Moving Is Learning

Teaching learners with language-based disabilities has enabled Eva Bogomolny Kaufman to employ research-based multisensory curricula in her classroom. Making sure learners are “available to learn” means recognizing the need for movement and creatively designing lesson plans that incorporate physical activity.

“Everyone who is wearing blue, come up and grab a worksheet,” is just one of the ways that Eva Kaufman makes sure that students in her classroom participate actively. “The expectation to sit still and listen is impossible,” said Kaufman, who is in her fifth year teaching at the Shefa School in Manhattan. She has taught from second to fourth grade.

“In my teacher brain, this kind of approach will get everyone moving,” said Kaufman who believes that moving your body physically can trigger your mind to move as well, in other words, to learn. Creating an environment where students can be “available to learn” is one of the core principles that drew Kaufman to education and specifically to the Shefa School, a Jewish community day school in Manhattan that offers students with language-based learning disabilities a place to grow, thrive, and reach their full potential.

Kaufman herself was primed to learn when she entered the masters program at The William Davidson School for Jewish Education in the fall of 2019 after graduating from Ohio State University. Born and raised in Cleveland in a Reform Jewish family, she spent a semester of college in Israel through the Nachshon program which prepared her for being in a diverse Jewish environment. Participating in Nachshon also enabled Kaufman to apply for and receive a fellowship for graduate school that provided funding, additional conferences, and supplemental cohort-based distance learning. 

It was during her first year at Davidson that Kaufman visited Shefa on a field trip and felt that the school was “the” place where she could learn and grow. “They didn’t really have student teachers at Shefa, but I was persistent and knew that my second-year placement had to be there,” Kaufman recalled. Alongside her practicum, Kaufman supplemented her Davidson coursework with classes in special education at Teachers College.

As Covid took hold in the spring of 2020 and Davidson went fully remote, Kaufman accepted that her graduate school experience would be not exactly what she expected. “Ohio State is one of the largest universities in the country,” said Kaufman, “and my Davidson cohort—even before Covid sent us all remote—had all of four people.” Fortunately, Davidson had amassed considerable experience in online learning and so was able to make the switch with relative ease. 

Determined to experience her practicum in person at Shefa, Kaufman signed a lease for an apartment in Hell’s Kitchen. “I just knew I had to be there,” she said. After graduation, Kaufman was hired through the Shefa residency program and subsequently became a lead and now mentor teacher at the school.

“One of the things that I learned very early on at Shefa is that while ‘special education’ is required for some, it is beneficial for all,” said Kaufman. Many of the techniques that she uses daily in her classroom are about making sure students are in a place to learn, which is a necessity for all teachers.

Like many progressive schools, Shefa embraces the Responsive Classroom approach, an evidence-based approach to teaching and discipline that creates safe, joyful, and engaging classrooms and school communities. Kaufman is continuously reading the temperature of her classroom. “I want to know what happened at recess,” she said, “are they available to learn? What does our class need at this moment—a mindfulness moment, breathing exercise, watching a calm.com video, turning the lights down or maybe do I need to bring in an energizer?”

Movement in Kaufman’s classroom is intentional and takes place throughout the general flow of the day. “We don’t just ask students to raise their hand in response to a question. First of all, some of them just won’t do that. Instead we use kinesthetic tactics: thumbs up/thumbs down, moving to a side or corner of the room,” she said. One method her students love is passing a ball around so everyone has a turn to respond.

Shefa uses research-based multisensory curricula that invite students to move their bodies as they learn, Kaufman explained. The PAF program uses skywriting as a kinesthetic approach, forming muscle memory while reviewing letter sounds, spelling of non-phonetic words, and suffixes. In math, Shefa teachers use a combination of Jump Math which is a multisensory, hands-on, visually supported, step-by-step approach that adheres to the US common core standards, alongside Marilyn Zecher’s Multisensory Math, which is an Orton Gillingham type instruction that uses manipulatives and a hands-on approach to introduce, teach and reinforce each concept.

Visitors to Kaufman’s Shefa classroom will see different strategies at work all the time. “Every class is different, and we are always modifying and differentiating,” she said. “This is ultimately less frustrating for teachers than drilling in on one approach and then having to pivot.” One day you may see students completing a math worksheet by walking around a classroom with clipboards, another day they may be doing a “gallery walk” with a checklist and sticky notes as they observe their classmates’ writing assignments hanging on the walls. If Kaufman sees that a student could use a break, she might send them on an “errand” which teaches independence and strengthens multi-step chunking for the many Shefa students with executive functioning needs.

As a child growing up in Cleveland, Kaufman inherited a love of being physically active from her parents who both have a strong commitment to staying healthy by moving and strengthening their bodies. “We usually start the day at Shefa with a movement-based activity like a community building game or even dancing and music, just being silly,” she said. “It’s good for the kids and good for me.” In morning meeting after a weekend, she will often share about her runs in Central Park or the tennis she played, modeling to her students the value of keeping her body healthy. 

For Kaufman, the lessons of healthy body, healthy mind work in both directions. Last year, some of her sporty students taught her more than she ever thought she’d need to know about ice hockey. “Teachers can’t help but get engaged in things that their students are interested in,” she said. “When there is a shared ‘playing field’ in the classroom, the possibilities for learning grow exponentially.”