Eps 165: Tammy Keces, Head of Irvine Hebrew Day School, is on talking about turning hate into love

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Casey O'Roarty 0:00
Music. Hey everybody. Welcome to the joyful courage podcast, a place for information and inspiration on the conscious parenting journey. I am Casey o'rourdy, positive discipline trainer, parent coach, and honored to be your guide in the work of showing up as your best for yourself and your family. If you feel as though parenting is one long personal growth and development workshop, you have come to the right place. The conversations you will hear on this podcast are all intended to offer you tools for moving forward, for expanding your lens, for shifting your narrative to one of possibility, connection and empowerment. You can be the parent you want to be. We are influencing the world with how we raise our children. When we bring deep, listening, acceptance and courage to our relationships, we are doing our part to evoke it in the world. I am thrilled to partner with you on this path. I hope you enjoy the show. Hi, podcast listeners. My guest today is Tammy keysis. Tammy is the head of school at the Irvine Hebrew Day School, a former teacher, a positive discipline trainer and a mama to three teenagers. Tammy has a number of credentials, from her BA in psychology, from UCLA to her master's from Columbia University's Teachers College in curriculum and instruction, and she is currently working on her doctorate. Tammy is a powerhouse, super passionate and well versed in what she does. I have had the privilege of watching her start and build the Irvine Hebrew Day School, which started with one Kinder class, right? One Kinder class and now boasts grades K through five, she is a light and an inspiration to me and so many others. Hi Tam, welcome to the podcast.

Tammy Keeces 1:58
Hi Casey. Thank you for having me.

Casey O'Roarty 2:00
Please share with the listeners a little bit more about how you found yourself doing what you do.

Tammy Keeces 2:06
Well. Thank you again for welcoming me today. Five years ago, I was given this incredible opportunity to start a school, and I had, prior to that, been working at another school where I learned about positive discipline, and the school where I was at was actually a Muslim school, and it was an incredible gift that I was able to, as a Jewish person, work at a school and develop the connections and relationships with the community there. And it just so happens that I was given an opportunity to open a Jewish school after that and I thought the same philosophy, the same beliefs, the same values were really universal between the two institutions. The main differences, of course, had to do with our ideology, our understanding of what our focus will be with our children, which is on Jewish education, Jewish history and learning their own beliefs and culture and traditions. So five years into it, now Casey, we have 50 students at our school who people thought in our community they would never be able to open another Jewish school, because there were all these great schools in Orange County. And it turns out that there was a need for people to find their children in a space that they could teach them Jewish values, find pride and connection to their traditions that they weren't able to find and discover in other institutions. So I'm really in an unusual situation down Orange County Casey, because there's two other Jewish schools. And in this day and age, people have to ask themselves, why am I going to send my child to a Jewish school? And especially in light with what's been happening in the world this past week? So this past week, more than ever, with the tragedy in Pittsburgh, and that was devastating enough that we've had even our own local situation with anti semitism showing up in our backyards. So the interesting part about this is that our community responded to this not by becoming angry or wanting to lash out, but it drew us even closer together. And so on Monday morning, after we heard about Pittsburgh, the first thing that we did with our children is teach them the prayer for healing and to have the children come together to say, this is the power of our community to lovingly focus on, what can we do to help the people who are now suffering and in pain without even mentioning what happened on Saturday, we didn't at our school, KC, it's a K through fifth grade, so we made a decision to not even bring up and raise the issue. With what happened in

Casey O'Roarty 5:00
Pittsburgh, and was that, just about this the age of the kids and so

