and some just dress in what they consider the gender’s clothing.”

The list encourages parents and others to learn about the difference between sex and gender – gender is a social construction, whereas sex is biological.

PFFOTI advises parents to start by helping and educating themselves so they can better help their child. “This involves reading and coming to support groups,” said Finkelstein. “And parents need to take into account if there are other siblings. There can be issues for the other siblings, and they need to be educated, too.”

If the children are minors, parents need to take the lead in setting up doctors’ appointments, buying appropriate clothing, getting haircuts, etc.

“Truly, the key to success is offering the kids your unconditional support,” said Finkelstein. “One of the support groups online, their motto was, ‘Fake it until you make it.’ But, we also talk about what parents need to do within the school system and that they need to advocate for their children. Although the human rights law says that they have rights, not all school divisions are on board. Winnipeg [School Division] 1 is totally on board and they have a process. We need parents to take part in the process and get the school to take part in the process.

“And a critical thing is bathroom talk,” she said. “You have to talk to your child before you go to the administration, so you’re both on the same page as to what the child wants to do. Some schools now have non-gender-specific bathrooms, which is great. I wish every school would have one.

“And then they have to talk to the administration about what their rights are. They should know those rights before they go in.”

Setting up a safe person at the school, with the help of administration, who the child can go to, someone who affirms their identity, if they are having problems, is also important, as is talking about the school’s anti-bullying policy and how that is handled.

“Past the age of 12 and up, you’re also dealing with all these hormones that rage through the child’s body,” said Finkelstein. “So, some kids are going to have to get on blockers to prevent their periods and their breasts from developing, and stuff like that.”

Parents and others must understand that a child’s identification as trans is not likely a passing phase. Although some children identify as trans and later change their mind, that is uncommon. So, do your best to avoid calling your child by their previous name, said Finkelstein.

Parents “really have to make an effort not to misgender,” she said. “Misgendering kind of denies their existence as a person, and that’s a big negative. But, as a parent, if you screw up, you just apologize. I think kids are very understanding about that. As long as you don’t deliberately misgender a child, they are open to the fact that, you’ve had them for 13, or 18, or 20 years, and, yeah, that other name is going to come out. It takes you awhile to reformat.”

Another PFFOTI recommendation is to never out your child – let them do it when they are ready.

“Statistics have proven that, [even] with children who are trans who get support from their parents and their family … four percent commit suicide,” said Finkelstein. “The statistics are much higher – about 45% – for those who do not get support. This past summer, we lost four kids (three in Winnipeg and one who had moved to Vancouver).”

Finkelstein regularly checks in with her son to talk about his mental health and to assure him she accepts him as he is.

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

Words of praise for libraries

We have a lot of interesting Jewish educational opportunities in Winnipeg, where I live. If you made a big effort, you could be busy learning, attending lectures, events and classes much of the time. It might be possible to find something to do nearly every day of the week, but most of us don’t or can’t.

Maybe you can’t get out due to health issues or because you’re the caretaker for others. Perhaps it’s just too dark and cold right now, and you aren’t all that keen about going out after dinner. (I hear you!) There are many reasons to say no, we can’t manage something.

The last few weeks, I’ve found myself in this situation. Someone in my household got sick, or I did. The weather was just too cold. I wanted to hibernate. I wasn’t sure the car would start or the event cost too much or … you get the picture.

However, I found a solution that has really enriched this season. There were some books on Jewish topics that friends suggested online, and even a book written by someone I knew. I couldn’t afford to buy them all, nor did I know yet that I wanted to own them. This is where the public library is an amazing resource. I had all the books delivered to one library, where they sat on the holds shelf with my last name on them.

When I checked them out, I worried that I would not be able to finish them in time. Maybe I was being overambitious. Not to worry, it turns out. Most of the books were finished long before they were due – they were that good.

