Sarah Levy serves as the Director of Adult Education for the Colorado Agency for Jewish Education, teaches at Denver Jewish Day School, works with Congregation Rodef Shalom, and develops curriculum for several organizations. Dr. Levy is a graduate of the Pardes Educators Program, and holds a Master’s in Jewish Education and a doctorate in education.

Sarah Levy advocates including teachers in the process of defining the picture of the successful graduate.

According to Bloomberg (2007) “a commonly held assumption is that an overriding goal of Jewish Education is to impact values, beliefs, and practices in significant and enduring ways. It is generally accepted that Jewish educational experiences enhance a sense of Jewish identity” (p. 285). Bloomberg’s broad definition, however, including reference to Jewish identity, is only one of the many possible goals of Jewish education, particularly when discussing the community (or non-denominational) school. For example, while Bock (1977) focuses on cultural continuity, Chertok et al. (2007) emphasize Jewish involvement in college, Cohen, Milyavskaya, and Koestner study the impact on Jewish practice (2009) while Cooper and Kramer (2002) consider continuing Jewish studies. Much has been written about these different possible goals and about how Jewish day schools can be successful in accomplishing these goals, giving very specific definitions of priorities such as Jewish continuity and Jewish identity. What is less clear, however, is what success in each of these areas looks like and what the definition of success is for different constituents (i.e., parents, teachers, students and administrators) of the Jewish day school world. Notably missing is the perspective of teachers and their conceptions as to what constitutes contemporary Jewish educational success in a day school graduate.

The experiences and perceptions of Jewish studies teachers are especially important as many are inspired by their own religious beliefs and hope to instill that inspiration into the students (Salomon, 2010). By examining the definition of a successful day school graduate from the Jewish studies teacher’s perspective and based on their experiences, day schools may be able to strengthen their visions and work towards achieving their version of success according to that vision.

Overview of study

This study explores the experiences and perceptions of Jewish studies teachers in a community day school regarding what constitutes success of a graduate who has spent the majority of his kindergarten through 12th grade educational experience in Jewish day school. The study focused on three questions.

1. How do Jewish studies teachers describe their understandings and perceptions as to what constitutes a successful graduate of a community Jewish day school?
2. How do these understandings and perceptions affect the teachers’ goals in the classroom?
3. How do teachers measure their own success in reference to these goals?

This study followed a qualitative methodology, seeking to explore the spectrum of perspectives of the participants, rather than to reach a consensus on ultimate truth (Creswell, 2012), and it was conducted using the Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) approach, aimed at exploring and describing the “meaning for several individuals of the lived experiences” (Creswell, 2007, p. 57). In-line with the IPA approach, which focuses on small, relatively homogenous samples, this study focused on four teacher-participants, and data was collected through in-depth, semistructured interviews.

Overview of research findings

As a result of this study, I uncovered several essential findings:

1. Jewish studies teachers are committed to their craft, advancing themselves through academic study and graduate degrees and also engaging in ongoing learning in order to be best-prepared to teach their classes. As education is a priority in Judaism, this sets an example for the students, encouraging them towards life-long learning through establishing learning as an activity of the social group, encouraging the students to then engage in continued study and further establish themselves in the group identity.
2. Jewish studies teachers are less concerned with traditional academic measures of success for their students, opting, instead, for qualitative, anecdotal measures of success related to student identity. These measures are harder to assess and evaluate, leading to some ambiguity regarding teacher success in achieving the goals they set for their classrooms.
3. Adding to the difficulty in assessing teacher success as relates to classroom goals, Jewish studies teachers focus on long-term goals that relate to Jewish identity, community involvement, and lifelong learning years after graduation rather than the immediate measures of student success that are more easily assessed. Additionally, each of these areas reflects an ongoing process, rather than a specified ending point, making assessment even more difficult.
4. Jewish studies teachers focus on cultivating a sense of Jewish identity within their students through skill-development, positive experiences, and student connections, working to form their students into productive members of the Jewish community.
5. Jewish studies teachers structure their classroom goals in a way that aims to prepare their students for personal success in the world through strengthening their identity and helping them to navigate multiple identities.

For the teacher participants involved in this study, a successful Jewish day school graduate would be described as someone with a strong sense of personal Jewish identity who is comfortable with his Jewish identity, conscious of the decisions he makes related to that identity, able to function and thrive as a Jew in the greater world, and demonstrates moral and ethical behavior. A successful Jewish day school graduate would also appreciate and value community, continue his Jewish learning after graduation, have a connection to Israel, and show different aspects of Jewish literacy such as familiarity with prayer, Hebrew, terms, customs, and traditional texts. The results of the study emphasize Jewish identity and the behaviors, actions, and skills associated with a strong Jewish identity, highlighting the role of Jewish identity in the curriculum at community Jewish day schools.

