Eli Kohn is Director of Curriculum Development at The Lookstein Center, where he consults and lectures in Jewish studies curriculum theory and practice in day schools and communities throughout the world. Since May 2007, Rabbi Dr. Kohn has also been the Educational Director of the Jewish Curriculum Partnership (JCP) UK.

Introduction

In my work as teacher and curriculum designer over the last twenty years I have struggled with the central question posed in this paper – to what will our students be Jewishly committed when they graduate? This question, I believe, goes to the heart of what many schools are struggling with in the design and implementation of their Judaic Studies programming, both in the formal and informal spheres.

While many schools have developed successful programs in specific elements of Judaic studies, in my experience they often lack a coherent vision which outlines, in a systematic fashion, what exactly they wish their students to be committed to Jewishly after twelve years in a Jewish school. Furthermore, even when schools have a direction as to what kinds of commitment they want from their graduates, it is unclear by what mechanism they arrived at that definition, and which stakeholders were involved in core issues of the definition of the schools’ core goals and values.

This paper aims to describe one school’s experiences in formulating and designing a vision of Jewish commitment for graduates of their school. This vision was formulated by key school stakeholders through a process guided by The Ideal Graduate Profile, which will be described in this paper. It is hoped that this model will be helpful to other schools wishing to engage in a process of defining the Jewish commitment they want from their graduates.

Theoretical underpinning to the process

The conceptual questions that lie at the basis of this paper such as, “What is an educated and committed Jew?” or “What would we consider to be the committed product of a successful Jewish education?” have been considered and reflected upon by some of the foremost Jewish thinkers and educators of our time. Scheffler (1992), for example, discusses the challenges being faced in educating the Jew in the modern period. He writes:

Now every feature of the pre-modern context has been destroyed or rendered problematic in the modern period. The emancipation and entry of the Jew into the mainstream of Western life broke the tightly knit harmony of home, school and community. The general breakdown of the medieval worldview shattered the inherited conception of nature and history shared by Jew and non-Jew alike, undermined traditional attitudes to their religious Scriptures, and destroyed the uniform traditional response to Jewish existence which constituted the basis of education in the past. (pp. 21-22)

What, then, should be desired purposes and commitments of Jewish education in the modern period, when large numbers of Jews have become ignorant of Jewish knowledge and alienated from Jewish life? In the 1990s a group of educational philosophers and thinkers met under the auspices of the Mandel Foundation to initiate a discourse within the Jewish community to respond to these core questions about Jewish education. The members of the group were both learned in their special fields of study and knowledgeable about Jewish education, and were deemed likely to integrate these qualities into visions of Jewish learning. Fox, Scheffler and Marom (2003) analyze the visions of the individual members of this group in their seminal work Visions of Jewish Education and we summarise here briefly the views of a number of them.

Twersky, the historian and specialist in Jewish thought with in the group, saw the Bible as the primary source of Jewish education. For him, the learning of halakhah was also central, not only in strengthening the commitment to traditional practice, but also for deepening the philosophical understanding of such practice. Another member of the group, Menachem Brinker, scholar of Hebrew literature and philosophy, moved in quite a different conceptual territory from that of Twersky. Brinker’s outlook was secular rather than religious, his orientation pluralist rather than Orthodox. For him, acquisition of the Hebrew language was a key to a successful Jewish education, as was familiarity with concepts and events of Jewish history preserved in the collective memory. A third member of the group, Michael Meyer, emphasised the importance of educating toward core Jewish values. The goal of Jewish education today, declared Meyer, was the creation of a committed individual whose primary identity lies in being a Jew, yet open to a world of multiple traditions. Freedom and autonomy of choice lie for him at the heart of the education of our Jewish student.

While this discourse has enriched my own reflections about the critical question of what it means to be Jewishly committed, such thinking, I posit, should not be the exclusive province of educators or scholars. If it is to be effective it should elicit the reflections of all stakeholders in the educational process, whatever their profession or communal affiliation. It is for this reason that in the project described in this paper we adopted a curriculum model that builds on varied perspectives within the community and engenders a respectful educational dialogue from which all may learn. This model we called the The Ideal Graduate Profile.