What were they? Well, now that I’ve read these books, I’m happy to make a couple recommendations! The first was Sacred Treasure – The Cairo Genizah: The Amazing Discoveries of Forgotten Jewish History in an Egyptian Synagogue Attic. Genizahs are where some Jewish communities stored their old (both holy and mundane) documents for many centuries. Written by Rabbi Mark Glickman, who I studied with at summer camp as a teenager, this book was the Jewish equivalent to an Indiana Jones story. I love reading about Jewish social history and, to be honest, it made Shabbat and several sick days absolutely a joy. I told all my friends I was geeking out on the genizah book!

The second book I loved was The Unorthodox Match by Naomi Ragen. Ragen is a beloved American-Israeli novelist, and this book didn’t let me down. It was both a love story and a realistic account of how some Chassidic and ultra-Orthodox communities operate. There’s a great divide. These groups both encourage ba’alei teshuvah (those who “return” to more traditional Judaism), but they also ostracize them, as not being the same as those who were raised from birth in these communities. The novel emphasizes the differences between what Judaism teaches about accepting converts and strangers and how communities actually act, sometimes alienating those who seek to be included.

After reading these books, I was struck by how I was able to enrich my Jewish learning simply by using the library and the couch when it was so cold out. Yet, if cities like mine cannot figure out their finances, it’s possible that some of our public libraries (along with wading pools, swimming pools, arenas, etc.) will soon be closed due to budget cuts.

We can choose to read at home and learn more about Jewish topics this way, but only if the public libraries remain open and they can afford to buy these books. We may complain about our taxes, but we are given a great gift when we can access these literary “riches” for free.

Canadian winters are long. I count myself lucky that, when I couldn’t go out, I was able to sit by the fire and read and learn this winter. If we want that learning option to be available, we all have to commit to doing our share to keep libraries (and all the other benefits of a tax-paying society) open and thriving.

Joanne Seiff has written regularly for CBC Manitoba and various Jewish publications. She is the author of three books, including From the Outside In: Jewish Post Columns 2015-2016, a collection of essays available for digital download or as a paperback from Amazon. Check her out on Instagram @yrnspinner or at joanneseiff.blogspot.com.

Desert not a wasteland

Monument Valley in Utah. (photo from CBC Radio)

Having always lived in and around rainforest, CBC Vancouver’s Matthew Lazin-Ryder said the desert is a place he still struggles to fully understand.

“The desert has always seemed to be an imaginary place,” said Lazin-Ryder, contributing producer of the radio-documentary What Happens in the Desert. “My only contact with the desert has been in movies, storybooks, religious metaphors and things like that. The closest I have ever gotten to the real desert is having spent a little time in New Mexico, but, even then, I don’t think I was in true, scientific desert. My impression of what the desert was in my imagination was different than reality.

“One thing I wasn’t prepared for in my time in New Mexico was how cold it got at night, because it can get really cold. The imaginary desert in my mind was always hot – nights are sweltering, empty spaces, desolation.”

photo - Matthew Lazin-Ryder, contributing producer of the CBC radio-documentary What Happens in the Desert — Matthew Lazin-Ryder, contributing producer of the CBC radio-documentary What Happens in the Desert. *(photo from CBC Radio)*

In the radio documentary, which is an episode of the CBC Radio show Ideas, Lazin-Ryder explores various perceptions of the desert, stemming from culture, such as movies, novels and poetry, which often only portray one aspect of the landscape.

“An example we use in the documentary is Monument Valley in Utah, which, if you’ve seen a western film, it’s in so many movies,” Lazin-Ryder, who is a member of the Jewish community, told the Independent. “So, Monument Valley is that part of Utah, with red sand and rock, with these big towers of rock jutting out of the middle of the desert. John Ford, legendary western director, shot over 10 movies there at Monument Valley and lots of other classic western movies have used the backdrop of this valley as the setting.”

However, while it may seem that many films are shot in Monument Valley, most are actually shot in less-known locations in states like Texas, California and Arizona.

“It’s never specifically that this movie or story is taking place in Monument Valley,” said Lazin-Ryder. “It just becomes a symbol of the desert, which is a stand-in for an alien place, an exotic place, a place that you’ve never been to.”

From a religious perspective, the experts Lazin-Ryder interviews often speak of duality, where the desert is both a place where God is absent and where God is felt the strongest.

