ROSH HASHANAH 5783 L’CHAIM
Tuesday, August 16, marked the first day of school at Denver Jewish Day School. It also marked the first day of Craig Halper’s 35th year at the school.
Halper, as you’ll find, greets his students without an extensive Day One checklist. This teacher, at least on this day, has only one item in mind.
“I said to the students, ‘I’m going to start off and talk about relationships because the relationship between yourselves and myself, that is the key to being able to function as a class for the entire year.
“‘As soon as the walls can come down and we can trust each other, then we’re going to create an atmosphere for learning.’”
Thirty-five years at the same school means that Halper, 62, has a pretty good handle on being an educator.
Despite his intellect and depth, Halper reveals in an honest self-assessment that he is an introvert, has earned the reputation of being “too intense,” and that he was “an awful” student in school.
“I feel on some level that I went to school here,” says Halper, “because I never paid attention to most of what I was learning, until I found something that I really liked to learn about.
“But, I’m doing something that I love, and that’s connecting with other people, which is funny in some ways, since I am kind of an introverted person. But I like being around people who like to have a good conversation and test the waters with each other and push each other.
“It has been something that has given me a very, very meaningful life.”
The Los Angeles native arrived in Denver in 1987 after attending North Harris County (Texas) Junior College to play basketball and Southwest Texas State (now Texas State).
“My degree is in education, but I’m not a by-the-book person,” says Halper. “I’ve taught myself everything, and I ask a lot of questions in order for me to gain a better understanding.”
Conjoined twins — only one can survive — what does Jewish law say?
Halper is a Judaic studies teacher, which encompasses a lot. He teaches rabbinic text, Torah and commentaries, and Jewish law. Class topics regularly center around social and ethical dilemmas.
“Last year, one topic stands out,” says Halper. “We learned about [conjoined] twins and were discussing, if only one could survive a medical procedure, how does Jewish law look at that?”
In this case, Halper marvels at the process, not necessarily the answer.
“The kids here are amazing,” he says. “Like anybody else, they could follow whatever social media is selling them, or follow whatever headlines the talking heads are screaming at them.
“What we try to do here is to teach critical thinking, knowing that someone is going to disagree with you.
So they have to learn how to maneuver that as well. Sometimes these subject matters can become quite contentious.”
Which, of course, is exactly part of Halper’s blueprint.
Halper and DJDS have evolved since his first year at the school in 1987. Halper was hired to be the school’s athletic director, coaching boys basketball and girls volleyball.
“I didn’t have a gym, so I had to make things up,” Halper remembers. “We used to play basketball into a trash can.
“After about six years of that, I had fallen in love with learning Torah and using my mind in a way that I hadn’t used when I was a student.”
Gym class suddenly was assigned to someone else.
Halper has amassed a lengthy roster of graduates, including doctors, lawyers and teachers. And rabbis.
The first class he taught, gym class, included one student named Aver Jacobs, who is now Rabbi Aver Jacobs, leader of Bais Yisroel, where Halper is a congregant.
(“He was always great at motivating us. . . yet he still maintained a great balance between that and not pushing too hard if we needed some slack,” the rabbi tells IJN. “He always put up with our shenanigans graciously and with a smile.”)
‘You can’t box people in and say this is what a teacher should do’
As much as Halper loves what he does, he is convinced his longevity in the classroom is tied in some small way to the single biggest benefit of a teacher’s lifestyle.
Summer vacation.
“You’ve got to get some time away to do this job well,” says Jacobs, whose getaway passion is, among other things, fly fishing.
“It’s meditative,” he says. “It gets me into nature. My mind doesn’t turn off anyway, but when you get a bite, you feel the life at the end of the hook. There’s something very evolutionary about it.
“For that moment, a jolt that goes through your body. There’s something amazing about it.”
For the record, Halper always sends the fish back into the river.
Halper is the longest-tenured active member of the DJDS staff. Not bad for a guy who feels his style is rather . . . his own.
“You can’t box people in and say that this is what a teacher should do and this isn’t a teacher because they do that,” says Halper. “I have a formula that works, and it’s dependent upon me.
“And that’s how it should be.
“More than anything else, I love having conversation. And conversation is not putting people in those boxes, because whatever they are politically or socially, we are complex creatures. And I don’t think we really understand the complexity. We oversimplify people.
“I’ve worked with great people in the past who I’ve learned a lot from,” says Halper. “It’s not the trend now where people are working 35 years in the same institution, or at the same job, or even the same type of work.
“And that’s fine. But this is me, and I’ve had a wonderful time getting to know some incredible people.
“And I’m still shy.”
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