BUZZ BUZZ: Jewish Education Attracts Ardent BEElievers

CAJE converses about CAJE. The Denver -based Colorado Agency for Jewish Education has invited local teachers to meet once a month to talk about the New-York based Coalition for the Advancement of Jewish Education, as a way to celebrate the BIG CAJE's 25th anniversary, and create a BUZZ about what they both love most: teaching Jewish children how to be Jewish. CAJE and CAJE may share an acronym and their dedication to Jewish Education, but otherwise, they have no official connection. To honor national CAJE in its 25th anniversary year, the Colorado agency has invited about 12 Denver teachers to get together once a month to talk about the joys and sorrows of working in Jewish education. In October, four participants met over rugalach and apples to talk about why Hebrew school continues to be a contender for the Rodney Dangerfield Award in Education-too often it gets no respect. Usually, that doesn't scare the dedicated teachers off, because they love the subject matter and the children too much to care what some who are uninformed, might think. And yet, it would be nice, once in a while, if when a teacher in a Jewish school teacher told somebody what she did (for love and subsistence-level wages, by the way) the person's response was brimming with admiration rather than with cynicism and puzzlement. "Parents tell their children, 'Look, I was bored in Hebrew School, so now its your turn to go and be bored," noted one teacher who participated in the first conversation. CAJE and CAJE hope to change this attitude, by encouraging teachers to talk about how fulfilling and noble their calling can be. The five teachers who joined in the first CAJE-CAJE conversation had a combined teaching experience of more than 50 years in Jewish schools. You couldn't tear them away from their classrooms, it seems.