“The desert, in the Old Testament, is a place of deep spirituality and is also, for the Israelites, the place where they encounter God, where God travels with them,” he explained. “In the Christian New Testament and Christian culture later on, the desert becomes a place, not of exile and separation from God, but a place you go to escape civilization and to connect with God. Simultaneously, it’s a place where there are dangers … and the devil lives there and there are poisonous creatures, and it’s a place of death, wasteland and absence of God. But, at the same time, the desert is the place, both for the Israelites and early Christians, a place to go to connect with God.

“In a sense,” he said, “the desert, through its absence, represents God, because you can’t fully describe God – you can’t fully describe absence. The desert represents this strange relationship that we have with God, in a religious metaphor – at the same time that God is everything, God is nothing, and indescribable.”

In the documentary, Lazin-Ryder talks about the way the desert is portrayed in science-related and apocalyptic movies – movies that portray the future world as a desert; that climate change, if it continues apace, will leave the whole earth a desert.

“The seas will dry up, the forests will die and everything will be desert waste … which is not particularly an ecologically valid prediction … but, it’s a helpful metaphor for people to think about the dangers of climate change,” he said.

“The other thing is that, when talking about climate change and things like switching to less carbon-intensive energy, the desert becomes a very easy thing for people to say … ‘Hey! You know what would be great? Let’s just put a whole bunch of solar panels and windmills and stuff in the desert, because that’s empty land and it gets a lot of sun.’ You can Google it – there are all kinds of plans that people have pushed, to put acres and acres of solar panels in the Mojave Desert, the Sonoran Desert or the Sahara Desert.

“It’s this kind of a science-fiction idea that, hey, we have these empty spaces on the earth – let’s absolutely fill them with solar panels and windmills. But, the problem with that is – it comes from this thinking about deserts as though they are empty, ownerless places, absent of life. And, the problem is that that’s not true. Deserts are full of life, of plants and of animals that have adapted in interesting ways. And, we also don’t quite understand the place that deserts have in the broader ecosystem, in terms of the carbon cycle.”

While we hear in the news about desertification, in actuality only some deserts may get bigger and others drier, he said. Very few reports talk about the fact that some deserts may get wetter and, in a sense, shrink.

Desert systems are intricate and delicate and we, as humans, often only notice a change when it is already too late. Lazin-Ryder gave the example of the Joshua trees in the Mojave Desert that are dying, and the efforts to preserve them.

“Those kinds of problems are expected to increase as climate change goes on,” he said. But, talking about the desert as merely land available to fix the problems that we have created, “neglects the fact that they are not absent, marginal places. They actually have a place in the world. Deserts are a natural thing that should exist on the earth,” he said. “And there will be increasing pressures to put things in the desert, to put people in the desert, to grow food in the desert – despite the fact that they are as important and as under threat as places like the rainforests and wetlands that we’re trying to preserve. So, on one hand, we’re afraid the future might become desert, but, on the other hand, we may want to think about how to preserve the deserts we already have, as there are many threats to the desert.”

Lazin-Ryder hopes listeners of the documentary will gain a better grasp of the nuances of the desert. For most people in the West, he said, “interaction with the desert is in an imaginary sense … either in religious texts, fiction or movies.” The show tries to get people to consider “what those metaphors and symbols do to our thinking – not just about the desert, but of all the natural world; in what places are worth preserving, celebrating, and what places we think of as marginal, empty, dead or inherently bad.

“We get lots of stories told to us all the time, about what parts of the earth are good or bad,” he said. “I think, ultimately, beyond whether we’re talking about deserts, dry land or wet land, my ultimate hope is that it helps people think about the stories that we tell ourselves about the natural world, versus trying to gain an understanding about how the natural world actually works.”

To listen to What Happens in the Desert, visit cbc.ca/radio/podcasts/documentaries/the-best-of-ideas.

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

Treating children’s asthma

Dr. Allan Becker has devoted much of his life’s work to the study of asthma and how it affects children who have it. (photo from Allan Becker)

As Jewish community member Dr. Allan Becker was starting his career as a general practitioner, his daughter was diagnosed with asthma. As a result, he has devoted much of his life’s work to the study of the condition.

