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In Focus Spring 2007
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Daniel Pekarsky's Vision at Work: A Day School's Educational Practice as Guided by Ideas
We are pleased to announce that Daniel Pekarsky, Professor of Educational Policy Studies at the University of Wisconsin - Madison and a staff member of the Mandel Leadership Institute, has published Vision at Work: The Theory and Practice of Beit Rabban as part of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America's Jewish Education Series.
Vision at Work is a study of Beit Rabban, a New York City day school that exemplifies what Pekarsky calls "vision-guided educational practice." In a series of letters about the school, Pekarsky explores the qualities of vision-guided institutions and raises questions about the aims of education and how they are reflected in practice.
Pekarsky argues that the improvement of Jewish education and education in general depends on the willingness of educating institutions to embrace "existential visions," which he defines as "conceptions of the kinds of human beings and communities they aspire to cultivate, conceptions that inspire and engage the communities they serve."
His book is designed to provide a portrait of a living institution that has given careful thought to and reflects its existential vision. Beit Rabban's educational vision embodies a progressive approach to education, organized around the cultivation of the qualities of heart and mind required for a life that embodies serious study of classical Jewish texts, rigorous, problem-oriented thinking, intellectual autonomy, and the effort to alleviate human suffering.
Vision at Work was developed in part through Pekarsky's participation in early VJEP seminars, and serves as a model for the invitation issued by the editors of Visions of Jewish Education for communities "to project, compare, and debate their several visions of Jewish education, engaging in conversations that treat not merely of resources, strategies, and improved efficiency in following current directions but also of competing conceptions of such education, the overriding purposes it ought to serve, and the values it should embody in our time" (332-333).
Click here to read an excerpt from Vision at Work (New York: The Jewish Theological Seminary of America Press, 2006). We are grateful to JTS Press for their kind permission to make this excerpt available here.
To order Vision at Work: The Theory and Practice of Beit Rabban, visit JTS Press online.
For details of an event celebrating the publication of the book, see our Upcoming and Recent Events page. |
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Vision at the Denominational Level: The VJEP Works with the Modern Orthodox Community
The VJEP is expanding its work in the Modern Orthodox community as part of its commitment to the contribution made by R. Isadore Twersky to Visions of Jewish Education. Following the publication of Rabbi Jeffrey Saks’ Spiritualizing Halakhic Education (Jerusalem: the Mandel Foundation, 2006), the project has expanded both in North America and Israel.
As part of a pilot project, five Modern Orthodox day schools in North America have begun participating in a series of workshops and study sessions on vision in Modern Orthodox education. Recently, VJEP staff, including Rabbi Jeffrey Saks, Dr. Jennifer Lewis, and Dr. Daniel Marom, ran a seminar for participants in these workshops. Each school sent a delegation of educators led by their principals.
The three days combined learning and work sessions, in which each school met with a VJEP facilitator to think about applications to their own practice and begin planning school-based vision initiatives. The schools that participated in this seminar were: the Ida Crown Jewish Academy (Chicago), Yeshiva Atlanta, MTA-Yeshiva University High School for Boys (New York), Beth Tfiloh Dahan Community School (Baltimore), and the SAR High School (Riverdale, NY), which hosted the program. On the basis of this seminar, the VJEP has begun to collaborate with schools on some of their initiatives, has convened a Scholars Group to develop ideas on Modern Orthodox education, and is planning a second seminar this summer.
An audio recording of Rabbi Jacob J. Schacter’s presentation at the seminar on “The Pedagogy of Role Modeling: The Case of the Avot” is available here (total running time: two hours and seven minutes). Click here for the sources used during Rabbi Schacter’s presentation.
In Israel, a group of educators, rabbis and researchers met with Professor Chaim Waxman to discuss his paper, "The Role and Authority of the Rabbi in American Society," which deals with the American Rabbinate. The group worked on drawing out the implications of Waxman’s work for educators - including, but not limited to, congregational rabbis.
Prof. Waxman is professor emeritus of sociology at Rutgers University in NJ and currently a senior fellow at the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute in Jerusalem. |
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Initiatives in Vision-Guided Jewish Education: The MTEI-Mandel Jerusalem Fellows Alumni
The North American staff of the Mandel Foundation has developed a two-year program for a select group of graduates of the Mandel Jerusalem Fellows and the Mandel Teacher Educator Initiative (MTEI), directed by Barry Holtz. The planning team and faculty also includes Gail Dorph, Daniel Pekarsky and Amy Gerstein.
Graduates Seminar participants are currently at work on bringing their study of Visions of Jewish Education into the world of practice. At MTEI and MJF, they had the opportunity to study the book and are now interested in using its ideas as a resource for their work in the field.
These educators, who come from settings ranging from early childhood to adult education, and from day schools to JCCs, are now moving into the second stage of their work with visions. In this stage they are beginning to think about how to bring vision into their workplaces. Each seminar participant will undertake an individual project in using ideas of Jewish education as tools in improving educational practice in their settings.
At meetings of the seminar in May 2006 and January 2007, they began to study and respond to one another’s pilot projects. During this seminar, participants also drew on Visions Project resources for their study of tefillah (prayer) as an example of a problem in practice that can be addressed through educational vision.
The May seminar meeting included presentations by Daniel Pekarsky on Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream;" Gail Dorph and Amy Gerstein on "The Practicality of Vision: Exploring a Case;" and Susie Tanchel on "Vision and Pedagogy: Teaching Bible with a Goal in Mind." Daniel Marom led a session about his work on this subject with the Magnes School, as reported in Visions of Jewish Education. Participants also studied the Milat Ha-Shavua (Word of the Week) program as an example of a vision-guided project, and undertook group consultations about their own proposed projects.
Listen to the Seminar Proceedings: Click here to download and listen to an audio recording of Daniel Marom's session at the Seminar on his work at the Magnes school, the subject of his chapter in Visions of Jewish Education, and on the role played by the work of the scholar Moshe Greenberg in the vision project at Magnes (running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes). Click here to read the two vignettes from Marom's chapter that are used in the exercise.
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