Tammy Keeces 5:06
absolutely so I had consulted with psychologists leaders in the field of education. Specifically, there's a network for Jewish educators that came together very quickly because this level of this event just was crushing. And it was, it was something that all of us had not experienced on such a large scale level. I mean, this, this act is the largest murder, mass murder of Jews on American soil that's ever happened, and so we have collectively responded and felt what it's like through other people's experiences. Unfortunately, over this past year, in Parkland and in our communities, responded in our way of sending loving letters and being there, but when it happens to your community and in your immediate families, the level of awareness of how that feels is very different, and so the understanding is developmentally. It's not appropriate at certain ages to increase fear and anxiety, especially in young children. So the decision was made that parents should be the ones to provide their children with the information that they need. And so I wanted to give the parents the tools so that they can have these conversations. They can decide what information they want to give their children, and they decided individually what was comfortable for their own families to share or not share and have those conversations. But needless to say, I had a parent come in first thing Monday morning who said my child asked me on the way to school, why would God do this to somebody? Why would God harm want to harm other people? And the father walked into my office and asked me, How do I respond to that? And my child's five years old, so I had to come from a personal place, a place that I'm a mother. So how would I respond to my own child? But also as an educator, and a background in psychology is basically we want to ask the kids more questions and say, What do you think about that, what do you feel about that, and let them process their own feelings, rather than put our feelings in front and get and get curious. So my role this past week is just helping parents navigate their own feelings about what's happening first and foremost. Yeah,

Casey O'Roarty 7:46
right, because there's the kids, but then there's the parents, yeah, I mean, and listeners. I just got to say this really quick, so Tammy is my dear friend. I love you. It's so great. I'm looking at links mutual. I'm looking at you through my computer right now, and I just want to say I sent her a text this week because of the shooting and all the coverage, and you know, Tammy, you were on my mind, and I wanted to make sure you knew that I was thinking about you and that my heart was hurting for you and the rest of your community, and really hurting, just for all of us and the world right now.

Tammy Keeces 8:24
And can I just stop you, Casey, because that meant a lot to me, and I can tell you that other people needed that from other people outside the Jewish community, it was so important for you to text me, because we don't just live in our own world and our own pain. We should be thinking about others in all these situations. So I didn't realize how much that meant to me until you sent me that text and other people that I know were sharing similar stories of people putting notes in their mailboxes. Yeah,

uh, flowers being put on the entryways of schools and synagogues, and those little acts of kindness allowed for healing to happen and for connection to happen. So we don't feel alone. None of us should feel that

Casey O'Roarty 9:22
well, and what you responded to me with was a text and a picture, right? Yeah, right

Tammy Keeces 9:27
after you sent me that message, I had just found out that somebody had written horrible graffiti on the wall in big red letters profanity. That was the entrance way to our bus stop for our students, and that's that was something you never want a child to see on their morning to school. Fortunately, people have the presence of mind to cover it up right away. Oh, good that the. The Community Law Enforcement obviously reacted to try to find out what happened, but it triggered a wave of really strong emotion in all the families about fear, fear and anxiety, and they were posting back and forth, and you know, but I'll tell you, Casey, out of all of that, not one parent said, I'm not going to send my school child to school today, right? Nobody reacted that way. Well, not any, yeah. Well, that's the I mean, let

Casey O'Roarty 10:29
me just stop you for a sec, because you sent me this picture and this text, and you said, you know, this is what the kids saw, or this is what was at the bus stop and and then you wrote, we chose to spend the day using our words for love and kindness, lots of mindful breathing and turning our hearts towards our communal humanity. And of course, I responded to your text with my own expletives, because I'm good like that, you know, kind of a What the fuck? And then you responded with, people are children, and they just want to belong. So talk to me about how your community, well, you've already kind of shared about, you know, how you're talking to the kids and like, where are you finding your ability to meet hate with love? Because I think all of us strive for this, and all of us, I think, in our hearts and our heads, feel like, if you know, like you had mentioned the different levels of really getting this, the closer the tragedy is to you. And I think the closer it is, I would think the harder it is to walk that talk of meeting hate with love, especially when fear is so deep. So tell me about you and your ability to meet, to be there and to be in that place of love.