“My interest really started when my oldest daughter began having a wheezing episode at about two years of age,” Becker told the Independent. “It was pretty obvious that this was an infection – something we call bronchiolitis, which is fairly common in young children.”

Becker was working in Dauphin, Man., at the time of his daughter’s diagnosis, in the 1970s, and was beginning to see more and more kids with asthma coming into the emergency room.

“Since 1980, when I returned to academics, I’ve been trying to understand why the epidemic started – what the developmental origins of asthma and allergies are,” said Becker, who is now based in Winnipeg. “And, really, they’re the canary in the coal mine when you think about the increase in chronic diseases.

“Asthma is by far the most common chronic disease in children and it’s the earliest to start,” he said, “but we’re seeing parallel increases of other chronic diseases, like diabetes, inflammatory bowel diseases, various forms of arthritis, and others.”

Over the course of a five-decade career, so far, Becker has seen chronic diseases become more prominent. And, while the reasons for this change remain elusive, it seems clear that it involves genes and the environment.

In the early 1990s, Becker and Vancouver-based Dr. Moira Chan-Yeung embarked on a study of ways to potentially prevent the development of asthma.

“Think about the environment in terms of things we breathe and eat … and things like pets in the home, like tobacco smoke exposure, like pollution, like bad nutrition, Western-style diets, etc.,” said Becker. “We started a multifaceted prevention of asthma program in 1994.”

While that study did not reap substantial results, it did eventually lead to a current study examining the environmental impact on expectant mothers in all areas, including the benefits of decreasing stress, which Becker feels may be the most important factor.

Information about the study, called Canadian Healthy Infant Longitudinal Development (CHILD), can be found at childstudy.ca.

“CHILD started in 2008 and is an observation study, because we don’t believe we know enough to prevent the disease as yet,” said Becker. “We’re now seeing the children at 8 and 9 years of age, and we’re looking way more broadly at the environment. We’re looking at stress very specifically, both for parents and children.

“We’re looking much more in terms of diet, but also at the microbiota, the bacteria and other organisms that live in us, with us and on us, and which are likely extremely important – maybe critical – in helping to shape children’s immune responses in early life.”

According to Becker, there are more bacteria in our gut than there are cells in our body, and microbiota are now being considered as the cause of and potential cure for all sorts of illnesses.

One of the biggest hurdles is trying to determine if a young child who is wheezing has asthma and should be treated as such, or if the child has a respiratory infection that causes wheezing. Becker said part of the problem is how to more accurately define wheezing, which is described as a whistling noise coming from the chest.

“The key thing is that it’s not just the whistling noise in the chest,” said Becker. “It’s also that tugging in, particularly tugging in under the ribs, with the tummy pulling in when breathing. That’s a very good indication that those airways are narrowed and that the child has to work hard at moving air, particularly moving air both in and out. That’s what we teach our trainees to work on with the families they see.

“And, obviously, any time a child is distressed – if they’re looking distressed, particularly if there’s a change in colour of the lips – those are urgent issues. And, some children have such severe narrowing of the airways that you don’t hear wheezing, because they’re not moving enough air, but they will be struggling to breathe. You’ll see them pulling in their tummy and you’ll see their shoulders heaving,” he said. “And you’ll often see toddlers and older kids with their hands braced on their knees, hunched forward, trying to get air in. That type of tripoding is really a worrisome sign, as is a change in lip colour – that’s an emergency. Those children need to be brought to emergency quickly.”

If it gets to the point that the child is given inhalers, Becker pointed out that blue puffers are for particularly bad episodes, while orange or red puffers are for management.

For a bad episode, he said, two inhales from the blue puffer should be taken. “An inhalation and a bit of a pause, and then a second puff and inhalation … in many cases, that will be enough to help control things,” said Becker. “If it doesn’t help make things better, then, in five to10 minutes, it should be repeated. If the child is still distressed, that’s an indication they need to be brought to a hospital.”

The blue puffer should not be used for asthma management, he warned, as the body will develop resistance to it. So, if the controller medications are not providing enough control, he said parents should talk to the doctor who prescribed the puffer to determine a solution.

