Grade 3: Understanding Our Differences Program Summary

Last Sunday, Gary Alpert, presented a module from the Understanding Our Differences© curriculum to our kitah gimel/grade 3 class.  Gary, a local Jewish educator, volunteers his time and serves of boards of Gateways: Access to Jewish Education and the Ruderman Family Foundation.   Gary was the perfect presenter as he quickly established a rapport with the kids and he is deaf.  The program was underwritten by Gateways: Access to Jewish Education and the Ruderman Family Foundation.

The goals of the program, which focused on deafness and hearing loss, is for kids to “see the person and not the disability.” Gary, with the help of TI parent volunteers, Yael Katzman, Penni Rochwerger and Chuck Schneider, presented information through hands-on, experiential activities to help dispel myths about disabilities.   The hands-on activities were based on these three topics: fingerspelling, lip reading and assistive technology.

UOD is currently used in many local public school districts and area Jewish day schools and TI was fortunate to be a part of a pilot for a supplementary school program.