Camp Living Wonders

03/15/2024

For better or worse, plenty of educators out there aren’t so thrilled about becoming teachers. I KNOW! Who would feel that way!? Well, teaching comes with heavy responsibility, pressure, low pay, a lack of resources, and so many other reasons that make teaching a profession with a little less, shall we say, ’sparkle’ to it? However, when we meet those educators in life who see teaching as the greatest gift and opportunity, we tend to be mesmerized by their passion, excitement, and care for their learners and their profession. All too often in Jewish education, we see many educators teach simply because they can, and not because its the glamorous shlichut, or opportunity, and it is somewhat of a placeholder job, rather than a life’s mission… In the Niflaot podcast this week, we are giving a new perspective with an educational juggernaut.
It’s the month of ADAR, and as such, we couldn’t think of a single person more appropriate to interview on this topic than the legendary Dr. Dave “The Rave” Lazerson. Dr. Laz has a contageous energy that can inspire anyone to step back and see how incredibly fortunate they are to be an educator. He views his learners as gifts and engages them with true joy and love. As an educator in the field of special needs for more than 40 years, he’s won two Teacher of the Year; awards from two different public school systems including Buffalo, NY in 1980 and Broward County Schools (the nation’s 6 the largest school district) in2007.
Known as Dr. Laz, his multi-ethnic music group, Dr. Laz & The CURE, has opened for Al Green, The Winans, The Manhattans, and performed for the US Congress and halftime during a Miami Heat game, AND he sat in with the Grateful Dead!
As an author, hes written five books, including the popular best seller of Skullcaps & Switchblades, which chronicles his work in an inner-city school in Buffalo, NY. His recent book, We’re All Special… Needs! Teach Me If You Can, is used by many teacher-prep colleges for training new educators in the field. To be noted, this interview was recorded LATE at night, and was one of the most enjoyable ever! Would love your feedback and thoughts!

M² The Institute for Experiential Jewish EducationJewish Education Project - Early Childhood Educator CommunityMandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education, Brandeis UniversitySchool for Jewish Education and Leadership at AJU Jewish Special Education International Consortium The Collaborative for Applied Studies in Jewish Education - CASJE Luria Academy of Brooklyn The Jewish Disability Empowerment Center (Yad HaChazakah-JDEC) Menachem Education Foundation Helen Foundation for Jewish Camp Slingshot Beth Mandel Teacher Educator Institute MTEI Mandel Leadership Institute Jewish Leadership Institute on Disabilities and Inclusion Sara David Matt Edgar Angie !
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‎Show Niflaot Podcast, Ep Niflaot Podcast: Dr. Dave Lazerson… The JOY of being an Educator! - Mar 15, 2024

08/12/2022

Thinking springtime family camp…. Just think: affordable family getaway, connecting with other families with similar stories, camp fun for kids and parents, uplifting Shabbat, and more!!! What do you think?

06/04/2020

For these trying times....

From the blog of Noach Pawliger at The Times of Israel

04/20/2020

For those hurting in these troubling times (we are all hurting, and we feel you...) here is an amazing resource that could be extremely helpful! JIFLA.org

04/14/2020

Who would have thought?!?!? We hope that all of our wonder families, campers, and staff are staying safe, healthy, and connected.. Never before has the world been in such a place to empathize with you all. To feel what we all feel so often; a little isolated, and alone... Now is the time to tell your stories, to share your experiences, and what keeps you going! Please let us know if you are open to an interview for a new exciting initiative Noach and team are building to teach resilience skills in an experiential way!

This feel-good documentary recounts the ties of a Catskills summer camp to American disability rights activism in the 1970s.

11/20/2019

Hmmm... how might we take the value of inclusion, and correct it? Here is one way!!! Keep your eyes and ears peeled, coming soon!

For Women's Entrepreneurship Day, we're celebrating Collette Divitto, a 29-year-old woman with Down syndrome, who after repeated job rejections for not being a "good fit" decided to strike out on her own and start her own cookie company! Three years after Collette Divitto founded Collettey's Cookies, she's sold hundreds of thousands of cookies and has hired 13 other people, including several with disabilities. "It is such a great feeling. I am so proud," she says. But Collette knows there is still a lot of work to do, especially to achieve her dream of helping more people with disabilities find employment. "My biggest challenge is reading all my emails," she says. "[There are] so many emails from people needing jobs so bad, and I want to help them now."

Collette perfected her craft in her family's kitchen for over ten years but, when she tried to make her love of baking into a career and applied for jobs at local bakeries, she was turned down countless times year after year. Finally, Collette, who said "it was really hurtful and I felt rejected a lot," had enough -- she started her own cookie company, Collettey’s Cookies, selling her signature cinnamon-dipped chocolate chip Amazing Cookie. She started out making 100 cookies per week for a local grocery store, but after a story by CBS Boston went viral in 2016, the surge of support allowed the young entrepreneur to move from a home-based business into an industrial kitchen in Boston and vastly expand production.

Collette's struggle to find work prior to starting her business is a common one for people with disabilities; according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 10.7% of people with disabilities who are actively looking for work were unemployed in 2015, twice the rate of people without disabilities. To Collette, this reality "is very upsetting... It's very hard to find a paying job for people like me who have special needs." For this reason, she hopes to open more Collettey's locations across the U.S. in the future, explaining that "it's about getting jobs for everyone who deserves jobs." Collette also hopes to inspire other people with disabilities pursue their dreams and find their own paths to success. "Don’t let people get you down, and never give up," she asserts. "If you find a road block, then find another road."

To learn more or order cookies, you can visit Collettey's Cookies website at https://www.colletteys.com/shop

For books that show Mighty Girls there are no limits to what she can be, we highly recommend "ABC What Can She Be?" for ages 2 to 5 (https://www.amightygirl.com/abc-what-can-she-be) and "Dress Like A Girl" for ages 3 to 7 (https://www.amightygirl.com/dress-like-a-girl)

You can also find books, games, and other resources to teach kids of all ages about entrepreneurship, saving, and spending in our blog post "Manage Money Like A Mighty Girl" at https://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=14495

And, for books for children and teens celebrating confident girls at every age, visit our "Confidence & Self-Esteem" book section at http://amgrl.co/2qxXQhH

09/25/2019

Did you know?

After reading these top health benefits of dandelion, you'll start picking them from your yard to use medicinally instead of destroying them with sprays.

09/10/2019

So much awesomeness!

Learning improv had some unexpected benefits.

08/07/2019

It's no wonder that being in nature is naturally therapeutic, calming, and builds resilience... Oh, and BTW, nature can even be accessed in a yard, a park, and in unexpected places, yet, people are accessing it less and less these days, particularly KIDS, who NEED it most! It would be a heck of a study to show the correlation to the elevation in numbers of ingestions/depression among children and those who suffer from nature deficit disorder. Food for thought!

More and more evidence suggests that nature does something essential for our mental health