Learning about Learning

Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education, Brandeis University

Category: Commentary (page 1 of 9)

Inside Jewish Day Schools: Initial Reflections from Conference Participants

Jon A. Levisohn

At the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education at Brandeis, we’re used to hosting conferences of various sizes. At least once a year and usually more often, we bring together groups of scholars, practitioners, and other stakeholders to share ideas and learn from one another. But each time, those first moments catch me off guard. After all the planning, all the coordinating and communicating, all the preparation, people show up on campus and this thing—which had been abstract and conceptual—emerges into a concrete existence. It’s kind of miraculous.

Our conference this year, chaired by my colleague Jonathan Krasner and me, focused on Jewish day schools. But more specifically, we wanted to draw attention to questions of teaching and learning. Hence our title: “Inside Jewish Day Schools.” Some of our plenary sessions explored questions of race and ethnicity, class and economic justice, and gender and sexuality. Other sessions focused on pluralism, teacher preparation, and teachers’ conceptions of purposes, as well as on the teaching and learning of classical Jewish texts, Hebrew language, and Israel.

In the coming days, we will share some reflections from conference participants, cross-posted with our colleagues at Prizmah. Today, we offer two: one from Dr. Sarah Levy, Director of Jewish Life and Learning at Denver Jewish Day School, and a second from Rav-Hazzan Dr. Scott Sokol, Head of School at MetroWest Jewish Day School in Framingham, MA.

. . . these sessions focused on some of the biggest challenges in American education today and highlighted that day schools, while unique in the educational landscape, are not unique in other ways . . .

Sarah wrote:

After the first roundtable, a session called “Embracing Diversity, Teaching Equity: Race and Ethnicity in Jewish Day School” … it seemed as if we were left with lots of questions and no answers. And that was the theme of the afternoon as a session about gender and sexuality was followed by a session about privilege and class, and a session about the emotional climates in Jewish day schools ended the day. During each session, the conversation focused on challenges that are prevalent in Jewish day schools, but not the kinds of challenges that are usually the focus of day school conferences. We didn’t focus on the questions that tend to occupy our daily thoughts in the world of practice such as meeting our fundraising goals, lowering attrition, raising the bar for academic excellence and supporting our teachers in 21st century methodologies.

Rather these sessions focused on some of the biggest challenges in American education today and highlighted that day schools, while unique in the educational landscape, are not unique in other ways, and these are all topics that need to be addressed in our schools. Equity in education is something to discuss, even amongst our population, as race and ethnicity impact our students both inside and outside of our buildings. Questions about gender and sexuality concern our students, not in spite of the fact that they are Jewish, but sometimes even more so because they attend Jewish day school. Economic and class distinctions impact the nature of our schools and who attends our schools. Sure, we’re not driven by standardized testing in the same way as public schools, but the pressure to succeed is just as high, if not higher.

Instead of going to bed depressed, however, Continue reading

Megillat Esther and the Light Within

by Ziva R. Hassenfeld

An eighteenth century image of Queen EstherThe Talmud, in Mesechet Megila 14a, lists Esther as one of seven female prophets in Tanakh: “There were seven female prophets. Who were they? Sarah, Miriam, Devorah, Hannah, Avigail, Holda and Esther.” The reason for three of these women’s appearances on the list is clear: They are called prophetesses in the Torah. Three of these women require some interpretive gymnastics, but their cases basically make themselves. Then there is Esther. How exactly, in the only book of Tanakh where God does not appear, might the protagonist be a prophetess and a model for those of us who think deeply about the purposes of Jewish education?

The Talmud roots its hermeneutic case for Esther in verse 1 of Chapter 5:

וַיְהִ֣י ׀ בַּיּ֣וֹם הַשְּׁלִישִׁ֗י וַתִּלְבַּ֤שׁ אֶסְתֵּר֙ מַלְכ֔וּת וַֽתַּעֲמֹ֞ד בַּחֲצַ֤ר בֵּית־הַמֶּ֙לֶךְ֙ הַפְּנִימִ֔ית נֹ֖כַח בֵּ֣ית הַמֶּ֑לֶךְ וְ֠הַמֶּלֶךְ יוֹשֵׁ֞ב עַל־כִּסֵּ֤א מַלְכוּתוֹ֙ בְּבֵ֣ית הַמַּלְכ֔וּת נֹ֖כַח פֶּ֥תַח הַבָּֽיִת׃

On the third day, Esther put on malkhut and stood in the inner court of the king’s palace, facing the king’s palace, while the king was sitting on his royal throne in the throne room facing the entrance of the palace.

