Book 101 Review, in its fifth season, features Dr. Nancy Parkes as my guest.

Dr. Nancy Parkes is an educational consultant, specializing in Social, Emotional, and Spiritual Learning (SESL) in Jewish education. She is currently working on an SESL toolkit for Jewish education and teaching an online SESL certificate program for Jewish educators. She is a founding member of SESL4Jewished, a collaborative for promoting holistic Jewish growth. Previously, she was Director of Congregational Learning at Temple Israel Center. She received her Ed.D from the William Davidson School at Jewish Theological Seminary and successfully defended her dissertation, entitled, “Obtaining a Heart of Wisdom: Social and Emotional Learning in the Congregational School Setting.”

My path to becoming a Jewish educator started when my three children attended Jewish day school in Rockland County. I started to learn along with them and the more I learned, the more I wanted to know more. I enrolled in all kinds of Adult Education classes and eventually began my formal graduate studies in Jewish education at JTS in 2006.  

 At that point, I completely switched gears in my career. I took advantage of all the learning that was offered, including a summer working at Ramah Day Camp in Nyack. That summer I witnessed enormous joy every day, and was convinced that joy was the salient way to connect kids to Judaism. It also became very clear how motivating emotions are when it comes to Jewish identity and practice.

Want to be a guest on Book 101 Review? Send Daniel Lucas a message on PodMatch, here: https://www.podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/17372807971394464fea5bae3

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