In 1969, speaking to the American Educational Research Association – an academic audience mostly engaged in curriculum construction, curriculum research, and the development of curriculum theory – Joseph Schwab presented a paper that was to later become known as The Practical 1: A Language for Curriculum. Schwab took no prisoners. The field of curriculum, he told the academics, was “moribund” if not already dead. It had “reached this unhappy state by inveterate, unexamined, and mistaken reliance on theory.” Theory, he argued, had serious “incompetences”. Abstraction, for example, was one “vice” of theory because “real acts, real teachers, real children [are] richer than and different from their theoretical representations.” The only hope for survival, he argued, would be for curriculum energies to be directed away from “theoretic pursuits” and towards a practical model.

This may surprise you, but Joseph Schwab’s paper changed neither the syllabi of the schools of education in leading universities, nor did it bring about a series of resignations from their faculties. The minimal impact of his arguments (at least in the short-term) led Schwab to continue the attack. In The Practical 3: Translation into Curriculum, for example, he argued that “scholars are incompetent to translate scholarly material into curriculum.” What was called for instead was a team effort based on what he called the “four commonplaces for learning” – subject matter, learners, milieu, and teachers.

Although you will not find an explicit discussion of “commonplaces” in this journal, the underlying assumption throughout is that any discussion of curriculum – of what we should be teaching – needs to seriously consider the real needs and abilities of those four characteristic participants in every classroom. As such, the journal is a combination of theory, suggested practice and applications that are being used today in a variety of real schools and classrooms.

This issue is broken into three broad sections. The first, Focus on: “What do we teach?” includes articles from leading academics and educators. Hanan Alexander of Haifa University opens the journal with his thoughts on how the systematic exploration of the process involved in deciding what to teach will affect educational practice. Following that is a discussion of the applicability of developmental theories to curriculum construction. In Some Misunderstandings of Piaget and the Curriculum, David Elkind, Professor of Child Development at Tufts University argues that Piaget never intended to provide a curriculum to be taught, but his theories provide excellent guidelines for curriculum development and evaluation. Based on the work of Piaget and others, Stanley Peerless of the Lookstein Center discusses developmental stages and their relevance to the Jewish Studies curriculum. Finally, in a presentation on Social-Emotional education, Jonathan Cohen of Teachers College, Columbia University introduces us to some of the core concepts of Social-Emotional learning. In a companion piece, Chana Zweiter, founding director of the Rosh Pina Mainstreaming Network, describes the application of the Kaleidoscope method, an approach that focuses on how to create a caring learning environment in school.

The Applications section includes a compendium of curricula developed and implemented in various school settings, as well as an article describing an actual curriculum development project being implemented in a number of Jewish day schools under the direction of Eli Kohn of the Lookstein Center. Finally, in an article that we hope will encourage you to consider examining your own work in education, Eric Golombeck presents “action research” about how one Jewish school modified its prayer services to better meet the needs of its student body.

In the last section we return to our regular features. We get a discussion started between Jewish educators about positions taken by Professors ED Hirsch and Howard Gardner on whether literacy or skills should be the core of our curricular focus. In our review of educational materials, Tsipi Keller of the Herzog College presents a series of guides to Tanakh. Levi Cooper examines classic sources that warn of “the revenge of the letters and vowels.” Finally, Jeffrey Woolf offers insights on Jewish educational leadership.

It is important to note that Joseph Schwab practiced what he preached. He not only lectured on curricular theory, he also played a major role in producing curricular materials. In the 1960’s the Melton Research Center of the Jewish Theological Seminary comissioned Nahum Sarna, a noted Bible scholar, to write a modern textbook aimed at teachers in the traditional Jewish religious school. The result was Understanding Genesis: The Heritage of Biblical Israel. In a companion Teacher’s Guide, Joseph Schwab participated as a consulting editor. The work was the product of Schwab’s hands-on work with 150 teachers who were instructed by him in the “use of methods that would evoke student participation and involvement in the learning process”. I imagine that this seminal curricular work is at least partially responsible for the present day Solomon Schechter Humash curriculum that is described in the Applications section of this journal.

In closing I would like to take a moment to thank my colleagues at the Lookstein Center, whose approach to education in general and Jewish education in particular combines theory and practice, acting as a model for teachers, administrators and schools around the world. In particular I would like to express my thanks to Stanley Peerless and to Zvi Grumet who are my partners on this project. While their names appear in small print, their imprint is on every page of this journal. Both are models of excellence in their grasp of educational principles and their ability to apply that knowledge in the real world. Dr. Schwab would have been proud.

Feedback is encouraged. I welcome your comments and communication.

Rabbi Shalom Berger, Ed.D.
Editor
shalom@lookstein.org