The JOI curriculum refers to all the learning, community-building, and mentorship components that JOI provides to our Fellows. The curriculum is designed to complement and deepen the experiential learning that Fellows do at their full-time organizing placements.
Framing Questions
The JOI Curriculum challenges Fellows to explore central questions, rather than prescribing any one path for their journey as Jewish organizers. These four questions provide the frame for all the exploration that fellows do throughout the year.
- Who am I as a leader?
- How and why do I organize?
- Who am I, Jewishly?
- What can I/we uniquely contribute as a Jewish organizer(s)?
Curricular Modules
The JOI curriculum is structured around eight modules, consecutive series of training and learning sessions framed around a common theme.
- Four Organizing Modules: Storytelling and Relationships, Leadership, Action, Reflection; plus a retreat on Power.
- Four Jewish Learning Modules: Exodus as an Organizing Narrative I and II: Yetziat Mitzrayim/Leaving a Narrow Place and Brit/Covenant; Judaism and Social Justice I and II: Jewish Texts, and American Jewish History and Contemporary Landscape.
- There are also several special sessions on Fundraising and Organizing.
Approach to Organizing Training
We believe that one learns the work of community organizing and working for justice primarily by doing the work and reflecting on how the work is going, what is effective, and how we personally fit in with this work. Sometimes we call the learning “training in community organizing” but it is not “training” in the sense of an easily reproducible set of skills that will always work. We think that organizing for justice is much more complex and effective work varies among communities and historical and political environments. There is also a deep personal relationship to this work that is important to explore. So, although there are certainly some practical skills one can learn to be a more effective organizer, long-term success is dependent on a much more complex set of understandings and abilities.
Master Teachers
JOI employs a model in which highly experienced organizers and Jewish leaders create in-depth learning environments with the Fellows over a number of consecutive sessions, or at several key points during the year. Master Teachers for 2009-2010 include:
- Rabbi Jonah Pesner, Founding Director Just Congregations of The Union for Reform Judaism
- Meir Lakein, Director of Organizing JOI
- Rabbi David Jaffe, Dean, Gann Academy and Founder and Dean of the Kirva Institute.
- Mitchell Silver, Professor, UMASS-Boston
- Meredith Levy, Director of Organizing, Somerville Community Corporation
- Rabbi Toba Spitzer, Congregation Dorshei Tzedek
Friday Sessions
These sessions are the “glue” of JOI’s program. In general, fellows learn together about social change, Jewish heritage, and community organizing. The sessions draw on both Jewish and non-Jewish texts, and connect fellows with JOI’s inspiring network of trainers (community organizers and Jewish leaders). In addition, they provide a space for fellows to discuss their work and provide and receive support on specific issues.
Typical JOI Friday Session:
8:40 Arrive, get settled, schmooze
9:00 Session Led By Co-facilitator (Chosen by co-facilitator working with Director of Fellowship)
10:00 Training led by Master Trainer or JOI staff
12:00 Announcements, Evaluation, Key Learnings, Closing Song
12:30 Adjourn
Co-Facilitation:
Each week, a different Fellow will work with the Director of Fellowship as the Co-Facilitator for the session. Fellows will each take on this role 2-3 times during the year, and will sign up at the beginning of the year.
Retreats
There are three group retreats over the course of the year, which take place at a rustic ecumenical retreat center in Stoughton, MA. Retreats are an opportunity for group members to reconnect with one another and with themselves, away from the busyness and distraction of everyday life and work. They provide a chance to delve more deeply and continuously into a particular focus area than any one Friday session affords. Retreat themes over the course of the year include Power and Reflection.
The Fellowship program officially begins with a five day Orientation Retreat, usually the last week in August or first week of September. The gathering revolves around community-building activities, trainings, and study of Jewish and secular texts, and includes unstructured time for the fellows to get to know each other. The first community Shabbat celebration also happens at this retreat. The goals of the retreat are as follows:
- for fellows to develop the foundation of a Jewish and learning community that will support fellows and foster learning throughout the year,
- for fellows to begin discussion about Jewish identity, Jewish tradition, and justice that will continue throughout the year,
- for fellows to begin engaging with some of the basic theories of organizing through interactive trainings and reflection on their experiences.
Shabbat Celebration
Fellows celebrate Shabbat together once a month, following an afternoon learning session. These sessions usually take place in Fellows’ homes. Each Shabbat experience starts with some kind of shared Shabbat observance created and led by two Fellows, and is followed by a group potluck meal. Though the observances may range from traditional to quite free-form, each should include the following core elements: gratitude, singing, reflecting, teaching/learning, and eating!
Written Reflection
JOI emphasizes reflection to help cultivate this crucial habit of organizers and to prioritize this important but not urgent work. Regular and brief contributions to the private JOI Blog will help Fellows reflect on the “primary text” of their on-the-job experience and on their Jewish journey as it evolves over the year.
Mentorship
Fellows will receive regular coaching and mentorship sessions with the Fellowship Director. Fellows also will have the option to form a peer mentor relationship with a JOI Alumnus through the JOI Buddy Program. Both types of meetings will happen approximately every eight weeks. Additionally, JOI can help Fellows connect to additional mentors through the extensive JOI network of organizers and Jewish leaders.
Evaluation
A core value of JOI, evaluation is integrated not only into our curricular content but also the process. JOI evaluation components include:
- A pre-program survey, extensive mid-year evaluation with each Fellow, his/her supervisors and Fellowship Director, and end of year evaluation including a survey and individual exit interviews with the Fellowship Director.
- In-person evaluations of each session to help garner key learnings, and to determine what worked well and how to make the learning experience even better next time.
- A learning module emphasizing the importance of reflection as a means of learning from experience and evaluating progress toward goals.
Fundraising and Recruiting for JOI
As organizers, Fellows need to learn recruitment skills: how to both identify the values and self-interest of others, and how to get people to act. We require fellows to participate in recruitment, and challenge each Fellow to recruit 3 applicants to the Fellowship program for the coming year. This can be done through social, campus and professional networks.
We may also ask that each Fellow makes a short presentation or has a speaking engagement with his/her hometown Jewish community or synagogue, or a comparable audience. This not only contributes to fellowship recruitment efforts and builds our organizational base, but it also provides Fellows with opportunities to practice the critical storytelling skills they will be working on during the program year.
As organizers and social justice leaders, Fellows also need to learn development skills and how to organize money. These skills are essential for anyone who wants to work for social change in the long term. Each Fellow must raise at least $1,000 by the end of the Fellowship year, using the methods of development (fundraising that helps to build a sustainable relationship between the donor and the organization). Fellows will be asked to participate in a development project, working hand in hand with staff and other fellows to connect with existing JOI supporters and to cultivate new ones. This work will largely take place outside of the weekly sessions.
