TORONTO — Nili Berman has no formal background in music, but uses it often in the Grade 4 Jewish studies class she teaches at Bialik Hebrew Day School.
Nili Berman shows some of the scenes from Israel that she has on display in her classroom. [Frances Kraft photo]
“I just love to sing,” she said in an interview. “If kids play musical instruments, I encourage them to bring them to class. Kids love to learn through music and through games.”
Especially when teaching a second language, she said, “you have to teach in different ways, and it has to be interesting.” Her subjects include Bible, Hebrew language, prayer, and the study of Israel.
A native of Ramat Gan, who grew up in Givatayim, Berman says she knew she would be a teacher when she was a seven-year-old growing up in Israel. Her mother, also a teacher, used to bring the neighbourhood kids to her so that she could teach them to read.
“You cannot run away from this,” she smiled.
A graduate of Tel Aviv University (TAU), where she studied education, Bible and Jewish history, Berman moved to Boston with her husband, Oded, in the mid-1970s. He studied for his PhD at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology while she did a master’s degree in education at Boston University.
She taught at the Calgary Hebrew Day School from 1978 to 1985, and for five years after that at the Cohen Hillel Academy in Marblehead, Mass., before she, her husband and their children moved to Toronto in 1991. She said she tries to “take the best” from each school to use in her classroom.
As well, she spent a sabbatical year in the mid-1980s in Israel, where she took courses in education at TAU. About 10 years ago, she embarked on a three-year program in “reflective teaching” – an approach to enhance the classroom experience – through the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, along with other educators from Toronto.
“This program really enriched me as a teacher. It gave me a chance to grow,” she said. Berman has given workshops on the approach in Toronto and Vancouver.
Students’ self-esteem is very important to her, she said. “If they are happy and feel good about themselves, we can achieve a lot. If they can write two sentences, then they will write three sentences, and slowly, slowly, it will grow and grow and grow.”
Berman said she enjoys working at Bialik. “The quality of the program is so rich, and we work together as a team. We try to do the same things, and we give each other ideas if something is working well.”
A lesson from the teacher: “The most important thing to me is that children feel good about themselves. I don’t judge them by how many words they know in Hebrew, but by their hard work. I tell them that a positive attitude and trying your hardest are the most important things.”
