Abstract
This chapter examines two “experiments” in Jewish teacher education, the Teachers Institute at the Jewish Theological Seminar in its early years under the leadership of Mordecai Kaplan and the DeLeT program currently operating at Brandeis University and the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR). In both cases, the emergence of a new kind of Jewish school requiring a new kind of Jewish teacher made possible the creation of full-time programs of Jewish teacher preparation. The cases are used to illuminate some enduring issues in Jewish teacher education and to outline a research agenda to inform policy and practice.
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Notes
- 1.
Special thanks to Gail Dorph, Jon Levisohn, and Alex Pomson for their thoughtful feedback and to Jonathan Krasner for directing me to historical sources.
- 2.
Benderly saw the Talmud Torah as the most promising model because it was a communal institution like the public school and because it had already been reshaped into an afternoon school so as not to conflict with public schooling.
- 3.
School systems inspired by this model were created in New York, Boston, Baltimore, Detroit, Minneapolis, Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, and Chicago.
- 4.
The institutions established during this general time frame include Gratz College, Philadelphia (1898); Teachers Institute of the Jewish Theological Seminary, New York (1910); Baltimore Hebrew College (1919); Herzliyah Teachers Institute, New York (1921); Hebrew Teachers College of Boston (1921); Chicago College of Jewish Studies (1924); and Cleveland College of Jewish Studies (1926).
- 5.
Margolis (1964) states that 2,191 teachers graduated from the six Jewish teacher training institutions which he studied (Gratz, Cleveland College of Jewish Studies, Boston Hebrew College, Herzliyah, Teachers Institutes at JTS and Yeshiva University) from the times of their opening through 1950. Hurwich (1958) gives a figure of 1,885 graduates among the eight institutions he studied––the same six as Margolis plus Baltimore and the Hebrew Training School for Girls in New York––from their beginnings through 1949. He concludes that this output met 20–25% of the need.
- 6.
Benderly emigrated to the United States from Palestine in order to complete his medical studies. He settled in Baltimore where he pioneered the use of ivrit b’ivrit in an experimental Hebrew school. Benderly eventually left medicine to devote himself to Jewish education.
- 7.
Benderly searched out male college students who might be recruited for careers in Jewish education. He arranged for them to teach in the Bureau’s experimental schools and to study with Kaplan and other TI faculty. Many received doctorates from Teachers College, Columbia, where they studied with Dewey, Kilpatrick, and other well-known progressive educators of the time. Known as the Benderly boys, these men disseminated Benderly’s ideas by serving as leaders in Hebrew teachers colleges and heads of bureaus of Jewish education around the country.
- 8.
In 1924 the New York legislature gave the Seminary the right to confer the degrees of Bachelor, Master, and Doctor of Jewish Pedagogy.
- 9.
Teachers College, founded in 1897 as the New York College for the Training of Teachers, affiliated with Columbia University as a professional school of education. According to Borrowman (1956), TC became the “ideal” university-level professional school, embracing the traditions of both liberal and technical education (p. 119).
- 10.
- 11.
A similar divide often separates Jewish educators and Jewish studies scholars.
- 12.
For a discussion of the fate of practice schools, see Clifford & Guthrie (1988), pp. 109–116.
- 13.
In 1935, there were 16 day schools in the US enrolling 4,600 students. By l965, there were over 300 elementary and secondary schools with over 55,000 students. Torah U’Mesorah was established in 1944 and set out to create day schools in every community. The National Council of Beth Jacob Schools was founded in 1947, to promote schools for girls, modeled after those in Poland (Pilch, 1969, pp. 140–144).
- 14.
Ben-Avie and Kress (2006) found that 46% of all day-school teachers are over the age of 50 and will likely retire within 10 years and 24% of Judaic and general studies teachers are recent hires. Whether the latter finding is a reflection of teacher turnover or school growth, it suggests the need for strong preparation and induction to increase teacher retention.
- 15.
Three other programs created around the same time were short-lived––the Jewish Teacher Corps, Ha-Sha’ar, and a new masters program in Religious Education at the University of Pennsylvania.
- 16.
DeLeT is part of three research projects at the Mandel Center: a longitudinal survey of alumni from HUC and Brandeis; a comparative study of beginning teachers in Jewish, Catholic, and urban teacher-education programs, and a study of DeLeT’s Beit Midrash for Teachers. For more information, see www.brandeis.edu/mandel.
- 17.
DeLeT, the Hebrew word for “door,” is designed to open a door to a career in day-school education. Jonathan Woocher created the name which stands for “day school leadership through teaching.”
- 18.
DeLeT now benefits from generous funding from the Jim Joseph Foundation which enabled the program to continue.
- 19.
At Brandeis, DeLeT became the Jewish day school concentration in the Master of Arts (MAT) in Teaching Program. At HUC, DeLeT became one of several certificate programs.
- 20.
DeLeT is an example of an “eased-entry” program compared with “fast-track” programs like TFA which place teachers in classrooms as teachers of record after a brief summer of training.
- 21.
The recentering on practice is a counter measure to what some see as an over-emphasis on teacher planning, reflection, knowledge, and beliefs.
- 22.
The ranking of colleges and universities is based on SAT scores, using data and guidelines from the College Board (http://www.collegeboard,com)
- 23.
Besides the 14-month program of initial preparation, DeLeT offers support during the first 2 years of teaching and continuing professional development opportunities for alumni. This reflects the program’s vision of a professional learning continuum (Feiman-Nemser, 2001).
- 24.
A synthesis of several decades of research and practical experimentation, this framework reflects the current state of research and professional consensus about what teacher education needs to accomplish.
- 25.
Preparing subject matter teachers is especially daunting at the elementary level where teachers are responsible for multiple subjects. This is a continuing challenge for the DeLeT program.
- 26.
The DeLeT standards place these teaching responsibilities in a Jewish framework. Standard 2 calls for teachers to know their students as individuals, learners, members of families, spiritual beings. Standard 3 calls for teachers to create classroom learning communities infused with Jewish values and experiences.
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Feiman-Nemser, S. (2011). Preparing Teachers for Jewish Schools: Enduring Issues in Changing Contexts. In: Miller, H., Grant, L., Pomson, A. (eds) International Handbook of Jewish Education. International Handbooks of Religion and Education, vol 5. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-0354-4_52
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