Religious School

February, 2009 Ma'aseem - Challenges of Creating Meaning-Centered Curriculum

3/26/2009
Over a year ago I wrote my monthly article about the challenges of creating a meaning-centered curriculum for the supplementary synagogue religious school. It's hard to believe, but we are past the mid-point of another school year and I feel it's important to give you an update on our progress in writing a curriculum for our school.



First let's revisit the challenges all synagogue religious schools face:

TIME CONSTRAINTS: Most Reform and Conservative schools have a minimal amount of available teaching time, anywhere from 3-6 hours per week. Factoring in "non-classroom" activities we soon find out that even the stated 5.5 hours per week for our 3rd-7th graders is less time than that.

STAFF TURNOVER: We have been incredibly fortunate to be able to find and retain a consistent number of our teachers over the past few years. This is generally not the norm given the availability of qualified candidates to teach religious school. Many synagogues go through severe staff turnover from year to year, which creates significant problems in creating a cohesive faculty unit that works well together and has long-term teaching goals as a school entity.

BUDGET AND PHYSICAL RESTRICTIONS: To some extent, all synagogues face either or both. Especially in the current economic environment, with diminished membership in most synagogues, maintaining a quality supplementary religious school is difficult.



By nature the curriculum of our school should be reflective of the priorities of subject matter that TBI deems important for our students to learn. Creating a curriculum plan requires attention to three key questions:

What knowledge and skills need be taught?

How should the identified knowledge and skills be taught?

Why should students expend the time and effort to learn the required Jewish knowledge and skills?



None of these questions is simple. What to teach needs to account for the nature of the student population and the realistic schedule limitations of a 5.5-hour per week schedule in the school.



The issue of how to teach relates to classroom atmosphere and teaching methodology. And then the why part relates to the importance assigned to each subject by those creating the curriculum.



For the past 3 years that I have been at TBI, we have been utilizing a curriculum in our Religious School that covers several different areas of Jewish subject matter over the course of grades K-7. It has certain "priorities" such as Hebrew/Prayer and Jewish Values that occur in every year. Other subjects are "spiral" in nature, occurring at different times during the course of those 8 years of study. Grades 3-6 also have Prayer Goals for each grade, which teaches our students the chanting, and meaning of Shabbat prayers for the evening, morning and afternoon services. Please see the chart on our TBI website under "Religious School".



Meaning-Centered Learning

Ongoing research in cognition and brain-centered learning increasingly points to pedagogies of engagement that are learning-centered, active, and involved in personal meaning making. Over ninety years of research in cooperative learning points to this instructional approach as one of the most powerful, not only helping people learn, but also in creating a caring and supportive classroom environment.



Our teachers are beginning to learn how to create and teach lessons with this meaning-centered methodology. Concurrently, the six Education Directors in NESS are receiving training in how to observe and direct teachers in the pedagogy of learner-centered education, that takes Jewish content seriously while promoting the application of that content in individual ways for each learner.



Our NESS Curriculum Subcommittee is currently in the process of writing a detailed yet flexible curriculum that is meaning-centered for both the student and teacher. It allows any teacher (with minimal or extensive teaching experience) to teach according to her/his own style while still being guided by the unique "Enduring Ideas" that are reflective of TBI's own education goals.



We are currently working on the first "strand" (working on one subject across all grades) of our new curriculum which deals with "Jewish Practice": Shabbat/holidays, Jewish lifecycle events, and enduring Jewish values. Many thanks to our subcommittee members: Marci Blum-chair; Donna Strassburg; Irv Leventhal; Shelley Menkowitz; and TBI teachers: Kathleen Blass, Pam Rosenthal and Sue Feller.



Donald Cohen

Education Director

eddirector@tbibluebell.org



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