This article focuses on the process of the design of an ideal graduate profile in the HerzliahSchool in Montreal and the resulting curriculum framework that matched the expectations of that ideal graduate. It describes those areas in which the school community expressed the desire for greater levels of commitment from their student body and those where expectations were less. It also attempts to show how the process of designing an ideal graduate profile can enable a school to prioritize the levels of commitment to areas of knowledge and Jewish practice it desires for its graduates and allow it to make informed and systematic judgments about the relative importance it wishes to give each area in the Judaic Studies curriculum.

Herzliah schools

In October 2002, together with a colleague from the LooksteinCenter for Jewish Education in the Diaspora, we visited the Herzliah Schools for a period of 4 days. The main goal of the visit was to review the Judaic Studies program of the school, with particular attention to the high school, for the purpose of possible changes in the syllabus.

According to its Mission Statement, the United Talmud Torahs and HerzliahHigh Schools are independent, co-educational, private Jewish day schools offering a program from kindergarten through secondary V (grade 11) to students from a diverse community of Jewish philosophies, beliefs and practices. As part of its mission, the school wishes to prepare its students to be knowledgeable and committed Jews who have a rich understanding of their Jewish heritage, values, traditions and practices. The study and mastery of the Hebrew language, and its use as the language of instruction in all Judaic Studies, (through Ivrit be-Ivrit), is central to the school’s mission. In addition, the fostering of a love and attachment to Israel is an important part of the school’s philosophy. It is interesting to note that the school has chosen not to define itself with the labels commonly used in the Jewish community – Orthodox, Modern Orthodox, Traditional, Community, Centrist etc. This has implications for the content of a Judaic Studies curriculum and for the ensuing discussions about the school’s identity to which I refer at the end of the paper.

At Herzliah we adapted a partnership model which involves collaborative relationships between school stakeholders, on the one hand, and external curriculum developers on the other. Such partnerships involve, in Fullan’s terms, “across boundary collaboration.” For Fullan (1997), curriculum change is multi-dimensional, and is therefore most effective when both top-down and bottom-up partnerships are employed.

Central to our work at Herzliah was the question of who exactly the “school stakeholders” were within the context of a Jewish community day school. We felt that we needed to refine Fullan’s model to define more accurately the “partners” in this process. Cognizant of the important work of Fox (1972) and Schwab (1982; 1983) in the curriculum development process, we decided to integrate their ideas into our work. Schwab (1982) argued that instead of focusing on the substance of a discipline, its basic concepts and findings, the curriculum should also, if not primarily, teach the syntax of a discipline, its methods of discovery and justification. In this inquiry-based curriculum, students learn the tools of investigation and critical assessment used by scholars to discover new knowledge. Schwab recognized that designing such a curriculum is a complex process involving scholarly discussion and debate. The process, one he called “curriculum deliberation,” engages representatives of the essential ingredients of curriculum in dynamic discussions about how best to translate theory into practice. He called these ingredients commonplaces – these being teachers, students, subject matter and milieu. Since there is no one right way to teach a discipline, the creation of practical pedagogic wisdom requires the “art of eclectic,” an integrated application of the most compelling and relevant theories from both the subject matter itself and the study of how best to teach it. Schwab’s student, Lee Shulman (1984), was later to call this sort of practical wisdom “pedagogic-content knowledge,” the unique understanding that is accumulated in the teaching of an academic discipline.

Deliberation and collaboration with stakeholders

The process we adopted, therefore, was based on a synthesis of the theoretical underpinnings of Fullan’s partnership model and Schwab’s commonplaces concept. As a consequence, representatives of the four commonplaces were invited to be actively involved in the curriculum deliberation process. These included Judaic studies teachers led by the Director of Judaica (teachers), student body representatives (students), LooksteinCenter subject and curriculum experts (subject matter) and representatives of the school board (milieu). Learning from the curriculum development experiences of Holtz (1992), we made explicit the central role of the curriculum expert within these deliberations. First, in the role of curriculum expert, I acted as facilitator of the process ensuring that the curriculum development process, including timetable benchmarks, was successfully implemented. In addition, because of the technical difficulties of organizing ongoing meetings with representatives of the commonplaces together, this facilitation included deliberations with representatives of the commonplaces in separate meetings. Through this form of “shuttle diplomacy,” the facilitator aimed to ensure that the views of all the commonplaces were aired and understood by all parties.