The Talmud asks, “Shouldn’t it have said, ‘in royal garments?’” (instead of malkhut, ‘royalty.’) The Talmud answers, “This teaches that Esther was clothed in the Divine Spirit… R’ Levi said, ‘As soon as she reached the chamber of idols, the Divine Presence departed from her, and she exclaimed, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’”

In a strange move, the Rabbis justify Esther as a prophetess by giving her divine attention and access, but then take it away right when Esther needs it most, as she prepares to approach King Ahashverosh on behalf of the Jews. The Midrash Yalkut Shimoni adds to this image of Esther’s compromised prophecy by calling this moment in history Eilat Hashachar, the liminal moment in the day where there is the first hint of light. Avivah Zornberg, one of the most poignant and brilliant modern Torah scholars, explains Esther the female prophetess: Continue reading

In Defense of Day Schools and, More Importantly, Their Teachers

By Ziva R. Hassenfeld

Teacher bending to help student in classroomAn anonymous op-ed that appeared recently on the Times of Israel’s website has picked up a lot of traction in social media. Friends of mine are posting it, commenting on it, and reposting it. The author explains how he left Jewish institutional life behind, withdrawing his children from day school and leaving his synagogue to attend Chabad instead. He is now able to raise his four children Jewishly for 40k a year. He calls for others to join his “revolution.”

There are a lot of questions to ask about this op-ed: Do we really want to start chipping away at separation of church and state for tuition relief? Does the Chabad model really provide the free Jewish life the author claims? Are the financial markets really doing great “thanks to this new president? But one claim in particular upset me deeply. Continue reading

What Happens in Text Discussion

By Ziva R. Hassenfeld

In her recent piece on Mechon Hadar’s new Standards for Fluency in Jewish Text and Practice, Lisa Exler advocates for an approach that emphasizes student collaboration when studying Jewish texts in havruta. She suggests that the standards, alongside appropriate teaching techniques, “can transform classrooms and schools, empowering students to own their relationships to Jewish texts and to one another.” This is a powerful and compelling vision of successful Jewish text education, but even as Exler emphasizes the importance of collaboration, she ultimately treats the process of textual interpretation as an individual project. In her view, havruta is a sounding board one uses to clarify one’s own ideas.

But discussing texts with peers is not simply an opportunity to exchange interpretations, rather it is an opportunity to construct interpretations. Ideas about text come into being through talk, contingent on the dialogue that unfolds, and collectively constructed and reconstructed in the course of discussion (Aukerman, 2015).

I saw this in action in a second grade classroom I observed recently. Continue reading

The Teaching of Rabbinics Starts Sooner Than You May Think. What Should We do About it?

By Elliot Goldberg

Virtually all of my colleagues who teach in Early Childhood (EC) or Early Elementary (EE) settings tell me that rabbinics is not a part of the curriculum that they teach.

This is not a surprise. It is a common assumption in Jewish schools that rabbinics is a discipline for the upper grades. In reflecting about the place of rabbinics in their curriculum, educators are likely to identify the starting point as the time in which a book from the rabbinic canon is placed in front of students and/or when students take a course that is named after a rabbinic text.

There is a certain logic to this assumption. Because we encounter the rabbis – and their stories, thoughts, ideas, and values – through texts, we equate the discipline of rabbinics with the study of rabbinic literature. Because rabbinic literature is often complex and, due to its language and logical structure, can be challenging to learn, we wait until students have acquired the appropriate skills and intellectual maturity before we engage them in the study of rabbinic texts.

But the notion that educational experiences must have a text at their center in order for students to be learning rabbinics is not accurate, and it is one that the field of Jewish education should work to change. Continue reading

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