“If people are needing to use the blue puffer on an ongoing basis, even once or twice a week, week after week, that’s really telling you that you don’t have control of what’s going on and is very worrisome,” said Becker. “There should never be a death from asthma. But, sadly, every year there are some. And, these deaths are – rather surprisingly – not necessarily in kids with the most severe, persistent asthma; they’re in kids who are thought to have mild asthma. But, in fact, when you look at it, if you are using the blue puffer and need to get a new one every month or two, that’s a big red flag … needing to use the blue puffer in the middle of the night, that’s a big red flag. Nighttime symptoms are really a worry – those are kids who need to be seen and properly assessed and, in most cases, they need to be using controller medication.”

Becker is proud of having led the development of a national certification for asthma educators in Canada – Canada was the first country to provide this type of certification.

“We have a children’s allergy and asthma education centre in Winnipeg attached to our children’s hospital,” he said. “It’s one of the only real free-standing ones in North America. The website is asthma-education.com.”

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

Teaching kids reading skills

With Hoot Reading, kids and teachers can see and hear each other via video chat. (screenshot)

Hoot Reading allows kids to get in their desired screen time, while also improving their reading skills. Jewish community member Carly Shuler, co-founder and chief executive director of the online tutoring company, came up with the educational concept while working on Sesame Street.

“While I was there, I was working on a research project aimed at understanding how to help kids learn through video chat,” Shuler explained. “Fast forward a couple of years and my co-founder, Maya Kotecha, and I decided the idea was too good to stay in the lab. So, we got the rights, formed Hoot Reading, and here we are.

“Something a lot of parents don’t know is that there is a deadline for reading,” she said. “We talk a lot about the fourth-grade reading slump, which is this phenomenon that happens in Grade 4, when children need to make the leap from learning how to read to reading to learn.”

The school system is based on the assumption that, by Grade 4, kids will be reading fluently. While some kids are indeed fluent readers by then, some 60% of students are reading below grade level as they start Grade 5. And, from then on, the ability to read is needed for every single topic, from math to science to social studies to music and to health, not to mention for activities outside of school.

“What happens is that those kids, come Grade 4, that we thought were average students, fall behind,” said Shuler. “They lose confidence and they disengage from school. And so, while we don’t believe at Hoot Reading that earlier is better, we do believe that there is a deadline for becoming a fluent reader – and that deadline is Grade 4.

“Hoot Reading, in particular, is good for all kids from kindergarten through to Grade 4 and, then, also any kids who are struggling after that point,” she said. “So, we have kids up to Grade 10 reading with us. They are in that 60 percentile of kids who are reading below grade level.”

The tutoring is done online with classroom teachers, one-on-one, in 20-minute lessons, two to three times a week. The app is basically Facetime meets Kindle, said Shuler. Kids and teachers can see and hear each other via video chat, and both the teachers and the students can point to things and see where the other is pointing.

“It allows for that dialogic reading, but it’s the interactive back and forth that is so important as a child progresses as a reader,” said Shuler. “Kids can do it from the comfort of their own home, from their family car, from their sibling’s piano lesson, or wherever they are. It can really happen anywhere at any time, so parents find it very convenient.”

Weighing in on screens, Shuler said, “At Hoot Reading, we don’t believe all screens are created equal. As parents, we should be paying more attention to what our kids are doing on screens, rather than just focusing on how much time they are spending on them. There are some really great things they can do.

“We believe screens can sometimes have a real benefit to our children’s learning, such as by allowing us to offer an affordable way to do one-on-one reading tutoring. So many kids can get access to it, whereas they couldn’t before. So, we encourage parents to think about it that way.”

Further to this, Shuler encourages parents to be reading mentors and role models, showing their kids that they, too, are using their screens to read.

“It’s really important that our children know that we are reading, so that they can see that it can be a really fun part of their media world,” she said. “Whether we are reading on a Kindle or reading a hard copy book, we want to show them and do it in front of them … and talk about the books and stories at the dinner table, because it’s really important that kids see reading can be fun.”