At the beginning of the project the curriculum expert presented participants with a four-stage model for curriculum development:

1. Definition of the school’s ideal graduate: Judaic Studies teachers, student representatives and school board members were all asked to determine this using the school’s particular mission and ethos statement as their guide. This was organized under five headings: A.Beliefs and philosophies
   1. Behavior characteristics
   2. Jewish knowledge
   3. Skills in Jewish learning
   4. General knowledge
2. Identification of subjects to be taught and determination of the time to be allotted to each.
3. Articulation of overall goals of each subject in terms of content, skills and values
4. Definition of annual and semester goals for each subject in every grade level

This paper focuses on stage 1 of the process – defining the school’s ideal graduate profile. Stage 1 was particularly time consuming as it involved a process of shuttle diplomacy between the various commonplaces following the Holtz model described above. This was also the most fundamental stage on which all the others stages were to be based. We recognized that the specific identity of the school’s ideal graduate profile in terms of knowledge, skills and values acted as the catalyst and engine for the school to define its areas of desired commitment.

Defining the Ideal Graduate Profile

While there was disagreement between stakeholders regarding the relative importance of some areas we arrived at some consensus about the major priorities and areas of commitment.

(a) A very high priority was given across the views of all commonplaces stakeholders to the knowledge of current events in Israel and particularly Israel advocacy. Parents were particularly vocal that their children must be given in schools the knowledge and the skills to argue Israel’s case. As such Israel advocacy needed to be more high profile in the school’s Judaic curriculum.

This desire arose out of a deep commitment to Israel expressed by of all school stakeholders. This commitment needed to be expressed not just in students’ knowledge of current events in Israel or of Israel’s history since the rise of Zionism in the mid-nineteenth century, but that knowledge needed to be expressed in some practical way. For most, the ability to plead Israel’s case and the desire and commitment to do so was a paramount skill and value which they wanted to see in their ideal school graduate.

(b) High priority was also given to the knowledge of Ivrit leading to Ivrit fluency. As an Ivrit be-Ivrit school this overall commitment was not surprising. However, our ongoing in-depth discussions on this issue identified disagreement among stakeholders about the continued commitment to the Ivrit be-Ivrit ideal. In the words of one influential school parent, who made a strong case for being more flexible on the issue of Ivrit be-Ivrit in a community day school:

Parents and students of this generation are saying it loud and clear – they want more options, more flexibility within the curriculum in the approach to Judaism, in their school, up and down and sideways. This requires a paradigm shift-let’s take the Ivrit be-Ivrit question as a case study. There is an issue of “positive-negative” messaging, which goes far beyond PR towards the heart of an educational philosophy and approach to students. A Mechina (preparatory) program, for students who “cannot handle” the Hebrew in the present curriculum, not only makes parents and students fear that those who opt for this approach will be stigmatized, but Mechina means that that the goal is to prepare the students – for what? For getting up to par. More neutral language such as Hebraica/Judaica track, invites students to go down different paths…. The school has to be willing to support students who for non-handicapped reasons choose not to study Ivrit be-Ivrit but nevertheless will be blessed with a top-notch Herzliah education and will contribute to the community in many ways.

The argument is both forceful and compelling. A community leader is calling for a more open approach to Ivrit be-Ivrit, one of the pillars of the Herzliah Judaic curriculum. By adopting such an approach, the school, he argues, will be more inclusive of needs of Jewish students across the community. This view had important implications in the design of the new curriculum.

(c) High priority was given to greater emphasis on ethical/moral behavior as a Jewish value. Tzedakah and hesed should be expressed in a desire and commitment to volunteer to both Jewish and non-Jewish causes.

(d) High priority was given to Jewish life skills including knowledge of tefillah, the ability to lead services in synagogue, and knowing appropriate behavior at life cycle events (shivah, wedding, bar mitzvah etc.). In the words of one parent: I want to see that my son can lead a service in the synagogue. How can it be that after twelve years in a Jewish school he can’t do that?

(e) Priority was given to the knowledge of history of the Jews and Bible, but to a lesser extent than the areas above.

