Winter 2015 | Prizmah
sports le-shem shamayim: The Sacred Mission of High School Athletics
Written with Pam Roeker.
Our vision of the role that competitive athletics can play in the lives of high school students is a deeply personal one. We—the head of school and athletic director of Gann Academy in Waltham, Massachusetts—have been playing competitive sports since we were children, and we were blessed with opportunities to compete at both the high school and college levels.
Winter 2014 | Prizmah
Strengthen the Core, Strengthen Leadership: Thinking Differently about Day School Funding and Priorities
In healthy, stable organizations with strong leadership and governance, a short-term resource challenge and even a crisis can generate innovative, adaptive thinking and great leadership. However, a steady state of financial disequilibrium can lull leaders into a vicious cycle of short-term thinking and what I would call “make-sure-we’re-still-around-tomorrow management.” When school leaders are constantly worried about balancing budgets, declining enrollment, sustaining programs, and meeting our fundraising goals, who has time to think strategically, creatively, adaptively?
Fall 2013 | Independent School
Invisible Dilemmas
Written with Vivian Troen and Sarah Birkeland.
Fall 2013 | Jewish Educational Leadership
Learners Inherit the Earth: Schools as Learning Communities
December 10, 2012 | eJewish Philanthropy
Make Our Garden Grow: Building Leadership Ecosystems
“Leadership crisis” is a well-accepted mantra in the field of Jewish education and beyond. According to Jerry Silverman of The Jewish Federations of North America, in the next decade or so, 70%-80% of the executive positions in Jewish organizations will turn over and, in his words, “there is no bench.” This year four of the largest, most successful, well-respected, well-funded Jewish community day schools in North America are all searching for new Heads of School— at the same time!
March, 2012 | Prizmah
Developing High Functioning Leadership Teams
The vastly expanding demands put upon school leaders provides schools with an opportunity to create their own form of distributed leadership. Baker explains what leadership teams are, why they offer many benefits, and how a team can be most effective.
Summer/Fall 2011 | Zeek
The Power of Pluralism
In a pluralistic school, there are no easy answers. Process is more important than outcome, and how we guide students (and parents) through an exploration of the issues at hand is as important as the conclusions we reach.
Winter 2011 | Prizmah
What Schools Can Learn from Camps
Co-author with Becca Shimshak.
Rigorous classes, holiday celebrations, sports, arts, boyfriends, breakups, SATs, bus rides, trips, shabbatonim, tefillah, Talmud Torah, Hebrew, English, Chinese, Israel, America... We believe that there is a growing need to ground our work in theory and to develop a shared language about what it means to bring the best of the Jewish camp experience to our schools.
Winter 2010 | Jewish Educational Leadership
A Welcome Challenge: Why Hebrew Charter Schools Could Be Good for Jewish Day Schools
February 2009 | Sh’ma: A Journal of Jewish Responsibility
All Systems Go: Masculinity in a Jewish High School
2008| Prizmah
Jewish Identities in Process: Religious Purposefulness in Religious Day Schools
Pluralistic Jewish education is both a new model of building Jewish community and a philosophical approach to educating Jews. In the face of deep religious, social and political divisions (including interdenominational ignorance and stereotyping) within Klal Yisrael, an intentionally pluralistic Jewish community does not reject different approaches to Jewish practice, beliefs, or denominational affiliation. Nor does it merely tolerate these differences; rather, it views these differences as strengths and learning opportunities.