Shuler feels strongly that parents should help their kids choose apps and games that encourage reading. The ability to comprehend what you are reading and to be able to follow instructions is an important skill. While enjoying some games that do not involve reading is OK, she recommended finding games that do provide a different medium for kids to further their love of reading.

Just like any other skill, the more you practise, the better you get at it and Shuler maintains that kids should read aloud with a grown-up for at least 10 minutes a day, five days a week.

“In the same way that, when learning to play basketball, some kids might be a little better at it than others, but the best way to improve anything is through practise,” she said. “We have to practise and we have to practise out loud, with a grown-up there. Whether that grown-up is a parent, a Hoot Reading teacher, or someone else, kids need to be practising – and that’s not what’s happening in so many households. We’re so busy nowadays, between after-school activities and all the amazing things our kids get to do. But, reading cannot fall onto the backburner, because, if kids don’t practise, they’ll probably end up in that 60% by Grade 4.”

Shuler said kids need to have what they learn in school reinforced at home and, therefore, increasing public awareness is critical.

“A lot of parents don’t know – they just think about reading in terms of literacy or illiteracy so, once their child can read, they think, ‘Great! My child can read. We’ve got this!’ But, the truth is, again, reading is a skill, and you get better at it the more you read. That’s where most parents don’t know how important it is to continue the reading out loud, even if their child is reading.”

She added that “the key is in knowing how important it is and in making sure we prioritize reading practice in the same way we prioritize brushing our teeth.”

Finding books and other material that interest kids and make them excited about reading is paramount. “Just try to keep it a positive experience as much as possible,” said Shuler, “and do what you need to do as a parent to make that happen.”

Shuler and Kotecha recently launched a new initiative, called Hoot for All, sponsored by Spin Master, that will allow them to provide reading tutoring for kids at Boys and Girls Clubs across Canada at no cost to the kids’ families.

For more information, visit hootreading.com.

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

Climate hot topic at Limmud

Dr. Larry Barzelai and Maayan Kreitzman will talk about environmental activism at Limmud on March 1. (photos from the interviewees)

Environmental activism is among Canada’s top news stories in recent days and the issue will be confronted from both a Jewish and a broader perspective by two leading voices at Limmud Vancouver next month.

Dr. Larry Barzelai, a Vancouver family doctor, assistant professor at the University of British Columbia’s faculty of medicine and B.C. chair of Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE), will present alongside Maayan Kreitzman, a PhD candidate at the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability at UBC. The pair acknowledges that they come at the topic using different tactics, but aim for the same objective.

Kreitzman has been among those blockading the port and traffic.

“The actions happening in the streets right now are in response to this Coastal GasLink natural gas pipeline construction on Wet’suwet’an land,” she said. But this is only one element of the much larger picture, which is that oil and gas development is “occurring unabated and greenhouse gas emissions and ecological destruction is continuing unabated throughout the world, when we know that these activities are threatening our life-support system and are putting billions of people at risk over the next decade. People are already being impacted today.”

The issue brings together a host of concerns, she said, including “indigenous rights and sovereignty, the Canadian government’s complicity in a climate-unsafe future … as well as the business side of that from the private sector.”

Kreitzman has heard the complaints that disruptive protests may turn off potential allies and anger the general public.

“I think people’s emotions are valid and there is a valid concern about disrupting ordinary people that need to make a living and need to take care of their families,” she told the Independent. “On the other hand, I think many of the people that sometimes make these kind of complaints aren’t really the people that are struggling to feed their families. People that come from a place of privilege need to recognize that these protests inconveniencing them is a small price to pay for the types of progressive changes that will benefit all of us, including their children.”

Kreitzman said she and Barzelai will “bring a concise summary of the latest science to people so that they really understand the magnitude of the situation that we’re in.”

She said, “We’ll be speaking to a spectrum of different actions, from the personal to the more conventional campaigning type of approaches, like report-writing, research, lobbying, letter-writing, to direct-action approaches, which is what I’m most interested in, where people that have privilege start putting their bodies on the line and breaking the law on purpose, using the message of nonviolent civil resistance, which has been successful in many movements throughout history.”

