When Ann Berman started teaching at Krieger Schechter Day School in the late 1980s, education was much different. Back then, mimeographs were in use. They used a special program just to be able to type in Hebrew. Chalkboards were still standard.

Today, school is much different. However, Berman’s passion for teaching and her reputation at the Jewish day school in Baltimore are the same. Now, after 37 years at KSDS and more than 50 years of teaching in total, she is retiring.

“I loved being a teacher. I’m looking forward to my retirement, to be able to continue to learn in adult settings and broaden my Jewish education and pursue my hobbies,” Berman said. “My coworkers can call on me — I hope I made the transition easy for them.”

By the end of her tenure, Berman was someone that young teachers could turn to for advice and wisdom, but when she started at the school, she said it took her about a year to catch up to the tempo of Jewish day school after coming from teaching religious school.

“That first year was really, really challenging,” Berman said. “My first position at Krieger Schechter was teaching first grade. I had worked at Beth Tfiloh day camp for a very long time, and I’d been used to working with preschoolers and first and second graders, but teaching them in a formal setting was very, very hard for me, and I didn’t have a mentor teacher that I could turn to.”

Ultimately, it was the culture at the school and Krieger Schechter’s leadership and staff that helped her through the early days.

“They had faith in me,” Berman said. “Eventually, I taught third and fourth grade along with the same group of other Judaics and Hebrew teachers and we made a really good team. We all helped each other, and we all grew from each other.”

The school held a goodbye ceremony for Berman on June 8, and one of the most special parts of it for her was seeing former colleagues come back to the school to send the lower school Hebrew and Judaic studies teacher off to retirement. All in all, she said, it was an amazing day.

“I came with my class to the chapel that morning, thinking the kids are going to read, and I’m going to do my one verse at the end,” Berman said. “The chapel was filled with not just students — the second and third graders were there — but also coworkers, former coworkers who have retired, my friends, my family members — they’ve been planning it for a long time, and no one had leaked the secret.”

The event was planned around Berman and what she enjoys, making it all the more special for the teacher who dedicated so many years to the school. True to Berman, there was plenty of Israeli dancing, which included an Israel flag dance, as well as Torah reading and prayer.

Many students, teachers and other KSDS family members had kind words to say, too.
“They had some of the multigenerational families there. I taught parents whose children I also got to teach,” Berman said. “They thought of so many things.”

Berman didn’t just appreciate her job because it allowed her to help young minds learn about their culture. It also offered her the chance to guide them through difficult times, which was admittedly hard for her, too. Two tragic dates stand out in particular: Sept. 11, 2001, and Oct. 7, 2023.

“That was really meaningful to me. I didn’t go in saying, ‘well, what a professional opportunity,’ but on reflection, the idea of being a teacher of third and fourth graders and bringing important world events down to their level, helping them understand what’s going on in the world, trying to help them feel safe and to understand what it means to be Jewish and what kinds of things we do as Jews … [that] meant a lot to me,” she said.

Back in the 1980s, Berman made the decision to switch from religious school to day school so that she would have her nights free and be able to teach Hebrew to her own children. For as long as Berman can remember, she has loved to teach. For the last 37 years, Krieger Schechter loved to have her.

aguckes@midatlanticmedia.com