The Sustaining Nature of Jewish Early Childhood Education

ותאמר רות המואביה אל-נעמי אלכה-נא השדה ואלקטה בשבלים אחר אשר אמצא-חן בעיניו ותאמר לה לכי בתי

Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, “I would like to go to the fields and glean among the ears of grain, behind someone who may show me kindness.” And [Naomi] replied, “Go, my daughter.”
—Megillat Rut, 2:2

I am writing the concluding piece of this Gleanings issue during the end of Sefirat HaOmer, the counting between Passover and Shavuot. On Shavuot, we read the story of Ruth, a woman who left her birth family to find a spiritual parent; who lost her husband, but gained a people; experienced famine yet was brought by love to be the mother of royalty. Ruth was a gleaner, a person who went behind the harvesters to gather what was left, and to make a life out of that sustenance—and what an example she provides for us!

In many ways, this Gleanings—that examines the field of Jewish early childhood education—has been more of a kind of special corner, a peah, left out of the major areas of focus and labor. Those of us who have worked to glean resources, recognition, and appreciation have sometimes had to follow after others. The children in our “field,” after all, are not making decisions about what to do after the celebration of a bar/bat mitzvah, going on a Birthright trip, or finding a life partner. They are learning the power of language, the rewards of relationships, and the wonders of the world, and are completely dependent for their actual survival on others. Their parents are also learning about the power of their presence, the rewards of raising a child, and the challenges of explaining a complex world, and are often dependent upon what we in the Jewish community can offer them. Why see their education, and perhaps even more so their Jewish education, as a major area of cultivation? As these Gleanings articles show, there can be a rich yield from nurturing this field, and from seeing it as a central part of our shared work.

Shellie Dickstein reveals how parents are making important decisions about Jewish education. Her research indicates that, while parents value enrichment for our youngest children (ages birth to two), they approach Jewish enrichment with ambivalence. The reasons for this hesitancy seem to be both that Judaism may be too important—affecting perceptions of their own identity—and that the children are “too young.” The latter is ironic since they are not too young for music, gymnastics, and other kinds of experiences. We know that these parents want their children to have essential physical, emotional, and social skills, yet parents do not yet know that all of these areas can be addressed within a gentle, welcoming Jewish experience. We are indebted to Shellie for her close listening to parents that helps direct our efforts. A gleaning for the bountiful growth of all of Jewish education: listen to and dialogue with families so that the right conditions for everyone’s learning can be provided.

The Jewish Resource Specialist (JRS) project of the Federation of Greater San Francisco addresses this need to be highly responsive to parents and teachers as they explore the ways that they find Judaism meaningful, and relate these ways appropriately to being with children. As Denise Moyes-Schnur describes, the JRS of each school provides information, develops experiences, and is a font of knowledge for those who want more. This program models what can happen when a cohort of individuals in a community collaborate to consider issues in engaging children and parents in Judaism, and then brings both the content and the process back to their individual schools. Relationships are maximized, providing optimal conditions for Jewish engagement to flower. While we can find examples of specialists in other expressions of Jewish education, it is unusual to find such attention given to learners’ “roots.”

The creation of the Shared Communal Goals of Pittsburgh, as relayed by Carolyn Linder, is the result of educators working together across schools to discover both what they consider to be essential characteristics of programs and how each school might express these characteristics. The involvement of parents is a key aspect of the Pittsburgh initiative as well. The foci are quality, engagement, and shared leadership. Jewish education across different age groups in the same institution, never mind across different intuitions, often seems to be happening in separate “plots.” What could cross-fertilize when the entire Jewish educational effort is collaborative in a geographic area?

Anna Hartman presents Chicago as a city with Jewish early childhood education at the center. There are no fewer than five initiatives working as a collaborative ecosystem. The Community Foundation for Jewish Education has originated some of these efforts, and welcomed others. This diverse approach can address the different kinds of hunger for new knowledge and growth throughout the Chicago Jewish early childhood community. In this example, we see collaboration across initiatives as well as across schools in one city, with a strategic plan to examine the synergy between these efforts, which encompass all aspects of Jewish early childhood education from engaging parents to bringing in new teachers to leadership development. How are we cultivating and integrating each other’s ideas across all of Jewish education?

Lisa Farber Miller describes a project addressing parents’ perceptions of Jewish early childhood education in the greater Denver area, looking at the field from a communal perspective. The BUILDing initiative sees the first contact with the family not as a doorway only to an excellent early childhood program, but to a lifelong community. Along with standards of excellence, BUILDing sees itself as a way to reveal and optimize the interpenetrating connections that weave through all aspects of Jewish communal life. Another gleaning that supports the entire enterprise: connect Jewish education to Jewish communal life.

In their article “Heschel at the Gan,” Bill Robinson and Sonya Shoptaugh explain how early childhood education devotes itself to the seeds we plant across the entire field of potential Jewish learning and life-long engagement. In the very contemplation of children, each person engages in introspection—what will our family life be like? What might Judaism mean to me in this new venture? What do I want it to mean to my own offspring? Parenting requires giving life to values. The seeds for a strong flowering of Jewish life are there; they need tender care, even if they are not readily visible.

Megillat Rut ends, fittingly, with the birth of a child. From the sidelines, from a “corner,” both in her origins and her poverty, Ruth gives us David, a central figure in Jewish tradition, and the line of the future Messiah. The knowledge, practices, and initiative of the field of Jewish early childhood education may play a central role in the future vitality of Jewish life and learning.

Lyndall Miller, MEd, MAJEd, MSEd, is the director of the Jewish Early Childhood Education Leadership Institute (JECELI), a collaborative effort between The Jewish Theological Seminary and Hebrew Union College.