Tammy Keeces 11:45
That's a really good question. So the response to me is coming from a place of sadness. What have we done wrong that somebody feels that level of hate, and how can we admit and acknowledge that that person wasn't born that way, right? I don't believe any human being was born feeling that level of bigotry and prejudice and hate and anger. What have we done as a society to perpetrate that, to perpetuate it. So the response that we have here as educators is to make sure that our students, they have the insight into each other, that when somebody is having a hard time, when they're angry, when they're acting out, when they're having a challenge, we have to turn to that person and feel empathy and feel compassion that they're struggling. And so we teach that every day at our school that the kids even at a kindergarten age when somebody is looking for negative attention, and this is with positive discipline tools to teach them that attention seeking behavior is because they're just looking to belong and they're looking to connect, or they don't have the tools To get my attention and to give the children depth of understanding about other people's emotional needs. And it starts every day, when the moment we get to school, children are learning the insight into each other and are able to to get use those tools, those positive discipline communication tools to respond to each other lovingly, and so when a child is is having a meltdown or they're frustrated at our school, which isn't common, but it happens because they're children, they they lose a game of tetherball at recess and they're kicking, and there's they're upset, And instead of a child going, oh, you know, you're so loud, I don't like that, they'll say, oh, did you lose the game? I'm sorry to hear that, you know. So you we're, we're looking at teaching children from a very young age to acknowledge and validate that other people's feelings are coming from a place of frustration or sadness or anger and it we use a lot of literature in our school to use as springboards and starting points for conversation. There's so many rich pieces of fiction and literature and storybooks now out there, there's a book actually that we use that. I actually even used at a positive discipline training recently called we're all wonders. And I don't know if you're

Casey O'Roarty 14:27
familiar with that story, but I love the title, and

Tammy Keeces 14:31
it's such an incredible book about a little boy that can't go out in the sun, and they he wears a helmet and he has facial, you know, dis configuration, and how a child should be able to turn to another child that looks like this and see them as just being different and not judging, or not feeling afraid or not feeling you. That that they have to feel better about themselves by being hurtful to somebody. So I think that that's the point of view. Our dominant mindset at the school is that every child wants to belong, and when an adult or when a person commits an act of violence. They, too have struggled in their life with their own pain, and they are suffering, and I think that will serve our children well, yeah, to respond to others that way.

Casey O'Roarty 15:32
So are they connecting those dots between like this is me and my classroom, with my co with my fellow students and the belonging conversation, and then out beyond the classroom. Do you feel like the kids are connecting those dots? Because I loved that. That's what you I mean. I burst into tears, actually, when you responded to my text that way, because I totally believe, you know, that's what I believe too, like somebody's gonna cut me off. It's easy to be like, oh, a jerk or whatever, but it's freeing to think, wow, they must be in a big hurry, or, gosh, they must have gotten some, maybe some news that they are unhappy about, right? Like it's it's actually more freeing to can to show up with compassion than it is to be trapped in anger and defensiveness and and fear. So

Tammy Keeces 16:28
it's interesting that you asked me that question, because our students this, the older students that had been here for a few years, sometimes will say things to us like, you know, in the real world, people are very say hurtful things. Yeah, and what are we going to do when that happens? You know,

Casey O'Roarty 16:44
sounds like parents in my parenting class.

Tammy Keeces 16:50
And so I had a student ask me that the other day, and I said, Well, you can say to that person, you know, it really hurt my feelings the way you spoke to me. And I'm sorry that you know you're feeling that way, but I hope you can work through it. And the little boy that was really satisfying to him, he's like, Oh, I can just say to somebody that hurt my feelings. And I said, Absolutely, you're not supposed to just accept somebody else's anger and just internalize it. We have to learn how to advocate for ourselves, to respond to it and in a loving, respectful way, let them know that that was painful and that wasn't okay. So we're teaching the children how to validate each other's feelings. So it happens every day at our school Casey where you see somebody get frustrated because they can't do a math problem and put their head on their desk and, you know, say, I'm not going to do this, and the person, the child next to them will say, I can see you're having a hard time. How can I help you? So good. So it's not a perfect school where everybody's behaving all the time, but it is perfect. It's perfect in its understanding of how we're giving them real opportunities to connect and respond. So to answer your question, that we're hoping that as they get older and they see others actions, they don't react by matching their anger and matching their intolerance and matching their hatred, we want them to respond with understanding and compassion, and we're already seeing that happening because they're teaching their parents that they're now saying to their parents, you know, you really don't know why that person's behaving that way. Maybe we need to find out before you blame them and criticize them, and their parents are coming to me and telling me these stories all the time, like, wow, you know, I wish my kid wasn't this insightful, because now they know, like, Wouldn't What an asshole I am,

Unknown Speaker 18:54
and they're calling me out on

Tammy Keeces 18:55
it. They're calling me out, and now I'm like, okay, it's okay. You're not You're not a bad person, but they're helping you become a better person. Yeah, and they're helping you not to it's really important that these kids are our teachers right now. They are able, and they're even more equipped to cope with their own stress than some of their parents now. So to answer our father's questions, why is God doing that? We say God gives us many opportunities to look for kindness and goodness, and this is another way for us to remind ourselves of how we need to have hope and we need to have love.

