What if Mordechai, Haman, and the Wizard of Oz held a rap battle? That’s the question or students asked.
The video is a project of one of our Emtza “pods.” Emtza is our seventh/eighth grade project-based program at Temple Isaiah in Los Angeles, where I work. (You can read more about the program in my previous post on the topic.)
As part of my job at Temple Isaiah, I developed Emtza, a project-based program for our middle school students. When I say “I developed,” what I mean is that I had a basic concept, an idea sapling. I handed that idea to an educator hired to run the program, Jessie Downey, who developed the idea further, bringing it into the realm of reality and giving it some real “umph.” Then she handed it to her amazing staff of teachers.
This video — one of two — is a piece of evidence that we were on to something. It’s a product of our students, who created it from scratch. They had a lot of support from their teachers, but it really is theirs. I hope you get a kick out of it… I sure did. (Click “More” for an explanation of how the Emtza program works.)
This is the only organization I’ve ever played in or been in. I came here with Jackie [Robinson] and Gil [Hodges] and Duke [Snider] … and played with great people like Don [Newcombe or Drysdale?] and Tommy [Davis], Willie [Davis] and Maury [Wills].
Sandy Koufax (via BLS)
