I remember my first Sukkos as a teacher. I bought sour sticks, lemonheads and mini clear bags.

I stayed up waaaaaay too late assembling edible Lulav and Esrog sets. I gave them to my students, stapled to a booklet with 7 thoughts for Sukkos - one to read each night.

This was a long time ago. I wouldn’t do this today. (And I’m proud of that! That’s what an evergrowing educator is. Today I would have had the students much more creatively involved, from assembling the candy to sharing their favorite Sukkos Dvar Torahs.)

This flashback got me thinking about Sukkos, and how we shake the four kinds.

The Lulav - which has taste but no smell, the Esrog which has both a pleasant taste and smell, the Aravot which have no taste nor smell and the Hadasim which have a smell but no taste. These represent four types of Jews; the ones who are learned and do good deeds, the ones who do only one or the other, and the one with neither.

And what do we do?

We shake them all together.

We unite them.

We hold them together for a Mitzvah.​
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There are four kinds of learners, too.

Pirkei Avos classifies it as the sponge, sieve, the strainer, and the sifter.

Neil Fleming Lehavdil divides students by VARK; visual, auditory, reading/writing, kinesthetic.
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And what do we do?

We bring them all together.

We unite them.

We hold them together in our classroom.

And that’s really what teaching is about - to me, at least.

Uniting our different students - their different interests, different capabilities and strengths,and uniting them into a cohesive classroom.

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A gut Yom Tov,
Chag Sameach,
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Mushkie
@EvergrowingEducator
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