Casey O'Roarty 19:37
Yeah, this is a big opportunity, right? Like this is the Super Bowl of opportunities. Yes, absolutely. Talk to me about the parallels between the teachings of the Torah, because you have a lot of Jewish educate. Well, Jewish education is one of the pillars of your school and positive discipline. I've heard you talk about this before, but you know, and especially I have no idea. Idea the demographics of my podcast, other than moms? Probably, hi dads. Yeah, I know there's like five dads that listen, but mostly it's moms, right? Mostly it's white moms. I have no idea what their religious affiliations are, but I know that I am a white, non Jewish woman over here with very little like we were laughing before we got on. I mean, a menorah and a dreidel and Bat Mitzvahs, that's pretty much what I know, which is really sad to say out loud.

Tammy Keeces 20:30
So actually, I think you would be surprised. You probably know a lot more about Torah than you realize, because it's the Bible and any other religion, Christianity and the Muslim religion and even Buddhism, there's a lot of overlap in all of our values. And so when you look to where those values came from, Torah is a foundational text that people refer to. So the Quran acknowledges and references the Torah and Christianity is the New Testament. But they're referencing that there was an Old Testament there. There was something before that

Casey O'Roarty 21:14
Old Testament, the Torah, correct? Oh, it's

Tammy Keeces 21:18
about, it's the Bible. Oh, and there's a lot exactly, see, you know, a lot more than, jeez, yeah, Wow, gosh. So, like, there are universal values that are in place, that are, though textually based in Torah. And so we'll be able to read a sentence the 10 Commandments. We can read every week. Our children read Torah text, and we lift out the pieces that are relevant to our students. So this week in the Torah, there's a portion of the Torah that they read every week, and this week's portion, our matriarch and our patriarch pass away, and they are then replaced by the next generation that is supposed to give light and love to the fruit the next generations. And so the timing of it was very powerful. And so this week, we took the Torah text and said, What teachings, what do we want them to go home with? And so we ended up having them make homemade Shabbat candles, because in this week's text, Rivka lit the Shabbos candles, and so the children, we want them to go home and bring light into their homes this week, taking the Torah, looking at the traditions that were built from it, and then moving it forward in a relevant way into their own lives. There's so much positive discipline skills that are in it that relate back to Torah, and one of them is teshuva, and it's asking for forgiveness. And how do we do that? I

Casey O'Roarty 22:48
have a whole episode about making amends. Oh my gosh. Well,

Tammy Keeces 22:52
it's all in the Torah. I mean, there's actual so much rich insight into humanity and how to have connections with people through tradition. So we are relating what we're doing every day back to these teachings that have been given to to all of us, really, yeah.

And so it's making it relevant, and it's helping them to understand that it's like we'll point to it and say it says, right here, that we need to speak kindly and respectfully to others. This, this was not something. This is not new information for any of us, but what positive discipline does is it gives us the skills to be able to speak kindly to each

Casey O'Roarty 23:41
other, right? Like this is a great opportunity for a bug and a wish, exactly right, like that. Yeah, I love that. I love all of that overlap. And I really appreciate that you highlight just how you know the ancient traditions are all intertwined. It's insane that everything is presented as so separate, and 2018 when it all comes from that same, those same universal principles,

Tammy Keeces 24:09
absolutely and so one of the reasons why we built the school, though Casey, is that there is a it's hard for a Jewish person to not find themselves easily assimilating into the world and forgetting our own text and our own traditions and our own value and being proud of that and my my goal, personally, is for every single race, religion and person to be proud and feel knowledgeable, connected, authentic in their own life, so that we can all turn to each other and value and respect each other, yeah and celebrate Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And so, you know, in order to do that, it's sometimes you need to take the time to get to know who you are a little bit more and to in order to be authentic. And proud. It does help to have the knowledge of where I came from and what is this Torah that I'm reading. I admit that as an adult, I didn't appreciate how impactful Judaism, the Torah and the traditions were until I started running a Jewish Day School. I've now come back and have become more excited to learn about my own traditions that that were given to me for my whole life, but now I get to re revisit them, yeah? Even even celebrating Shabbat, yeah? Well,

