What Should I Write About? Writing Your College Essay Is Never Easy! The time to begin your essay has never been more perfect.  Your experiences this past summer might even contribute to your choice of topic. As you begin thinking about writing, if you’re like most teens, you may be experiencing some anxiety. It’s always hard to stare at a blank page and think of what to write. But don’t worry. These easy tips might get you going in the right direction. If you need to bounce

Where’s the good news? When it comes to teens, it seems that “Headlines” are usually “Dead Lines”….yes….news about deaths, teenage thugs, bullying, and more. I’m tired of reading all this bad news about teens. You might ask: “So, just look for the good news, what are you complaining about?” It’s not that easy. I get news alerts from Google and Yahoo sent to my Inbox, and generally what comes up, almost on a daily basis, is what you see below. News Tired teenagers may need a n

Guess what’s trending for #teens? I discovered a helpful tool for twitter, a free site called hashtagify.me that lets you search trending hashtags. You can easily search any hashtag and you’ll get instant results for the top ten hashtags words related to that word. Easy enough. So, I put in #teens in the search bar and the terms come up in a graphic resembling typical mind map visuals. In addition, you can hover over each word to determine how popular the term is. Do you want

twitter logo map 09 (Photo credit: The Next Web) “Treat every conversation you have on Twitter or Facebook as if it were a nationally televised press conference.” This advice is not a recommendation from a public relations firm, or from a head hunter, or from a corporate policy book on social media. Nor was it taken from a how-to book on political life. None of those sources would be surprising. The quote above is from a sign posted in a Minnesota high school locker room in r

Negotiating with teens when they say “been there, done that!” The entire school was taking a trip to the relatively new National Museum of American Jewish History, located in Philadelphia. The museum, with thousands of historic treasures, interactive exhibits, and multi-media presentations, has caused many people to say that they could spend days there and not see everything. Yet, we heard that one student, when he learned about the trip, went home and confidently told his mo

Should colleges check you out on Facebook? For Teens, Their Parents, and Jewish Educators: An article in Education Week noted what most of us already know: college admissions officers are not clueless when it comes to checking up on potential applicants. There is an increase in the number of admissions officers who are digging deeper into social media as a way to gain a more rounded profile of student applicants.  Kaplan Test Prep noted that this activity has more than quadru

Character Education: what has your teen learned? What are the most important traits to develop in students? At the end of high school, what would you want your teenager to know? What character attributes will help teenagers succeed beyond school into the journey of life? These questions are different from ‘outcome’ based education, which is based on content knowledge. Instead, they ask the larger, more complicated questions that have no specific answer. Yet, the quantifiable 

I just read a quick blog about how elementary school parents should prepare for Parent-Teacher conferences. For parents of teenagers: Will you connect to your teen’s teacher this year beyond the basic back-to-school night? My guess is no. Unless things have changed (optimistically maybe they have), parent involvement past 6th grade is pretty much off the table. The biggest change you’ll experience is that there won’t be ‘official’ ways to connect to the school as you’ve had i

Are we just being stupid or stubborn? There are some obvious signs that parents might not be as smart as we’d like them to be. Do you want to hear some of the comments I’ve heard from parents who choose not to continue their teens’ Jewish education past the age of bar/bat mitzvah?  Or  Confirmation? Keep reading. First, you need to know that really, I understand that today’s teens are busy, committed to many activities, are often holding down a part-time job, and dealing with

What’s the new normal anyway? I recently read a great post called Approaching Normal.  It got me thinking about how teens today think about being ‘normal’. Even as adults, we all wonder about it, and the post describes just how much politicians, advertising gurus, and marketing mavens depend on our desire to be in that state of normalcy. So, we all think about being normal and fitting in, into some group,  but take yourself back to your teen years.  You might want to add in s

This news came to my Inbox today:”Today’s Campus is launching a new publication designed as a resource for the parents of the entering freshmen college class. The handbook is expected to reach over 1 million readers this summer as they prepare to take the first steps towards college.” I experienced one of those odd moments when you find yourself laughing at something and wish you had someone right there to share the comedy.  Right now, you’re my someone. Check out this excerp

Imagine that you’re on a boat in the middle of the ocean in a thunderous storm. Waves are coming fast and furiously.  Water is splashing inside and out, and luckily you’re still afloat. There is no fast escape. How do you survive? What is the best strategy? Just hold on–and be as steadfast as you can. creative commons license You’re experiencing what it’s like to be a parent of an adolescent. I can relate to your worries, concerns, problems, and fears. You just need to hold o

Image via Wikipedia Did this headline grab you? You’re not unique. It’s what seems to work for newspapers and television. This is what I read in the New York Times this morning: “Raising a Teenager? What’s Not to Hate?” Not exactly what I like to read with my morning coffee, and I found the wording pretty distasteful. What I wondered is how many click-throughs that headline got. But it got worse. The article turned out to be a review of a tv show debuting tonight and actually

Image via Wikipedia Some parents are guilty of treating Jewish education like a side dish, something that will never star as the main course and won’t be terribly missed if not around either. So often choices surrounding Jewish education seem like an afterthought, a rush job, something that’s done while in the middle of doing something else that’s way more important. Basically, it is chosen as an option only if things work out. Otherwise, well, it’s not really a priority. Pre

What are the obligations of a Jewish supplementary high school in raising the ethical level of its students? How do we hold our students to a higher standard while trying to explain all the cheating going on by education professionals? How do we prepare the next generation to succeed in college and beyond? With these questions in mind, what happens when a teacher notices that a student may have plagiarized material, or copied from a friend? The first time a teacher came to me

photo courtesy of ePublicist Almost every day I experience a huge disconnect between my reality and the world of foundations and philanthropy. I would like someone to take note that the Jewish community consists of more stakeholders than students at  Jewish day schools and summer camps. I am not always in the mood to respond, but I have to, because I believe that I’m speaking for those who are not speaking for themselves: Jewish teens who are not attending day schools. Really

Finding your path This year, thousands of high schoolers will be entering college. Sometimes I think they have things way too figured out, and am not sure whether that’s good or bad in the grand scheme of things. For example, I was interviewing an internship candidate who just completed her junior year in high school. I asked her what she thought she’d enjoy taking in college. Her response was not a version of: “I’m not sure yet” or “I haven’t given that much thought” or “I h

courtesy of katerha's photostream Recently I was teaching a class the Jewish value of G’milut Hasadim (acts of loving kindness). I asked them to think about a time when someone (friend, family–anyone) did something for them that they would define as an act of G’milut Hesed so we’d have an example of how the value is applied to real situations.  This is a class of intelligent and outspoken students, grades 8 and 9, who attend public and private schools in a suburban area. No h

Making decisions about continuing Jewish Education  is often a challenge, though I’m not sure why. The comments below are ones I’ve heard directly, usually on the phone when asked whether their child will continue in our program, or sign up for the first time. Every year, unlike with other educational venues and opportunities, the conversation about Jewish education is reopened.  I’m not sure why Jewish education gets the blow-off. Parents would never question other identity-

Why is the Jewish community crying? I’ve worked with teens in the Jewish Let’s pretend you’re one of them. Your bar/bat mitzvah was several years ago.  Against all odds, you decided to ‘stay the course’ after that and remain in your synagogue’s Confirmation program, though 50% of your friends dropped out.  So, let’s say that makes it down to 10. After that, you decided to go for more learning, and enroll in a community Hebrew high school for 11th and 12th grade.  About 75% of