Barzelai takes a more conventional approach to advocacy, but shares Kreitzman’s sense of urgency.

“Climate change, which we’re calling a climate emergency, is upon us,” he told the Independent. “It’s dramatic and we have to take big steps to do something about it. Maayan is taking a bit more radical approach to this. Myself and my group are a bit more middle-of-the-road, shall we say, but I think we both have the same endpoint in mind – that things have to change dramatically.”

CAPE, which has been around for about 25 years, focuses on the health impacts of environmental decisions and climate change.

“We see diseases that are spreading, we see cancers that are becoming more rampant, we are seeing the floods and the wildfires and the temperature changes that are dramatically affecting people’s health and we figure it’s our responsibility as doctors to look at climate change from a health perspective and to inform people of what’s going to happen unless we make dramatic changes,” he said.

Fracking is one area where he thinks British Columbia is “really going down the wrong path.”

“They’ve bought this myth that natural gas is clean energy, which it is absolutely not, and they are doing their best to increase rather than decrease global warming, and we think that’s the crucial issue that needs to be discussed in Canada and especially in B.C.,” he said.

Kreitzman and Barzelai will speak at Limmud Vancouver on March 1.

Tickets and more information can be found at limmudvancouver.com.

Many ideas at Limmud

At LimmudVan’20, Anna-Mae Wiesenthal will present on The “Othering” of Germany’s Jews and Canada’s First Nations. (photo from Anna-Mae Wiesenthal)

The latest local incarnation of the global Jewish learning festival Limmud takes place Feb. 29 and March 1. LimmudVan’20, which is being held at Congregation Beth Israel, begins with Havdalah and a few musical and intellectual appetizers on the Saturday night, followed by a day of presentations on a diverse array of topics on Sunday.

Anna-Mae Wiesenthal, a teacher at King David High School and a PhD candidate in Holocaust and genocide studies, will present on The “Othering” of Germany’s Jews and Canada’s First Nations.

Originating from Winnipeg, Wiesenthal has long had an interest in First Nations issues and has been involved in community programs there. She is aware of the sensitivities around paralleling these histories.

“There is a lot of controversy surrounding the use of the word genocide and First Nations, but I approach it from an examination of looking at different viewpoints and different research that argue both sides,” she told the Independent. “What do these two experiences of these two people have in common?” The point, she said, is not to come to any firm conclusions.

“I want to leave it open to the audience to process the information and to assess the commonalities and the differences,” Wiesenthal said. “I’m certainly there to point some of them out, but I think it’s to provide a different perspective that will engage and inspire discussion and curiosity among the participants to go further with it.”

Also not promising any proscribed conclusions is Rabbi Philip Gibbs, who will ask: Would the rabbis approve of Uber? Gibbs, who is spiritual leader of Congregation Har El, in West Vancouver, said that even issues as seemingly modern as an app that permits ride-sharing can be addressed through ancient wisdom.

Traditional arguments around fair and unfair competition have remained with him since rabbinical school and came to the fore in recent weeks as British Columbia argued over, and then slowly and somewhat clunkily implemented, ride-hailing services like Uber and Lyft. Some of the issues that could arise include whether a company keeps money in the community it serves or extracts it to some distant parent company. But don’t expect him to come down clearly on one side.

“If you’ve ever looked into a question of Jewish ethics, you know that you can make the joke of saying two Jews will have three opinions,” said Gibbs. “Maybe, through the discussion, someone else will tell me what it seems like I’m thinking, but really I think the goal is just to be more attuned to what some of the issues are so that, as we begin to make choices of who do we call up for a ride to the airport, that we’re taking into account a wider range of values than simply how little we want to pay for it.”

Other presenters will talk about crafting Jewish children’s books (see jewishindependent.ca/new-publisher-set-to-launch); how Leonard Bernstein used the music of Selichot to create West Side Story; the rich and poor among Portuguese Jews in Amsterdam’s Golden Age; building Jewish micro-communities through co-housing; healing Christian antisemitism; analyzing the Israeli smash TV show Shtisel; and many other topics.

