Montessori preschool opens at B'nai Shalom in W. Orange

by Johanna Ginsberg
NJJN Staff Writer
12.15.05

While one child played with wood blocks, another carefully placed a mat on the floor and began to play with shiny blue shapes. In the far corner, a little boy chose a book to read, while a girl began grinding spices.

Every now and then, Rabbi Susan Lazev and Tara Prupis would help a child with the work he or she had chosen. And then one of the youngsters, Abbie, decided it was snack time. After she washed her hands and took her pear slices, she carefully selected a framed photo of fruit growing on trees and pressed a button in the back. The framed photo “sang” the blessings for fruit from trees, Abbie said “Amen,” and ate her snack at a child-sized table.

This is Child’s Way*Derech HaYeled, the first Jewish Montessori school in the area, under the directorship of Lazev and Prupis. The school opened in September in Lazev’s home and moved into space in B’nai Shalom in West Orange on Dec. 8. It now has an enrollment of eight children, with two more registered to begin in January, in an 800-square-foot room with plenty of natural lighting that can accommodate as many as 25 children. And with the classroom next door, the school can expand to 50 children and beyond. “But we want to grow very slowly,” said Lazev.

“We are delighted to welcome them,” B’nai Shalom’s Rabbi Stanley Asekoff told NJ Jewish News in a telephone interview before the school had officially moved in. “It will be a terrific opportunity for them and for us.… A Jewish Montessori is unique to this area; it’s something people are looking for.”

He acknowledged that B’nai Shalom’s nursery school had dwindled during the synagogue’s current renovation, and that congregational leaders had contemplated restarting the program when the work was completed. The Montessori plan seemed to be the right fit, and two synagogue members have already enrolled their children in Derech HaYeled.

Lazev said she expects the new space to help in their recruiting efforts. With an open house scheduled for Dec. 13, people are coming from outside the immediate area, including Jersey City, she said.

“Before, people needed to have vision,” she said. “Now, they can see for themselves the space. They can understand how the curriculum is integrated and what it’s all about. They can see the social hall we use for yoga, movement, and Israeli dancing, and they can see the playground.”

Lazev holds rabbinic ordination from the Jewish Theological Seminary and has taught in educational settings ranging from religious schools to summer camps to adult education for over 20 years. Prupis has a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Columbia University. Both completed intensive Montessori training over the summer at the Center for Montessori Teacher Education in White Plains, NY. The training continues throughout the school year and includes visits by a Montessori mentor/adviser throughout the first two years of the school’s operation.

Lazev and Prupis said they envision their school as an independent Jewish school that can draw on the practices associated with Montessori and Waldorf schools. It can then attract Jewish families who might not otherwise consider a Jewish preschool.

At Derech HaYeled, the Jewish component is taught in a Montessori framework.

The educational concept, founded by Dr. Maria Montessori in Italy in the first decade of the 20th century, came to the United States in 1915. It is based on the philosophy that children have a natural love for learning and, in a planned environment, will be motivated to learn in a self-directed manner.

The Waldorf movement grew out of a school designed by Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner. Like Montessori, it encourages children to relate what they learn to their own experiences, and de-emphasizes frontal teaching.

Lazev and Prupis had made arrangements to open their school in September 2005 at Congregation Beth Ahm of West Essex in Verona, where there had not been a preschool in over 30 years. When the town of Verona denied their request for zoning variances to begin work on the space in that synagogue last May, they had to find a new location.

The children seemed to be acclimating to the new location, with some help from Prupis and Lazev. “Remember how we had snack at Susan’s house, and we washed hands first?” Prupis prompted one child. Earlier this month, Lazev invited families to come and see the new space. One little girl expressed her difficulty with the move on that day. According to Lazev, she “fell apart and cried, ‘Everything is so different.’”

Still, Lazev told NJ Jewish News, “I’m very excited. I have a very good feeling. We’re very lucky with this space, and we’ve been received very warmly here.”

The children are nearly all two-and-a-half to three years old, except for one five-year-old, but Lazev and Prupis predicted that the age range will change. “One day we’ll have a strong group in each age,” said Lazev. “They’ll be reading, writing, and our goal is for them to learn Hebrew here.”

Meanwhile, as people walking through the synagogue strode by, Prupis expressed her excitement about the new space. “It’s nice to be part of a synagogue community and not in a house. One of our goals is to increase people’s involvement in the Jewish world.”

Lazev added, “I know a lot of marginally affiliated people. Preschool is the time to reach out.”