Sh'ma on Innovative Learning February 2011

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February 2011/Adar 1 5771

A JOURNAL OF JEWISH RESPONSIBILITY

Innovative Learning

Lee S. Shulman What Kind of Job Is ‘Jewish Educator’?. . . . . 1

Jonathan S. Woocher Reframing Educational Assumptions . . . . . . . . . 2

Stephen Hazan Arnoff A Sustainable Future . . . 3

Maxine Alloway, Mel Berwin, Idit Jacques, Joy Levitt, Rob Weinberg, Cyd Weissman Seamless Learning: New Thinking about Congregational Education. . . . . . . . . . . 5

Jennifer Glaser Educating for Global Citizenship . . . . . . . . . . 8

Kim Hirsh Stop Waiting for Superman .......... 10

Charlie Schwartz & Russel Neiss Educating ‘Prophets’ . . 11

Judd Kruger Levingston Remixing Jewish Moral Education . . . . . . . . . . 12

Lisa D. Grant Older Adults Restorying Their Lives ......... 13

Stephanie Ives Authenticity in Agenda-based Text Study . . . . . 14

Avital Campbell Hochstein Silence and Intervention: The Roles of Teacher and Learner. . . . . . . . . 15

Discussion Guide. . . . . 16

Rachel Petroff Success and Failure . . . 17

Sara Heitler Bamberger, Sara Beth Berman, Michael Garret Holzman, Jodie Siff NiSh’ma . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Rachel B. Tiven Sh’maEthics . . . . . . . 20

What Kind of Job Is ‘Jewish Educator’?

A GUEST INTRODUCTION BY LEE S. SHULMAN

It’s one of my favorite stories. The shtetl’s aging schoolteacher, the melamed, is reading late one evening when he turns to his wife
of many years and remarks, “You know, Sarah,
I have been thinking. If I were the czar, I would
be richer than the czar.” Sarah, having been lov-
ingly tolerant of her spouse’s wisdom for many
years, responds, “Aryeh Leib, forgive me, but if
you were the czar, you would be precisely as rich
as the czar. How could it possibly be otherwise?”
The melamed answered decisively: “If I were the
czar, I could still do a little teaching on the side!”
Many of us experience deep ambivalence to-
ward those who teach. While we assert that
nothing is more important, in principle, teaching
is nevertheless treated as something that could
be undertaken “on the side.” Most well-
educated American Jews do not respond
well when their sons or daughters decide
to become teachers (unless it’s in the
service of Teach for America, in which case they
know that the teaching career is likely to be
brief). Their dismay may be greater if the de-
clared ambition is to be a Jewish educator.

Jewish education is hard work. I make that declaration having spent my career in elementary and secondary education, teacher training, medical education, university teaching, and foundation leadership. Nothing is quite as challenging as Jewish education, because it demands teaching that runs against the cultural grain. It challenges young people who are already wrestling with the formation of their emergent identities to take seriously the added dimension of a Jewish identity.

Therein lies the painful irony of Jewish ed-
ucation. While identity formation is so central
to its efforts, the actual activities of most Jewish
education involve the learning of Hebrew, the
study of sacred texts in an unfamiliar language,
the mastery of ritual and liturgy, and a strong
dose of moral education. These are under-
standings, skills, and dispositions that enable
and enrich one’s sense of Jewish peoplehood,
but they are not likely to be the most powerful
means for the formation of Jewish identity.
Without them, identity may be an empty ves-
sel. The standard program may well alienate
and distance students rather than engage them
— especially when learning is taking place in
the absence of educators who are strong role
models, and in the absence of a curriculum
with inspiring narratives and engaging con-
texts. Recalling early encounters with Jewish
education may include far more horror stories
than powerful memories of formative experi-
ences. Jewish education must somehow dis-
cover those pedagogical “sweet spots” that can
prepare both a literate and a committed Jew.
Where can such pedagogy be found?

There is the underlying dilemma of answering
the question: What is an educated Jew?

Jewish education takes place in a dizzying range of settings — for example, in a preschool program at the local Jewish community center, at a yeshiva in upstate New York, in a community day school in Dallas, in a class in contemporary Judaism at Yale University, at the Beis Yaakov in Beit Shemesh in Israel, in a bar mitzvah class in Miami, at Camp Ramah in Ontario, at a Taglit-Birthright Israel seminar in Jerusalem, in Limmud sessions in London, and at a weekly Talmud class for lawyers in Chicago.

Even if that combination of purposes and settings were not sufficiently daunting, there is the underlying dilemma of answering the question: What is an educated Jew? What should Jews know and be able to do? To be an educated Jew requires that one acquire knowledge, understanding, and new ways of thinking. It asks one to take on new skills, practices, and techniques. And it calls upon one to acquire a particular sense of self, as well as membership in a community. In other disciplines, we refer to these as the challenges of developing habits of mind, habits of practice, and habits of the heart.