Tickets and more information can be found at limmudvancouver.com.

Drawing more women to tech

Jodi Kovitz, founder and chief executive officer of #movethedial. (photo by photagonist.ca)

What began as Jodi Kovitz’s personal desire to increase the technology industry’s minimal efforts to attract women leaders is now a broad movement – #movethedial.

Kovitz was born in Calgary and moved to Toronto with her mom when she was 5, while her dad remained in Calgary. Growing up, Kovitz’s role models included her grandmother, Dr. Muriel Kovitz, who served as the first female chancellor of the University of Calgary, and who today lives in Vancouver.

“I had a very loving home and was always pushed and encouraged to be true to myself, be creative and build things,” said Kovitz. “I started my first business when I was 16, which was a greeting card company. I have always pursued entrepreneurship throughout my career, in various forms.”

After graduating from the University of Western Ontario’s Ivey Business School, in London, Ont., Kovitz worked at a consulting firm over the summer. Her mentor there advised that she do something more entrepreneurial, so Kovitz joined a tech start-up.

“I ended up meeting an amazing woman leader in banking after a couple of years,” she said. “Even though I really enjoyed myself and was getting a lot out of it … I left the start-up and went to join her at the bank, where I learned a ton about leadership. I was working specifically in HR [human resources] and leadership development.”

After going to law school and a brief stint working as a lawyer, Kovitz became the chief executive officer of the nonprofit Peerscale, a peer-to-peer group for tech CEOs.

“Peerscale is when I started #movethedial, which very much started as a passion project while I was in my other role,” said Kovitz. “But, it soon became so large that it called me to create it in a formal sense and to move into it full-time.”

Since then, #movethedial has become a global movement and a social enterprise, working to advance the participation and leadership of women in technology.

“While there’s work we need to do over the long term,” Kovitz told the Independent, “we need to ask what we can do now to better engage, include and advance either women in the ecosystem in the moment, as well as those that are just graduating, even just considering going into STEM [science, technology, engineering and math]…. It’s a multifaceted approach.”

The kick off of #movethedial in 2017 was to be a cosy 30-person event posted on social media – 1,000 people came.

Kovitz asked attendees who wanted to help. Fifty people responded, she said, “and we did a whole bunch of initial pilots and experiments. After a year, there was just so much passion and excitement that I was very fortunate to be approached by someone I’ve been friends with for a long time, who cared deeply about this mission and offered to back me … so I could start and create the vision I had … and that I wouldn’t be as afraid to take the risk as a 40-year-old single mother starting something as a full-time job. He was there, supporting me, and partnered with me in many ways, in terms of his advice and experience in building a very large-scale, global, billion-dollar business, as well as tactically helping me through things and scaling the organization.”

The organization #movethedial works with tech companies to attract and recruit women – all people who identify as women, just not people born as women – as well as advance, engage and retain women in their companies. It also works with community groups on a platform called #movethedial stories, showcasing the experiences of women technology leaders around the world.

“We’ve touched thousands of people that way,” said Kovitz. “We have an annual global summit. Last year, we had 2,802 people at our summit in Toronto, where we’d brought speakers in from around the world, and we connected our audience to one another in a really profound, magical way…. We’re creating what the future of #movethedial can look like, thinking through youth and how we can really impact … the ecosystem … and create a different future.

“What really drives me is that we can’t actually build technology solutions for everyone in the population [without including everyone in the population]. And, by the way, everything is tech, right? Banks, taxis, food … everything is tech. We can’t design solutions relevant to the masses if we don’t have representation from our population at our design leadership and governance tables. We just can’t build solutions that work for all the people.

“The urgency for me is around AI (artificial intelligence). It’s really starting to dominate how we use technology. Everything is going to, if it doesn’t already have an algorithm … and AI is taught. If all humans that teach and create AI are men, these machines will develop different patterns of behaviour and algorithms. My fear, and there’s a lot of research to back this up, is that we will build our human biases right into the solutions and algorithms, and we will never be able to undo it. For me, the urgency to create teams that reflect the population is to ensure that we don’t put our bias in forever.”

For more information, visit movethedial.com.

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.