USCJ Review - Spring 2005
The Synagogue School: Looking Back To See The Future
Sometimes it is helpful (and fun) to look back and see where we were and what we were doing, say, 50 years ago. In the following pages, we take a brief look at USCJ efforts to further synagogue education, synagogue architecture, and synagogue programming.
Looking back is always personal, so for purposes of full disclosure, let me tell you a bit about myself and those other times. At the midpoint of the 20th century I was 10 years old. The war was over. Even for a young kid, there was some consciousness of the trauma of the Holocaust. There was a clear awareness that the dream of a Jewish State, Israel, had become a reality. The numbers of Jewish children were growing. Jewish communities of second and third settlement were thriving, and Conservative Judaism was a dominant force. I was fortunate enough to be growing up in Brookline, MA, a town right on the border of downtown Boston.
I have always considered myself lucky that I lived a block away from Kehillath Israel. It dominated the main street and came to be a primary force in my life. I was blessed. We went five days a week for ten hours. It felt all right, partially because my public school was across the street, partially because Brookline elementary schools ended at 1:30, and partially because all the other kids did it. I had more than my share of good teachers. And, there was Mr. Harris (z''l) a teacher and humble scholar who shined forth and, somehow, enabled the Torah and the rabbinic tradition to excite and enchant. There was Mr. Kraft (z''l), my first example of a knowledgeable lay leader and the first prayerful Jew I knew. It was here that I became grounded in Hebrew, which didn't come easy to me. Soon, the then very new USY played an important role in my life, as did Camp Yavneh.
It did not work for all the kids. Nor was K.I. necessarily typical, though it was not unique. Few, indeed, are fortunate enough to share my story. I have, as a Director of Education and then Head of a Solomon Schechter Day School, interviewed hundreds of parents who began by telling me how bad their synagogue school education was.
Below, I will try to present a thumb-nail snapshot of a reality -- but snapshots are never the full reality. Hopefully, this introduction points to other dimensions. The snapshots of the past and the present are meant to enable us to envision the emerging future.
Looking Back
The topography of the classroom often says a lot. The usual classroom in a synagogue school in the mid-20th century had the following characteristics: desks arranged in rows; teachers' desks in the front; teachers sitting at the desk or standing in front of the class; teachers speaking to the students or addressing questions to the students; and students raising their hand (and, when called on, answering).
In addition, most of the teachers did not grow up in North America. They were Europeans or Israelis. In many schools, the questions and answers were in Hebrew. That is why it was called "Hebrew school." The teachers asked the questions and the students answered. The teaching was organized around the coverage of books, usually, sections of the humash, the Five Books of Moses, and the historical books of the Bible, the Early Prophets. Prayers were recited to develop fluidity in reading but not studied for meaning. Some students paid attention and responded to questions. Others sat passively or sought ways to entertain themselves. During the course of the week there was a music period. All the songs were in Hebrew, and almost all were about Israel. A few were from the liturgy. Information was conveyed about the Jewish holidays. Students came to school four or five days a week for eight to ten hours -- not including junior congregation. Many students lived no more than a 20-25 minute walk from the synagogue.
All ideas were funneled through the teacher. Rarely did a student pose a question. The teacher posed questions for which there were "right answers." God is, of course, a major figure in the Torah and prayer, but there was little or no discussion about God. Students did not engage in forms of self-expression beyond answering questions in writing or orally.
Looking at the Present
Looking now at classrooms, as we begin to move into the 21st century, we note some major changes in topography: desks might be in a row or kids might be sitting around tables; sometimes desks are put together in small groups and sometimes kids are sitting on the floor; teachers move around the room; during some segments of class time, the teacher is the focus, but during more of class time, students work together or alone; students initiate questions to the teacher and each other; and students learn with and from classmates.
The following differences between "then" and "now" stand out. Most or all of the teachers in the synagogue school are American born. They share the same world as the kids and their parents. Unlike their predecessors, they do not see themselves as coming from an alien culture which they desperately want to see survive. Present-day teachers see themselves as an integral part of American culture. They are people who want to share Jewish tradition with the young. Many are not as Jewishly knowledgeable as the teachers of 50 years ago, and most of them do not have the facility with Hebrew which their predecessors did. But they do care about Judaism; and many see teaching in a synagogue school as very much a part of their Jewish commitment. There are now few four- or five-day-a-week synagogue schools in North America. Youngsters have to be driven by car to get to the synagogue.
I have focused on the topography of the classroom because change in topography can reflect a change in teaching and our understanding of learning. Form, then, follows function. Changes that have taken place in the last half of the 20th century have been highly influenced by educational practice and research. There is also less class time, and more choices have to be made about what should be learned. In North American education, there is a growing awareness that success has to be measured not by what is taught but by what has been learned. This emphasis means that teachers and those that guide teachers have the responsibility to develop materials and methods that stimulate interest and engage students. We now understand the educational process has to be like the "sync" button on a Palm, shuttling back and forth between different phases in the learning process: engagement - knowing and understanding - applying understanding - and meaning making.
The Emerging Future
The synagogue school seeks to engage our children in Judaism as a living heritage which responds to Abraham Joshua Heschel's articulation of the critical question, "How should a being created in the image of God act, think, and feel?" If we are to resonate to this, our synagogue schools have to stimulate the intellectual, ethical, and emotional Jewish religious growth of children. For this to happen, given the constraints of time, it is our considered judgment that teaching materials for the synagogue school have to be organized around concepts and values. The focus cannot be on the coverage of books but on what will have some "stick-to-itiveness," nurture Jewish character and identity, and have a vector of life-long Jewish learning. This requires not only the use of the classroom but the need to engage parents, assure informal education - Kadima, USY, Ramah - and create exciting high school programs.
In the emerging Jewish education of the future, teachers are aware of what kids are learning, doing and experiencing outside the synagogue school; teachers use and develop ways to tap into what kids are learning, developing and experiencing; students are engaged in learning and understanding key Jewish ideas and values; students construct their own Jewish understandings and identity; good questions lead not to "right answers" but to good questioning, probing and better understanding; and students apply the Jewish concepts and values they learn to real life situations.
Telling, rewording, sharing ideas, demonstrating knowledge by applying it, experiencing - active learning - happens best and maybe only when students learn from and with each other. The teacher has to listen and not just talk.
The USCJ Department of Education has spent the last ten years developing ways to implement and bring to bear both sound educational theory and our Conservative Jewish commitments. They are embedded in our work with education directors and the material and methods that have been developed for middle schools as part of Project Etgar, a joint project of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism's Department of Education and the Melton Research Center for Jewish Education of the Jewish Theological Seminary. This work - geared to the emerging Jewish future -- will be further developed for elementary schools.
Because Conservative Judaism understands Judaism as a religious response, students are encouraged to share their thoughts about God. The classroom is a place where children can freely ask questions about God and struggle with what God means in their life. Prayer and sacred deeds, mitzvot, are experienced. Not only do students understand the prayers, but time and place is set aside to pray.
The Conservative Movement is deeply committed to the idea that Judaism requires deeds. As partners with God, we work to improve the world. We are required to feed the hungry and clothe those that are cold. We need to learn and learn again that the obligation of tzedakah does not depend on our feelings, but on the condition of the other person. Students should not just learn about the joy and beauty of Shabbat. They should also experience it. They should not just observe some rules about what foods they can eat in school. They should also know about and understand some of the reasons for kashrut. Students should grow in openness to the possibility of seeing mitzvot, both ethical and ritual, as an opportunity to relate to others, the world, and God through what we do.
