|
 |
|
|
|
|
 |
        
|
|
Student Voices
Tali Zelkowicz, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Jewish Education, Rhea Hirsch School of Education, Los Angeles Each year, in a course called the Sociology of Jewish Education, I immerse my students in the practice and purpose of professional writing, along with the range of social science tools that can be used to inform those written expressions. In the first week of the course, the students begin by writing in something I call "Cyber Soapbox" mode, in which we ignore alternative points of view – be they colleagues, scholars, students, parents, funders – and instead articulate our concerns and hopes based on what is deeply and honestly inside of us, and us alone. From there, we move from the inside out, and turn to the use and analysis of interviews, and then broader still, to surveys of the field, to produce literature reviews on particular topics of burning interest and relevance to the students and the field. Finally, all these steps culminate when the students engage in writing workshops with one another, to develop a "Contribution to the Field," or "CTF." One of the most important ways that Jewish educators - and educators of all kinds – can contribute to their profession is by sharing carefully considered, passionate but well-researched, cogently organized, well-crafted, compelling statements about the central and animating dilemmas in their fields. In other words, educators can be change agents through their writing and publishing. By entering the professional discourse, they must first find and then add their own voices to the on-going discourse, ever sophisticating and clarifying the thought and language among colleagues, and in the field at large. These "CTFs" address one of the many "contested arenas" in Jewish education, determine "what's at stake," provide social scientific (historical, sociological, psychological, etc.) context for the issue, and strive to offer a bold new creative analysis of the dilemma. You can find the newest CTFs below. Shortened versions of the students' articles were also published in the Spring 2010 issue of the URJ's publication, "Torah at the Center." Allowing for discourse and dialogue between students and professionals in the field, URJ editor Wendy Grinberg has invited one education practitioner or academic to respond to each of the student's pieces in that same issue, creating an organic series of conversations about some of the field's most difficult, but also most inspiring, dilemmas. The students would be happy to engage in dialogue with you, too, if you have any questions or reactions. If you would like to offer your own responses, please feel free to send them to Tali at tzelkowicz@huc.edu. Click on the titles of the articles below to read them (PDF)
At the end of the fall 2007 semester, Tali Zelkowicz of the Rhea Hirsch School of Education at HUC-LA and Lisa Grant of the School of Education at HUC-NY gave the same final assignment to their students in Social Foundations (LA), and History of Jewish Education in America (NY.) Education students were asked to write a 4-6 page article (double spaced) grounded in the scholarship of the field that is suitable for a publication to which reflective practitioners of Jewish education are invited to contribute. For example: Agenda: Jewish Education (JESNA), Jewish Education News (CAJE), Jewish Educational Leadership (Lookstein Center, Bar Ilan University). Click here for the complete description of the assignment. Click on the titles of the articles below to read them (PDF)
|