Why Integrate?

Alex Pomson

Department of Education, Hebrew University

Why integrate?

Administrative: Most efficient use of resources and time. With integration, you can achieve many curriculum objectives at the same time.

Cognitive: Brain-based research suggests that learning is more effective/meaningful when it is integrated – embedded in connections.

Epistemological: Integration transcends artificial distinctions made between disciplines/bodies of knowledge.

Ideological: Promotes the idea that Judaism is relevant to all aspects of students’ lives, and that Jewish lives are enriched by drawing on worldly wisdom/modernity.

Psychological: Enable children to develop integrated personalities in which all parts of their school lives are inter-related.

Practical: In a knowledge-rich society students are better empowered by the acquisition of skills than by accumulating greater quantities of material. Skills transcend subject matter.

Theological: God didn’t only create Torah. He created the world. Separating kodesh and chol diminishes God.

Why not integrate?

Administrative: Team teaching/interdisciplinary coordination requires more planning time. It may also require more than one teacher to work with the same class at the same time.

Epistemological: Disciplines are different. Subjects are ends in themselves. Integration undermines their integrity.

Religious: Integration threatens the distinct role and status of limmudei kodesh by blurring or removing the boundaries between kodesh and chol.

Integrate What?

Concepts M’lacha, Tzedeck Work, justice
Culture Judaism Modernity
Identity Being Jewish (Ashkenazi, Sephardi) Being British/ European/human
Skills Communication, Problem solving, etc.
Subject areas/ Disciplines Hebrew, history, prayer Maths, Science
Values Responsibilities Rights

Making Integration Work

From Michael Zeldin, “Integration and Interaction in the Jewish Day School”, in Robert Tomberg (ed.) The Jewish Educational Leader’s Handbook (Denver: A.R.E.), 1998.

Zeldin writes: “Building a school whose curriculum is suffused with coordination, integration and interaction is difficult. It is much easier to work in a school in which each subject is taught in isolation, where teachers do not have to plan with one another, where parents are clear about what is being taught and when. Integration in any of its forms requires significant support from the administration of a school, from its Board, and from parents.” Zeldin suggests that schools pay attention to four dimensions (frames) if they are to accomplish their integrative goals.

1. The structural frame

This involves paying attention to how the school day is organized and how teaching responsibilities are assigned. The school leader must seek opportunities in the curriculum to address different sets of questions simultaneously. The leader would question that curriculum is defined by the amount of content covered.

2. The human resources frame

Successful organizations take into account people’s needs for security, satisfaction and encouragement. For teachers to work effectively they need to feel empowered, supported and confident in their professional competence. The most important ways a leader can support teachers are to involve them in decision-making, support them through training, and recognize their efforts and accomplishments.

3. The political frame

This stresses that organizations are composed of interest groups that align themselves with one another to achieve shared goals. Politics in this sense is not an ‘evil’ to be avoided but a necessary feature of school life. An effective political leader builds coalitions in support of ideas and programs, and provides safe arenas in which conflicts can be resolved without people getting hurt.

4. The symbolic frame

This stresses that what an organization means to people affects how they see the organization and how committed they are to it. A leader can help shape participants’ understanding of an organization by creating symbols and shaping rituals that express the organization’s most cherished values. A school leader can use public events, which bring together parents, students, teachers and board members to express the values of the school and to help people bond with those values.

How to Implement Integration

Structural Frame

  1. Help teachers understand the school’s goals and philosophy, particularly as they apply to integration.
  2. Assign general-studies teachers parts of the Jewish studies curriculum and vice versa.
  3. Design the schedule in such a way that it is possible for two teachers to be together in the classroom for at least part of each day.
  4. Set aside time in the schedule for Jewish and general studies teachers to plan together.
  5. Identify opportunities for integration within general studies disciplines, as well as between general studies and Jewish studies.

Human Resources Frame

  1. Support teachers for taking risks and trying new ways to integrate.
  2. Provide supervision and coaching for teachers as they integrate in their classrooms.
  3. Furnish rewards and recognition for teachers who design new ways to integrate in their classrooms.
  4. Involve teachers in identifying new opportunities for integration within the school.
  5. Acknowledge how difficult it is for teachers to change patterns of teaching learned in certification programs or by teaching in other schools, and provide support for teachers as they learn to integrate.
  6. Locate materials that support teachers’ efforts to integrate, and where none are available commission teachers to develop them in-house.

Political Frame

  1. Develop consensus within the board, faculty and parent body about the importance of integration.
  2. Educate parents to understand that integration is a powerful means to help children develop strong Jewish identities, a near-universal parental concern.
  3. Help parents and teachers understand that integration uses the limited time available in school in an efficient way, to accomplish multiple goals simultaneously.
  4. Provide safe arenas for parents and teachers to express concerns about the school’s curriculum.

Symbolic Frame

  1. Shape public ceremonies (graduation, orientation, etc.) so that they embody the value of integration.
  2. Design report cards and parents conferences so that they make the importance of integration evident.
  3. Give public recognition to teachers who successfully create new and interesting forms of integration.
  4. Tell stories about adults who are exemplars of integration.
  5. Express support for integration in public meetings with parents, teachers and board members.
  6. Create symbols that express the school’s commitment to integration and find opportunities to display these symbols publicly.
  7. Encourage public displays (in the hallways, newsletters, etc.), which exemplify integration.