New Teachers 24-25: Zack, Mintz, Anders
With 20 years of prior experience with private voice teaching and community theater, Ms. Reyna Zack is looking forward to dedicating her open, organized self to the Drama and Choir departments.
Ms. Zack is now the director of both departments, and along with working at Shalhevet, she serves as the Artistic/Music Director at Jewish Women’s Repertory Company (JWRC), an organization that performs shows for women by women, and has performed at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center in New York.
She is looking forward to encouraging students to try and really explore “the things they can do and the things they don’t know they can do.”
“Students will show me their talents, and they’re already really great,” Ms. Zack said. “And then I just am there to help put the cherry on top, to help bring out the best and teach them little tricks and little shifts and little things to make their performance better.”
Since she has been a performer before, Ms. Zack is familiar with the challenge of performance anxiety. She shared her mechanism of defense against it and is excited to practice her method with her students this year.
“I’ve done a ton of performing myself and the way that I combat my performance anxiety is being prepared,” she said. “So people can expect to get a really strong sense of feeling prepared, because I’m going to help them get there.”
Some of Ms. Zack’s favorite musical theater roles she has played are Lily Craven in The Secret Garden, Millie Dillmount in Thoroughly Modern Millie, Cinderella in Into the Woods and her high school role as Liesl in The Sound of Music.
“Feeling the emotions of the character and what they want, and how they’re going to get it, is essential,” she said. “When I put in this kind of effort, performance anxieties turn into performance excitement.”
At JWRC, Ms. Zack works with everybody in the company ranging from the ensemble to all the leads, as well as with its communications department, social media, graphic design and website.
Ms. Zack has two different goals for the two different departments she will be leading.
“For musical theater, I just really want to bring out the best in students,” she said. “And this is something that I have a unique gift for doing, like what I’ve done with my private voice students.”
She also said that the theater will be a safe space for all, and she encourages students to come and show off their talent.
With choir, Ms. Zack would like to focus on vocal production, vocal quality, and helping students become more experienced musicians – including learning how to read music.
“I also really want to introduce some new repertoire,” she said, “some new music into the group. And I want it to be fun and I want people to enjoy what they are singing.”
Outside of teaching, Ms. Zack has recently developed an unexpected passion, she said.
“My Canadian husband has turned me into a hockey fan,” she said.
She particularly favors the Vancouver Canucks, but is “happy to root for LA as well.”
Ms. Zack also loves dogs, and would be thrilled if students came to show her pictures of their dogs. She and her family own a mini goldendoodle.
She looks forward to hearing Choir students’ suggestions for the music they want to sing. A critical part of Choir, she said, is making sure students enjoy the songs they sing.
“Students should expect that I’m a very open person, and so it’s going to be a very safe space, both of those spaces,” Ms. Zack said.
She also said that she is an organized person and loves spreadsheets. She is excited to share her methods and help students manage their time efficiently.
“I’m here to help you prepare,” she said.
With 13 years of experience teaching a range of high school and college students in philosophy and history, Dr. Benjamin Anders is now teaching 11th-grade Government and Economics, as well as SAS Civics for both juniors and seniors.
Dr. Anders will also be advising Model Congress and Model United Nations, where he is looking forward to engaging with enthusiastic and driven students.
In his classes, he said there will be a mix of academic rigor and creativity.
“My classes are intentionally designed with a lot of viewpoint diversity,” he said in an interview. “I will give my classes lots of arguments on political issues that are deep and intellectually serious, but are from diverse thinkers.”
He aims to provide students with the tools to think critically about history and politics while also giving them the freedom to create and develop their own arguments.
“I give students activities where I would say ‘Imagine you were the president and you faced this dilemma,’” he said.
Dr. Anders was previously a teacher at The New School in New York, and as a philosophy professor at the College of Western Idaho.
He also is offering his expertise in American politics to students who have questions or thoughts they would like to share about the upcoming 2024 presidential election.
“We have a very, very important presidential election coming up, and I know a lot of you are following it very closely as I am,” he said. “I’d like to help the community to foster dialogue that’s civil, peaceful, and productive between students about the extremely divided and angry state of American politics.”
Dr. Anders is a passionate Zionist and supporter of Israel. He is looking forward to participating in the Israel advocacy at the school, and appreciates how it is an essential part of the community.
“Teaching at an institution that shares the same values as me, fundamentally, is deeply refreshing and inspiring,” he said.
He grew up in Los Angeles in a Jewish environment. He describes himself as a lover of arts and culture, frequently visiting art exhibitions, reading novels and listening to classical music. He is also a dedicated sports fan, particularly of basketball and football, and plans to attend many of Shalhevet’s athletic events.
Dr. Anders enjoys music, cooking, reading and spending time with family and his pet cat.
“A lot of what I enjoy has an intellectual component,” he said, “but also being a Jew and participating in Jewish life is a deep part of that – that’s both intellectually and spiritually satisfying.”
New Gemara and Math teacher Ms. Rebecca Mintz brings General and Judaic Studies teaching experience from her previous job at Ma’ayanot, a Modern Orthodox High School in New Jersey.
“I have a background in both and I just love teaching both General and Judaic Studies,” Ms. Mintz said. “I love being able to use my mind in different ways.”
She moved to Los Angeles after spending eight years at Ma’ayanot, and teaches ninth and twelfth grade students at Shalhevet.
Before Ms. Mintz started her teaching career, she got a bachelor’s degree in social work, and backpacked and hiked through different countries in Asia.
“In India and Nepal, I was actually volunteering with NGOS,” which are local non-governmental organizations, she said. “I was able to be part of the villages and communities and to see poverty and developments – that was really, really cool.”
At home in New Jersey, she would go on hikes and worked as a park ranger, doing educational and recreational work for schools.
Ms. Mintz also wants to elevate her students’ confidence inside and outside the classroom.
“One of the things we talked about even today was the growth mindset,” she said, “that sense of, ‘it’s OK to make mistakes.’”
“We can learn from them and grow from them, and not be afraid to try.”
She is “impressed” by the Shalhevet community, she said, and hopes “that by the end of the year, I’ll feel like I’m home.”
