HEBREW UNION COLLEGE - JEWISH INSTITUTE OF RELIGION
NEW YORK

PDJ10 Advanced
Fall                                      Dr. Sherry H. Blumberg


I.  This course is a seminar designed to explore the ethics and morality issues of Jewish teaching and Jewish education.  It will explore the use of power, the responsibility to students, parents, ourselves as teachers, the institutions for which we teach, and to Judaism itself.  Particular attention will be paid to areas in which these present conflicts in ethical values.
The course is open to students who have been teaching for many years or who have advanced degrees in education and do not need the beginning class.  

II. Goals and Objectives

A.  To explore teaching especially, and administration secondarily, as a moral endeavor
l.  Analyze the dynamics of teaching and administration to find the points of moral dilemma 
2.  Read different positions with regard to the morality and ethics of teaching

B.  To develop a philosophy of Jewish education and teaching that
takes into account the moral endeavor
1.  Compare and contrast Jewish education with Public education
2.  Discuss the implications of moral education with or without the religious context
3.  Write a short beginning philosophy of Jewish education with consideration of the ethical implications

C.  To value the complexity of Jewish education as a subject matter
 


 III.  Format

Session 1: "Education is that which remains when one has
forgotten everything he learned in school"
Albert Einstein  Out Of My Later Years

  Introductions, Hand out materials, begin  exploration of teaching as a moral endeavor.  (Concept  attainment)  Review of Basic Lesson Planning Skills
Goals, Objectives, Learning Activities, Sequence and
Scope, Evaluation

Session 2: He who has repeated his lesson one hundred times  is not to be compared to one who has reviewed it one  hundred and one times.  Chagiga 9b; Sanhedrin 99a 

Review of Basic Presentational Skills
Transitions, Stimulus Variation, Environmental  issues

Session 3: God selected a people for His special education,  and precisely the rudest and unruliest, in order to begin with  it from the very beginning...He was brining up in them the  future teachers of the human race.    G.E. Lessing from
Education of the Human Race 1778

 Definitions: Choice of articles for presentation.   Definitions of Duties, Obligations,  Standards...Professional Ethics vs. Personal  Ethics ...Public vs. Private Morality


Session 4: v'sheenantam l'vaneycha
train a child in the way s/he should go and  when s/he grows old s/he will not depart from it.

Moral Education, Religion and Moral Education
(Elias 2, 5, 6)

Session 5:  yafeh talmud torah eem derech eretz

  The Problem: Is there a difference between  teaching in a Jewish
school and teaching in a public school?  (Thomas)
#Chazan  Education vs. Indoctrination  in Language of  Jewish Education   
#Rosenak Roads to the Palace
*Philosophy of Jewish Education Statement due

Session 6:  marbeh Torah, marbeh Hayyim 

What we owe the Content 
Ethics of Accomplishment and Justice (Strike)  and
 Ethics of Caring (Noddings)
 Content vs/and Process,  Value of Integration
Constructivist Theory


Session 7: The forty-eight qualities necessary if one is
to gain mastery of the Torah...Yalkut Me'am Lo'ez
Talmood, Smeeat Haozen, Areechat haozen
kavanat halev, Aymah, yirah, anavah...  

What we owe the Profession and Ourselves 
Ethics of Professionalization, The Teaching
Profession, Who should teach? (Fenstermacher)

*Lesson Plan Analysis due


Session 8: It is the dury of my generation and my children's
generation to see to it that Jewish schools are
available and affordable...that every Jewish
child who wants a Jewish education can get one...
Edgar Bronfman  

What we owe the institutions
The Ethics of Administration, our Institutions
(Smith and Nord)


Session 9: To honor parents is more imortant even than
to honor God.   Simeon ben Yochai  
Peah 1:1 Jerusalem Talmud

What we owe parents
  Ethics toward parents
(Sockett) 
   *Administrative Analysis due


Session 10: The teacher helps his disciples find themselves,
and in hours of desolation the disciples help
their teacher find himself again.  Nachman of
Bratzlav
  

What we owe students
   The Ethical Concerns vis a vis Students (Clark)
Transmission vs. Constructivism repeated 
Modern Learning Theory
Special Educational Issues


Session 11:  Wherever a Jew lives, Judaism is on trial...
Every Jew, Atlas-like, bears upon his shoulders
the burden of the whole world's Jewry..
Stephen S. Wise


What we owe Jewish tradition
Standing before God

#Rosenak Roads to the Palace




Session 12: Eem tirztu, ayn zo agadah...

Our Solutions:   
The Ethical and Moral Use of Power in Jewish
Education...What we do when these areas
are in conflict


(OPTIONAL SESSION) Sesssion 13:  Other issues, punishment,  evaluation,integration etc.


IV.  Readings

A.   Hebrew Text:

Pirke Avot texts on Learning and Study
Yalkut Me'am Lo'ez commentary on Pirke Avot


articles from:

Carter, Robert E. Dimensions of Moral Education.  University of
Toronto Press, 1987.

Chazan, Barry.  The Language of Jewish Education.

Dill, David and associates What Teachers Need to Know.  especially part 3 "The Moral Dimensions of Teaching

Elias  Religious and Moral Education   

 Goodlad, John, Soder, Roger and Sirotnik, Kenneth A. Eds.  The Moral Dimensions of Teaching.   Jossey Bass

 Moran, Gabriel No Ladder to the Sky, Education and Morality
Chapters 9-10

Noddings, Nell  Caring  a feminine approach to ethics.

Rosenak, Michael Commandments and Concerns , Philadelphia: Jewish
Publication Society, 1987. 

##(purchase) Rosenak, Michael. Roads to the Palace; Jewish Texts
and Teaching. Oxford: Berghahn Books, 1996.

Schwartz Moral Development: A Practical Guide for Jewish Educators
Denver, ARE Press 1983.

Kenneth Strike and Jonas F. Soltis The Ethics of Teaching. 
NY: Teacher's College Press, 1985



V.  Assignments

1.  Short 3-5 page philosophy of Jewish education that includes the beginnings of consideration of Jewish education as moral education.

2.  Lesson plan  and administrative forms analysis

Students may choose to do A or B

a. Students will analyze a standard procedure for lesson
planning and will either propose guidelines or
an alternative methodology.

b.  Students will analyze certain administrative policies
(behavior, absence, tsdakah, etc.) and propose guidelines
or alternatives

3.  Ethical Imperatives,  The Ten Commandments, etc.
a list of the ethical standards for at least one of the  following
religious school teachers
religious school directors
congregation school boards  or PTAs
Bureaus of Jewish education
Jewish day school teachers
HUC-JIR professional Jewish training schools and
seminaries
Jewish camps
students in Jewish schools....
(propose one...)

4. Log or Journal of Educational thoughts

VI.  Grading

Students will be assessed on participation, attendance,
and work.


Dr. Sherry H. Blumberg
Office 523  x231
direct line 212-824-2231
home fax 914-426-3930.