It is not surprising that experiential Jewish education has experienced a revival of sorts in recent years. Reintroduced a decade ago as an alternative articulation to informal Jewish education – in part so it should not be defined by what it is not, and in part so that it links itself to the credible philosophies introduced by John Dewey almost a century ago – experiential Jewish education has gained the attention of funders, community organizations, student-learners and even academic institutions, with at least five robust training programs having been established in the past half-decade.
There are several factors that can explain why experiential Jewish education has taken a front seat in contemporary educational discourse, and while the list below is by no means conclusive, it portrays a fairly accurate picture of the current practice of experiential Jewish education.
First and most importantly is what experiential Jewish education does, when done right:
Experiential Jewish education is the deliberate infusion of Jewish values into engaging and memorable experiences that impact the formation of identities. Meaning, experiential Jewish education enables the exploration of values through immersive and multi-sensory experiences, in which these values become alive. In turn, students concretely engage – and often experiment – with these values, which leave a lasting imprint on their identities.
Take for example the current challenge and struggle of the U.S community around immigration control. Many communities – Jewish included – have taken to the streets in protest. Here, the experiential Jewish educator will carefully consider the value s/he will look to impart and explore – ahavat hager being one such option. To fully internalize such a value, and to deeply explore it, it must be experienced, be it meeting with or interviewing refugees, exploring alternative immigrant experiences (particularly within ones family story) or experiencing a demonstration. These immersive types of experiences will enable the student to engage with the conceptual value in a concrete and often tactile manner.
Another significant factor for the prominence of experiential Jewish education is that, for the most part, experiential Jewish education programs are voluntary. Voluntary participation demonstrates intrinsic motivation and choice making, both of which actively contribute to the quality of the educational experience.
A third factor is that experiential Jewish education values enjoyment, fun and satisfaction. It would be senseless to dismiss fun and joy as secondary or even inferior educational objectives. When coupled with adequate learning goals and relevant content, fun and joyful learning experiences adopt thoughtful learning strategies that include sensory education, mastering the typology of activities or harnessing multiple intelligences.
A fourth factor that can explain the current prominence of experiential Jewish education is that typically it is highly social. It embraces collaborative and competitive social strategies that enable learners to form meaningful communities, both in context of the actual experiences they engage in, and in the memories that they in turn evoke.
A fifth factor connects with the first – that experiential Jewish education places identity development as a central goal. Good experiential Jewish educators will seek to make connections between the experiences being offered and the relevance of these experiences to the students’ lives, and encourage them to respond by vocalizing – if not actively pursuing – personalized Jewish expressions of meaning, values, tradition and commitment.
All of this is, of course, when experiential Jewish education is done right. Based on my experience in training hundreds of experiential Jewish educators in recent years, in both my roles as director of the department of experiential Jewish education at Yeshiva University, and now as founding director of M2: The Institute for Experiential Jewish Education, I have come to realize that experiential Jewish education is comprised of two distinct sets of practices, and while one practice is done fairly well, the other begs significant improvement and professionalization.
The practice that is, on the whole, done well, is what I call ‘Teaching Experientially’, i.e. what experiential educators do in order to craft and curate experiences that are immersive, compelling and enjoyable; ones that appeal to multiple learning styles, that adequately make use of space, environments and sites, that actively engage their learners, and that, hopefully, impart Jewish values, knowledge and ideas (hopefully, because most unfortunately there is no shortage of educators who fail to do so, be it because of their lack of Jewish mastery or because they are too afraid to promote Jewish values and ideas.)
The second half of the equation – the practice that is not done well (yet) – is what I call “Learning from Experience,†which is focused not on how we teach in an experiential way, but on how students learn from the experiences they undergo. This, in my view, is the essence of experiential education, which can be traced down to Dewey’s principles and more recently to the work of David Kolb.
David Kolb introduced the ‘Learning cycle’ – a progression that captures how people learn from experiences, in which the first step is the Concrete Experience. The second step, which is currently becoming better practiced in educational settings, is Reflective Observation – a space in which students are asked to look back at and take stock of the concrete experience. In this stage, students will typically describe their thoughts about and feelings towards that which they experienced. The third stage, which is almost never practiced, is called Abstract Conceptualization. This stage serves as a point of departure from what the educator taught or from what the experience offered, for it focuses solely on what the students learned; what it is that they now know; what ideas, understandings and realizations they are walking away with. These learnings might be exactly what the educator had planned for, but they might also be the absolute opposite. Ultimately the process of Abstract Conceptualization enables learning that is self-discovered and self-appropriated, and in my view there is no greater learning than that. The final stage of Kolb’s Learning Cycle is Active Experimentation – where learners get to experiment with their newfound learnings ( the abstract conceptualizations that they reached in the previous stage). And in turn, this experimentation sets the cycle anew.
To me, this is the most significant idea that experiential Jewish education brings to the table: The reminder that as human beings it is in our nature to learn from our experiences, and that as Jews it is our responsibility to learn from our experiences; learning which ultimately impacts the formation of our identities and enhances our personal agency. The common conception that experiential Jewish education is only about creating experiences is far from true. So much of the magic of – and opportunity in – experiential Jewish education, is that it invites student to reflect upon, conceptualize and finally experiment with their learnings - be it after a memorable climb up Masada or a heated Talmud debate in the classroom.
Shuki Taylor is the Founding Director of M²: The Institute for Experiential Jewish Education, which develops and provides training and research to advance the field of experiential Jewish education and invest in the growth of its educators. M² is now accepting applications for Cohort 2 of the Senior Educators Cohort. For more information and to request an application visit www.ieje.org.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/26/2017 03:04PM by mlb.