(f) Low priority was given by most stakeholders to the knowledge and performance of Jewish rituals such as Shabbat and Kashrut, but as our discussions ensued we found that there were divergent views among the student stakeholder group which influenced curriculum decisions.

In interviews with eleventh graders, held both as part of the initial curriculum deliberations and as part of this research we discovered three major camps. In one group, students emphasized the importance of learning about Jewish traditions and practices, while in another group the focus was on the value of Hebrew Language acquisition while giving a very minor role to Jewish law. In a third group the focus was on learning relevant issues such as “Israel today” or “Jewish communities throughout the world.” For this group, the previous two issues were seen as far less important. It seems that these variant student views about key “ideal graduate” issues were representative of different community perspectives about these same issues. Some represented a more traditional Sephardic sector of the community that champions more Jewish practice, while others seemed to mirror other community perspectives that wish to focus more on Zionism, Israel or sociological issues within the Jewish people. As we shall show, these divergent views had a major impact on the new curriculum which was to be designed.

Curricular implications

Based on the ideal graduate profile work and the relative commitments to each of the Judaic areas expressed by stakeholders, the eventual design of the new curriculum model (Stages 2 and 3) focused on four areas:

1. History and Israel
2. Ivrit
3. Bible
4. Jewish life skills

Greater time allocation and emphasis was given to those areas above in which stakeholders expressed the most desired commitment from students.

The process of arriving at the ideal graduate model as described above moved the curriculum into new directions. They included:

1. A compulsory Israel advocacy module was introduced for 11th graders
2. Regarding Ivrit, Lookstein consultants were commissioned by the school to prepare material for an “English-speaking” track called Daat for the academic year 2007/2008. The Daat program was to be based on the same content as the school’s regular Ivrit be-Ivrit curriculum, but the textual sources presented were to be presented in both Hebrew and English and the language of instruction was to be English. Students would be individually recommended by the school to the Daat program based on their Hebrew Language capabilities. It is still to be seen how many students will participate in the Daat option, or in fact how this will impact on the mainstream Ivrit be-Ivrit program of the school. This is certainly a controversial move, with proponents of the Ivrit be-Ivrit policy maintaining that the opening of a Daat track endangers the long-time Ivrit be-Ivrit program of the school. This is especially true within the Montreal Jewish community, which unlike most Jewish communities in North America today, has a very strong and long tradition of Ivrit be-Ivrit policy in quite a number of its day schools.
3. Regarding Jewish life skills, the students’ divergent perceptions in their deliberations about the Jewish identity of the ideal graduate led the board to come to the understanding that electives needed to be provided in the new Judaic Studies curriculum to reflect the variety of interests and religious affiliations within the community.

The ideal graduate process described above can act as a catalyst for a school to re-examine its priorities and begin a process in which all stakeholders can be meaningfully involved. Defining the priorities is an essential step in deciding which commitments the school wants to foster within its students, where to invest its resources (time, money, personnel, etc.), and how to build a curriculum that will foster those commitments. Even diverse schools can teach toward commitment once there is broad consensus – the key to reaching that consensus is careful and skilful guidance of a neutral, experienced educator who can galvanize key stakeholders, enable different voices to be heard, and facilitate compromise to move the process forward.

References

Fox, S. (1972). A Practical Image of “The Practical.” Curriculum Theory Network (10)49.

Fox, S., SchefflerI., Marom, D. (2003). Visions of Jewish Education. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press.

Fullan, M. (1997). The Meaning of Educational Change. New York: Teachers’ College Press.

Holtz, B. (1992). Making the Practical Real: The Experience of the Melton Research Center in Curriculum Design. Studies in Jewish Education VI. Jerusalem: Varda Press.

Scheffler I. (1992). Jewish Education: Purposes, Problems and Possibilities. Curriculum, Community, Committment, ed. D.J. Margolis and E.S. Schoenberg. West Orange, NJ: Behrman House.

Schwab, J. (1982). Science, Curriculum and Liberal Education. Chicago: University Of Chicago Press.

Schwab, J. (1983). The Practical 4: Something for Curriculum Professors to Do. Curriculum Inquiry 13.

Shulman, L.S. (1984). The Practical and the Eclectic: A Deliberation on Teaching and Educational Research. Curriculum Inquiry 14, pp. 183-200.