Kinus Hamechanchim Relieves Zoom Fatigue With In Person Event

Zoom fatigue, Emotional distancing and the loss of months of education progress.

These are some of the challenges facing students and educators today, as the world recovers from COVID-19, leaving in its wake countless setbacks.

For this year’s conference, the Kinus HaMechanchim, project of the Merkos Chinuch Office, has issued a call for papers, with abstracts on ideas menchanchim feel should be discussed.

Current Core Issues

How do we restore:

The sense of security of the classroom, when after a year of pandemic the kids have stayed mainly at home?
Learning skills, after a year of neglect and distractions?
Discipline, after a year of frequent idleness?
Kabolas Ol and Yiras shamayim?

The ultimate goal of the chinuch process is to instill in students a personal relationship with the Al-mighty. This is one of the major issues facing educational institutions today. Many students, alienated by the long physical absence, may lack motivation for either academia or self-improvement. And in spite of more organized curricula, rebbeim may find themselves staring at a classroom full of bored faces.

Rabbis and mashpi’im have been discussing such issues throughout the year, but in order to effect genuine change, we need to hear from the menchanchim themselves. While many are grappling with difficulties, some have been more successful than others.

We ask of you to share your methods:

What is working for you?
Can it work for other menchanchim?

As we know, the issue of yiras shemayim is not a matter of simple review of Shulchan Aruch. It requires constant awareness of children’s spiritual and emotional needs. Menachanchim are held in high esteem by students and expected to exemplify ideal conduct. Nevertheless, youth today need much more: menchanchim must inspire. Instead of the “why,” this year’s Kinus will focus on the “how.”

This year’s Kinus HaMenchanchim will take place at the Crowne Plaza in Danbury, CT. This beautiful venue, an hour’s drive from Crown Heights, allows for a totally enveloped atmosphere among mentors and colleagues who can, at its conclusion, set solid plans in place to use within their classrooms.

For the very first time an international vaad has been established:

Rabbis Yisroel Bard-Wigdor, Toronto, Canada; Yaakov Garfinkel; LEC North Miami Beach, FL; Mendel Greenbaum, Cheder Menachem, Los Angeles, CA; Aron Ginsburg, Gan Yisroel, Boro Park, NY; Boruch Kaplan, NEHA, New Haven, CT; Levi Kaplan, Cheder Menachem, Monsey, NY; Menachem Kirschenbaum, Fort Greene, Brooklyn; Mendel Klyne, Cheder Lubavitch, Detroit, MI; Yehoshua Lustig, Oholei Torah, NYC; Yitzchok Newman, HA, Huntington Beach, CA; Moshe Rodman, DHA Las Vegas, NV; Yaakov Scheinberger, HACS, Margate, FL; Yaakov Sebag, Lubavitcher Yeshiva, Ocean Parkway, NY; Efraim Sorkin, Cheder Menachem, Baltimore, MD.