Fake Debate / Real Conversations

Kress and Levisohn’s “Fake Debate” certainly echoes the deliberations we hear in Jewish day schools across the continent. During a recent visit to a school participating in the Legacy Heritage Instructional Leadership Institute, we engaged in one such conversation where the faculty focused on three related and compelling sets of questions:

• How do we intentionally foster students’ desire to contribute competently to the ongoing Jewish conversation, long after they leave our classrooms?

• How do we cultivate student text skills that give access to our textual tradition in a manner that is engaging and empowering?

• How do we help our students acquire the knowledge necessary to read texts and inspire them to discover personal meaning and relevance?

By Kress and Levisohn’s own admission, the polemic in the “Fake Debate” is forced. In isolation, neither side of the debate fully captures the mission of Jewish education. In schools, too, the argument is not framed in either/or terms, but rather in terms of balance and trying to find the right combination for helping students achieve Jewish developmental outcomes steeped in discipline-specific competency. The questions above articulate the internal debate of teachers of sacred text. How do we help our students develop a relationship with the texts of our tradition so that they feel at home in the texts and conversations of our tradition?

The faculties we observe appreciate that achieving intended student outcomes is dependent on aligning articulated goals with classroom learning activities that foster an environment that nurtures students’ hearts, minds, and souls. One teacher reflected the Abraham position stating, “The key to student engagement is the affective experiences of the students.” In other words:

• How do the students feel about their learning?

• Do they love the experience of learning?

• Do they feel empowered and successful, with the desire to continue studying and practicing?

• Or do they feel frustrated and incompetent, looking for the nearest escape route?

These are important questions that can guide schools as they develop a vision for instruction and then translate that vision into a coherent curriculum. The personal reflection of one teacher, as she considered her experience as a day school student, further illustrates the internal debate of many teachers:

I remember the environment—the songs, the niggunim, and stories. I remember my excitement to be in classrooms with great teachers. I remember learning through stories; I remember leaving feeling confident in my skills and content knowledge. When and why did we stop teaching in a way that brings our students into a world of excitement and discovery? I am worried that I am creating an environment that speaks to my desire to fill students with content and skills so they won’t feel lost later in life, at the expense of focusing on creating an environment that speaks to my students and what they enjoy.

What seems significant here is that the teachers in this room who shared similar memories are examples of one kind of Jewish educational success stories—people who left day school and continued their formal Jewish education into graduate school, pursued professional careers in the Jewish world, and continue to be involved in Jewish communal life. Their strongest memories are about the environments that allowed them to integrate the skills to continue engaging as Jews into adulthood.

Perhaps the real anxiety exposed by the “Fake Debate,” and echoed in these real faculty conversations, is the fear that the experiences we offer students in our classrooms lead them away from, rather than toward, the intended outcomes described in our schools’ mission statements. At worst, rather than engaging students, our classrooms leave students feeling incompetent, frustrated, and disenfranchised. As educators we know that we cannot only attend to environment and focus solely on the joy of the experience. Likewise we know that powerful learning comes from a combination of the encounter with rich content and the development of skills that lead to substantive feelings of success and the creation of meaningful understandings.

As articulated in the “Fake Debate,” developmental outcomes are not about crafting a fluffy feel-good experience. Developmental outcomes are about creating an intentional atmosphere that promotes the desire to learn and fosters the determination it takes to move toward discipline-specific mastery. As one teacher stated, “Grit is built in a loving environment. It is about developing the skills of perseverance and joy and the desire to persevere. It is about developing a content-rich vocabulary that allows students to feel at home in the conversation. It is about creating an environment that supports difficult work in an atmosphere of love.”

The Davidson School embarked on the creation of standards and benchmarks for TaNaKH and Rabbinics with the belief that if we are going to influence students to “stick with it,” that is, to commit to a lifetime of Jewish learning and engagement, then students need to experience real achievement and personal connection. They need to develop their voice and know that they have the skills and knowledge to authentically access and contribute to the ongoing Jewish conversation. People pursue learning, become involved, and select careers in adult life in those areas of school (or life outside of school) where they feel most successful and appreciated for their contributions. We achieve this desire to continue to learn, participate, and contribute when teachers across grade levels work together to build a coherent curriculum around an articulated and shared set of focused student outcomes.

In the finite number of hours in the school day, teachers need to make decisions about what to teach and, perhaps more importantly, what not to teach so that they remain focused on their shared outcomes. When learning is framed around compelling questions and ideas that ignite students’ curiosity and sense of wonder, we motivate our students to uncover deeper meanings and find personal connections embedded in our sacred texts. Even the Sarah stance admits that the goal of discipline-specific outcomes is to lead students to find deep meaning and relevance that comes from a sophisticated understanding and mastery of the subject matter. It is our belief that when schools have clearly articulated goals aligned to both instruction and assessment, they are best equipped to address the questions raised in the debate.

The debate raises one more important point. There is no question that it is more challenging to measure developmental outcomes. But, it is a mistake to assume that only learning that is objectively measurable makes for better education. Though much harder to both teach and assess, the subjective skills are often the ones students use throughout their lives. As educators, it is our job to develop instructional practices and assessments that inspire students to be creative and original thinkers, promote curiosity, and lead students to take intellectual risks, dare to construct new ideas, and search for personal meaning. Our sacred task is to engage the souls and minds of our students so that they develop the competency and internal drive to continue the Jewish conversation for the next generation.

Charlotte Abramson has served as the director of the Legacy Heritage Instructional Leadership Institute, formerly the Jewish Day School Standards and Benchmarks Project, since its inception in 2003. She directed the development of the Tanakh and Rabbinic standards and benchmarks and designed the Institute’s professional learning and curriculum development program for participating Jewish day schools.

Rabbi Sheryl Katzman is the rabbinics initiative leader of the Legacy Heritage Instructional Leadership Institute. She directs the professional development pilot program for enacting the rabbinics standards and benchmarks in Jewish day schools. In addition, Sheryl is directing the editing of the Rabbinics Standards and Benchmarks Compendium with a distinguished group of scholars and educators.