Casey O'Roarty 25:34
so again, as a white, non Jewish woman over here, raising kids in the same world, yeah? What do you need from me? How can you know the non Jewish community continue to be in support of the Jewish community? I

Tammy Keeces 25:52
think that to see ourselves as a we, and not say that there's a they over there that they're Jews and they are African Americans and they are bisexual or Hispanics. I mean, we have to that's that's what I need, and I think that's what as a community, we're finding this week more than ever, that the coming together and connecting through an unfortunate tragedy is giving us an opportunity to become a we that we can all be this person, we can all be we can all be a good person, a kind person, a loving person, but we could also be the one on the end of a tragedy too. None of us are going to preclude ourselves from not being open to that. So we have to come together now more than ever. So I think that that voice of unity and saying, I'm standing with you, and those messages of we believe and we're supporting you, is what everybody needs. We all need to stand together. I think that statement alone is powerful. Oh yeah.

Casey O'Roarty 27:03
Well, and this show is coming out on Tuesday the sixth so people, if you're listening to this show on the day that it's being published, get your ass to the voting booth. Please, absolutely. And there you go.

Tammy Keeces 27:17
We're all about it. So we're actually right now in the midst of our own student council elections this week, and we have students running for student government, and we are are teaching them how to be civically responsible. And the kids asked me, I have to tell you, they said, Do we have an option to vote? I said, Nope, everybody has to vote,

Casey O'Roarty 27:39
but we're teaching them why everybody has to vote and no one's allowed to tweet,

Tammy Keeces 27:44
Nobody's allowed to tweet, but so the whole civics lessons this week has been about, you know, positive leadership. What makes a good leader, what beautiful qualities aren't so our kids are having to raise their game and be role models and show that they are a positive leader. We had fair and equitable campaigning practices on our school site, so everybody was only given one poster, and they weren't allowed to hand out anything they have to

Casey O'Roarty 28:11
no special interest, no special interest group. We

Tammy Keeces 28:13
don't have any past nothing happening. They wanted them. There is some concerns about our voting booth. So the fifth graders created the voting booth, and I said, there will not be any technology interventions. Nothing happening, but hanging that's so this week is the week to talk about the power of words and the power of voice, the power of action. And so we're living at the school right now. I want to empower each of these kids to know that their voice matters, and so we're creating and nurturing the next generation of hopefully responsible, amazing leaders of

Casey O'Roarty 28:51
our world. Yay. Thanks for that. Holy cow, absolutely

Tammy Keeces 28:55
well. So

Casey O'Roarty 28:57
in the context of all that we've talked about, about parenting and raising our kids through this, this turbulent time, and it feels like a lot of human ugliness as as well as this beautiful coming together. I think that exists as well. Absolutely. What does joyful courage mean to you? Tam?

Tammy Keeces 29:16
It's being brave every day to make the right decisions for ourselves and those that love us and inviting joy, despite the challenges, despite the heartaches, we have to choose joy, and that's what you're doing every day, with joyful courage. And I think that there's no other way to live our lives at this point. Yeah.

Casey O'Roarty 29:39
So if listeners wanted to find you, find your school. Where could they find more information? Well, we,

Tammy Keeces 29:45
I think the best source is Facebook. Okay, we tend to post a lot of videos and pictures of joyful learning happening every day. So Facebook are Irvine Huber Day School, Facebook, and also, we do have. A website where there's a lot of information about our philosophy of education, our social, emotional learning emphasis that also is it's important to have the academic engagement and rigor and the real, meaningful learning happening, so we're trying to do it all.

Casey O'Roarty 30:18
Yeah, tell me what's the website? What's it called?

Tammy Keeces 30:22
It's Irvine Hebrew day.org.

Casey O'Roarty 30:23
Okay, great, yay. Thank you for all that you do, and thank you so much for spending time with me. It was my pleasure. I always love

Tammy Keeces 30:33
spending time with you.

Casey O'Roarty 30:40
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