Recipient: Ricki Dahan

Number of years teaching: 20

School: United Synagogue Day Schools—Bayview Branch

Grades: 1 to 5

Subject: All Hebrew subjects

Family: married with 4 children (13, 18 and 21 year old twins)

Inspiration/Motivation for being a Teacher of Excellence:

Ricki loves communicating with children.  They inspire her with their enthusiasm and feedback.  Their responses to her teaching keeps her on her toes and pushes her to be her best.  She looks at her work as holy work and fully believes that if students see an enthusiastic, listening and motivated teacher then they will respond with enthusiasm.

An inspirational story for Ricki is as follows: Once God was asked which professionals would sit at His right hand.  His answer was: “dedicated teachers”.  When asked “why?,” He responded, “Because they continue on My work.”

Ricki’s nomination came from the grandmother of one of her students.  This grandmother writes:

“Ricki Dahan taught my granddaughter in grade 2 and 4.  She inspired her to love Hebrew as a conversational language.  Once while she was visiting me, we were discussing Tiffela and Shabbat and I asked her why she loved all she did Judaically.  Jessica’s answer to me was the her Morah Ricki showed her how to love being Jewish and Morah Ricki made learning fun.”

One of the values of Ricki’s family was to always try your best—this is what she does when she is teaching.