Dramas PEP
Portland, Oregon

Deborah Barany

Deborah Barany, Assistant Director of the FMAMS and Director of the Parent Education Program (PEP), has a doctorate in Education from Stanford University and her research focused on moral thinking of Bnai Mitzvah students. This is her second year with the Mini-School. Deborah became involved in the PEP of the FMAMS because of her desire to do pilot projects and the program seemed to be a challenging program to bring to life. PEP was her first experience in teaching adults. Prior to this project she was very involved in the San Francisco area with Jewish family education.

Some of the things she enjoys about teaching in the Mini-School are participating in a community of learners and getting to know her students as parents, teachers, friends and intellectuals. What she likes best about her job is the opportunity to learn.

"Debby Barany, the Director of the Parent Education Program of the FMAMS in Portland has been instrumental in the success of this pilot project," says Eliana Temkin, Director of the Portland Mini-School. "In addition to her role as Director she taught Rhythms to the PEP students last year and will teach Dramas this year. Her talent in education has been key to maintaining the excitement in our school. Debby has played a vital role and is a key asset."

Deborah finds teaching in a pilot program very challenging. "It makes you work really hard and think deeply about one's own teaching practice as well as the content of the lessons," she says. "At the beginning of the year the students would complain a lot!" she says. "They complained because they did not perceive how the study of Jewish texts would impact their family life or parenting skills." As the year progressed and they became more skilled at reading classic text and Tanach they began using Jewish texts to view their lives. They were able to listen to their children's questions, understand these questions through Jewish lenses and feel that they had resources to answer their children. They were also able to recognize "holy" moments in their lives in the everyday experiences of parenting. "This was powerful for us all," says Deborah.

Deborah says that one of the changes in her teaching methods with adults is that she now thinks really hard about her essential questions and how to tell a story with texts that addresses these questions. She also wants her students to develop their own essential questions both through the texts they read as well as their own life experiences.

"I think of teaching a lesson as telling a story," she says. "It begins with my question and writing a set of questions that are connected to the main idea. I then organize the question to tell a story or show how an idea developed. I use the texts to shed some light but also I like to show how a text can generate more questions. My criteria for good questions is that they generate more questions. If a question doesn't propel you to the next idea or set questions, it does not serve you well."

Deborah met her spouse when they were undergraduates at UCSD through the campus Zionist organization. They have three children, ages seven and twin five year old girls. She also teaches 8th grade Jewish History at the local day school. In addition to all this she is working with the day school to help start a new Upper School (grades 9-12).

Deborah's Matzah Cover

Her hobbies are quilting, historical costuming, and fabric dyeing. One of her Matzah covers was commissioned for the Women's Division of the Jewish Federation of Portland for an all-women Passover Seder held in 2001. After the Seder they were donated to the Jewish Museum in Oregon.

If she were granted one wish, she said she would like to be able to climb Mount Hood.

Advice Deborah would give a new Mini-School teacher would be: Make it fun and laugh with your students. Be a good listener.

Deborah Barany can be reached by e-mail at dbarany@portlandjewishacademy.org

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