The second question of the study examined how these understandings and perceptions related to a successful Jewish day school graduate affect the teachers’ goals in the classroom. According to the data, the main effect of these understandings and perceptions was an emphasis and priority placed upon connections with students, stemming from the motivation and inspiration or the teachers to become teachers in the first place and the attitude of the teachers, students, and other stakeholders regarding the subject material of Jewish studies. The teacher participants all valued their connections with their students and saw these connections as a way to get to know the whole student, connect the student to the material, engage and motivate individual students, and empower the students towards their identity formation. Because of the emphasis on connections and personal achievement related to identity formation, the teacher participants did not focus their classroom goals on traditional measures of success such as grades and college admissions, instead focusing on encouraging and motivating the students to think about the material, apply the material to their own lives, and use the material as a way to feel connected to other Jews.

The final question explored how teachers measure their own success in reference to the goals they set for their classrooms related to their understandings and perceptions of a successful Jewish day school graduate. For all of the teacher participants interviewed for this study, authentic measurement of success was not possible – the main form of assessment used was anecdotal – and this was also the main format for describing their successes during the participant interviews. Participants shared stories and examples of specific successes, acknowledging that true measurement is difficult as hearing these stories usually occurs by chance, without a systematic method of evaluation. Additionally, as Jewish studies teachers emphasize the value of text, narratives and lessons within the text, and integration of students into the tradition of these narratives, they are effectively weaving themselves and their students into the text through their stories. Within this anecdotal form of measurement, teachers focused on student impact, especially with long-term effects, and student attitude toward the teacher, class, or subject material, encouraging students to apply the subject material to other classes and beyond the classroom. Although the teacher participants were clear about their descriptions of what constitutes a successful Jewish day school graduate and could share experiences related to how they translate that description into goals for their classrooms, measuring their success was more difficult, both because of the anecdotal nature of their current mode of assessment and because their goals were long-term in nature, reaching well beyond the school years.

One of the important finding reported above is that Jewish studies teachers are concerned with and committed to fostering identity formation within their students, focusing especially on Jewish identity, and creating productive members of the Jewish community and the greater world. Through student connections and encouraging their students to think, community day school Jewish studies teachers aim to make traditional Jewish texts relevant to the students in order for these texts to serve as a guide in the students’ identity formation. Of the four participants interviewed for this study, none consciously made a decision to become a Jewish studies teacher, all sharing that teaching as a profession and Jewish text as a subject matter were inherently part of them, part of their identities. Because of the vital role of Jewish text in each of the participant’s lives and personal identity formation, they used this as a basis in their teaching and instilling identity into their own students. As one participant, shared, teaching Jewish studies to students is akin to “building their soul.”

Implications for practice

In addition, my results directly impact current practice related to the specification and execution of goals for success and the assessment of the attainment of these goals.

Community day schools wishing to integrate the teachers’ goals into those of the school should consider infusing their Jewish studies programs into various aspects of the school through interdisciplinary programming and including experiential aspects throughout the year, making the ideals and goals of fostering a Jewish identity prevalent throughout the school. If the goal of the teachers is to prepare students to live in the greater world with a strong sense of Jewish identity, students should be given abundant opportunities to cultivate and experiment with that identity, outside of the walls of the Jewish studies classroom.

Further, schools should consider building assessment for Jewish studies which will be substantively different from that used in other subjects, to reflect the distinct goals of the Jewish studies program. As one participant said, “Is there such a thing as a Jew A and Jew B and Jew C?” referring to the difficulty in assigning grades to students in the subject of developing Jewish identity. Therefore, a more accurate and informative means of assessment should be developed and implemented into the schools, differentiating the assessment of Jewish studies classes from secular subjects. Traditional means of assessment such as grades could be maintained alongside these alternative measures if schools determine them to be necessary in order to maintain the academic integrity of the Jewish studies classes, but these measures are not sufficient in assessing true success of goals related to identity and other indicators of success, as identified by teachers.

One final implication suggests including the understandings and perceptions of the teachers connecting with the vision of the school. Teacher representatives should be involved in the development and execution of the school’s mission statement and vision when they are developed and/or revised and the determination of yearly goals as teachers are, after all, the ones with the most direct and most frequent contact with the students themselves and are, therefore, an essential element contributing to the success of realizing that vision and achieving these goals. In order to promote successful attainment of school goals, they should be in-line with the values and ideals of the teachers.

References

Bloomberg, L. D. (2007). An emergent research agenda for the field of Jewish education. Journal of Jewish Education, 73(3), 279-291.

Bock, G. (1977). Does Jewish Schooling Matter? New York: American Jewish Committee.

Chertok, F., Saxe, L., Kadushin, C., Wright, G., Klein, A., & Koren, A. (2007). What difference does day school make? Boston, MA: Brandeis University.

Cohen, L. R., Milyavskaya, M., & Koestner, R. (2009). The internalization of Jewish values by children attending Orthodox Jewish schools, and its relationship to autonomy-supportive parenting and adjustment. Journal of Jewish Education, 75(4), 350-363.

Cooper, B. S., & Kramer, M. N. (2002). The new Jewish community, new Jewish schools: Trends and promises. Catholic Education: A Journal of Inquiry & Practice, 5(4), 488-501.

Creswell, J. (2007). Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five traditions. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Creswell, J. W. (2012). Educational research: Planning, conducting, and evaluating quantitative and qualitative research (4th Edition). Boston, MA: Pearson.

Salomon, L. (2010). The decision to teach: Why Orthodox Jewish day school teachers choose the profession. (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses.