By COLlive reporter
Rabbi Mendel Kugel, a teacher for the upper elementary boys at the Arevim school in Boca Raton, Florida, was awarded The Kohelet Prize of $36,000 for Development of Critical and Creative Thinking.
The prize is conferred for excellence in facilitating student success in the areas of Analysis, Evaluation, and Creation.
Winners are selected by a panel of judges in the fields of education, psychology and neuroscience, identified by the Kohelet Foundation. Entries are judged on innovation, replicability, and impact.
Rabbi Kugel developed the “Young Acharonim Initiative” a project that gives students the ability to answer their own questions, by becoming the teachers. The students then plan and research their own lessons, present them to the class, allow others to critique it, and perfect their logic.
Using the ancient methodology of the Talmud, students are able to hone their skills by exercising critical thinking.
By calling the students ‘Young Acharonim,’ Rabbi Kugel showed them that their contributions to Torah are valid and important. With guided templates, the students were offered the opportunity to do research independently, answer their own questions, and present their very own perspectives.
Arevim is the very first preK-8 Montessori – inspired Yeshiva day school in South Florida, guided by the teachings of the Rebbe and Chabad philosophy.
Located in Boca Raton, the school’s focus is on the whole child, strengthening the children’s full potential to succeed academically, socially and emotionally.
Mrs. Dina Pinson Kranz, the school founder and director who is the daughter and granddaughter of renowned Chabad educators and Shluchim in France and Tunisia, told COLlive: “We are all very proud of Rabbi Kugel, and our school, which provides a customized curriculum dedicated to problem solving, growth mindset, and creative and critical thinking.”
To view the Young Acharonim Initiative, click here.
For more information, visit arevim.org
Great work Mendel… Keep on aiming higher to reach yet greater & ever increasing pinnacles of achievement in the most vital & all encompassing world of Chinuch…… Throughout your youth you have exemplified a healthy dose of charisma,good work habits & positive energy enabling you to view challenge as opportunity & the talented ability to inculcate & instill in your students creativity coupled w/ the confidence to grow from strength to greater strength…Yasher Koach…. Proud in Tarzana
Congratulations Dina and Mendel!!
Proud sister
nice to see that chabad has updated and can offer what the children deserve.
Big fan of mendel k. Your lincoln rd buddies
#9 – l agree. Perhaps if some principals and teachers and administrators were to take a little trip there to see what is going on and how much you can improve a curriculum while staying in the Rebbe’s vision, local schools could find a way to challenge children’s abilities by adding new ideas to the old curriculums.
Look out for the 12 psukim
To our leaders, Educators and Chinuch Vad:
Please learn from this Kiddush Lubavitch! We need more of these Chinuch innovators in our communities!
Yasher Koach Rabbi Kugel!
mendel is an educator par excellence. we are so proud of this awesome young teacher. Lubavitch can use many more like him. Frum, with it, happy, smart, and a pleasure to be around…. good vibes man!!!! Teachers like him will give our kids a love of Yiddishkeit.
My daughter goes to Arevim and I can tell you from first-hand experience that this is the only school where she could really learn and grow successfully. In her previous school she was not keeping up with the class so we had her tested; turns out she has a high IQ and the usual teaching methods were just too slow for her. This caused her to tune out the teachers and basically try to learn on her own. This year we enrolled her Arevim and BH she is succeeding in all her studies. Their method of giving the student ownership… Read more »
Rabbi Mendel Kugel is a real genuine dude.
This chossid rocks
Areivim is smart to recruit and nurture this creative, young talent who is a Crown Heights native. If we are not careful, we will lose more of our very own devoted talent. Crown Heights Mosdos, please pay our wonderful teachers well, and on time. Our future depends on it.
Mazel Tov Rabbi Kugel on this prestigious honor! I am thrilled you are a teacher! The Rebbe is so proud of you!
mendel is the best teacher in lubavitch!!!
This is amazing !! Gives me so much hope that innovative schools are developing with the approach our kids need so much today to empower the Jewish future
Thank you Dina Kranz for giving us this hope!
Mazel tov to all the teachers !
It’s amazing to see advances in our Chinuch! Our children need it.
Special shout out to Dina Kranz!!
Such an accomplishment in such a short history of this school!
Kol hakavod!!
At least that’ll bring one teachers salary to minimum wage 😉
Mendel you are AMAZING! I am so proud to be your friend and see what you are accomplishing for our children! May you go M’Chayal El Chayal
Quality teachers are one of the most important jobs in our communities. It’s truly incredible to see an organization such as this one reward hard work and innovation delivered by dedicated teachers
Dina Kranz’ grandfather reb nissen Pinson o’h was sent by the Rebbe to Tunisia many many years ago where he opened a school with great mesiras nefesh and which is still running today.
Mazal tov!
Continue being the wonderful mechanech that you are! Keep on being creative and bringing the best out of your lucky students! Everyone in chinuch is benefiting from your dedication to helping your students. It’s a ripple effect.
We are so proud!
Love, Shlomo and Rivka
Right here in CH; it’s been much criticized, but the basic idea of letting children learn to own their own education while being directed is the hope for the future. Perhaps this exceptional teacher can educate some of our ‘mainstream’ teachers. And maybe if they didn’t have to fight so much opposition, our own neighborhood progressive school could be allowed to demonstrate how well some CH kids are doing in embracing their leraning.
So refreshing to hear about positive strides in the important Shluchis of chinuch!! Kol hakavod!
We need more people like this
Mazel Tov to Mendel Kugel on this wonderful honor and to the Arevim school that fosters an educational climate where these awards can happen
A fan of Arevim
This is amazing! Best teacher ever!
Mazel Tov to my nephew, Mendel Kugel, and my sister in law, Dina Pinson Kranz, on this esteemed honor. You are both heroes in the new commitment to providing Chabad families with engaging, academically rigorous, and spiritually uplifting education. So proud!!
Love Arevim!
So refreshing to hear about progress and real Chayus in our Educational system! Hatzlacha Rabbah
Dina you are the best!! Go Arevim!!!