Roni Bar-Shir Receives Awards, New Position by Kelley Martin

Roni Bar-Shir is the recipient of this year’s Martin S. Saxon Educational Vision Award from the Jewish Community Center of Greater Baltimore as well as the Educational Excellence Award in Early Childhood Education from the Center for Jewish Education.  

Bar-Shir arrived with her family from Israel three years ago and has worked at the Weinberg Park Heights JCC ever since, teaching three-year-olds. In Israel, she was a special needs teacher for four years and taught in Beit Hashita Kibbutz.

During her time at the JCC, she has exemplified developmentally appropriate best practices in early childhood. She understands how to teach young children but also strives to understand why what she does works. Her reflective process, concerning her teaching, has encouraged her to ask the right questions of her students to help them think and learn so that they can critically engage with the world around them. Bar-Shir says of her teaching style, “I teach them to help each other, to be kind to one another, and recognize their own capabilities.”  And, says Director of the program, Zac Price, “Roni’s students exhibit confident and considerate behavior.”

As an Israeli, Bar-Shir’s love of Israel permeates everything she does; whether it is singing Israeli songs to open the day or practicing impromptu Israeli dancing, she constantly brings Israel into her class. “Kibbutz life is . . .  connected to nature, land and the harvest . . . [which] taught me how to be independent, respectful of our environment and caring of others.” This has conveyed to her classroom and extends to her colleagues, says Price.

Her importance to her colleagues cannot be measured: She is always the first to talk with and welcome a new teacher and then takes them under her wing, assisting them in adjusting to the school, says Price. She supports new teachers, as well as existing teachers, with their learning process and answers questions readily. Her mentoring goes hand in hand with her collaboration skills as she is always ready to be a team player. Part of this, Bar-Shir says, is because the kibbutz lifestyle is socialistic in nature.

Because of her relationship with the other teachers in the school and her constant collaboration with her colleagues, Roni has been named Assistant Director of the Park Heights School, her most recent accolade. Price looks forward to working with Bar-Shir in bringing in more elements that will encourage children to learn.

Bar-Shir says, “It is not just what the children will learn it is more about how they will learn . . . .  It is important for me to give the children tools that will teach them how to think and solve problems, cognitively and socially.”