Reflective journaling is frequently employed to help preservice educators make sense of fieldwork experiences. Analyzing the weekly journals of eight preservice educators, I offer conceptual language to describe how journal writing provides a window into students' capacity for reflection. This capacity is described in terms of three continua:…

This article discusses an action research study of a week-long Summer Teachers Institute which immersed teachers in the study of Jewish historical and cultural texts. We investigate how this kind of cultural immersion created opportunities for transformative learning--the kind of learning that would not merely be the application of "new…

This case study examines the contours of culturally relevant pedagogy in an undergraduate preservice teacher education program for Jewish women. The case describes how the assigned reading of Albarelli's (2000) narrative of teaching in a Hasidic Jewish school, "Teacha! Stories from a Yeshiva", disrupts the classroom community,…

Practitioner research was conducted on Grade 10 students' arts-based projects of Numbers 12 in order to assess the value of using the arts in Jewish secondary schools. Based on interview transcripts, projects, and written statements, three themes emerged that demonstrated why teachers should use the arts in their classes. The arts provided…

In this article we explore how we as teacher educators translate a new vision of Israel education into curricular practice in the preparation of emerging Jewish educators. Using a practitioner inquiry mode of research, we reflect on our existential vision of Israel education and its translation into practice as creators and directors of a semester…

By examining writing about Israel education since the founding of the State, this paper highlights three questions that have surfaced repeatedly in Jewish educational discourse: What is the purpose of teaching American Jews about Israel? Who is best equipped to teach American Jews about Israel? How can Israel education foster positive…

This article sketches the trajectory of Hebrew education in the United States from the early 1900s to the present. Attending to the historiography of Hebrew education, it shows how current curricula and pedagogical approaches have been stamped by historical considerations and language ideologies, how goals and strategies have changed (or remained…

This article discusses the research we have and the research we need in both general and Jewish teacher education. First, I discuss three recent efforts to synthesize and assess existing research in teacher education and to identify needed research. Next I review a handful of recent studies in Jewish teacher education which illustrate various…

This article documents the "Journal of Jewish Education's" acquisition by the Network for Research in Jewish Education, in 2004, and evaluates the contribution of the re-launched Journal to the field of Jewish education. I explore how the Journal contributed over the past decade in three discrete yet often overlapping areas, thereby…

Experiential Jewish education has been experiencing a time of growth, during which theory development, research, and practice have established a strong voice for the construct. Much of the focus to this point has been on definitions (particularly the distinction between "experiential" and "informal" Jewish education) and on…

Writing this article presents me with an opportunity to look closely at the last speech that my father and mentor, Professor Michael (Mike) Rosenak z"l gave before his passing in 2013. I will write about this speech from a perspective that is based on my intimate familiarity with the questions that concerned him throughout his life. I will…

Based on the author's great privilege to have known Mike Rosenak over many years as a conversation partner on issues of Jewish though, Jewish education, and the contemporary Jewish situation, he presents an issue of current concern in the philosophy of Jewish education and considers the response that Rosenak might offer. Directly and…

Rosenak's "Teaching Jewish Values" (1986) is perhaps his most accessible book about Jewish education. After diagnosing the "diseases" of Jewish education, he endorses "teaching Jewish values" as the curricular strategy most likely to succeed given the chasm which divides traditional Jewish subject matter and the…

The thoughts of Mordecai Kaplan and Michael Rosenak present surprising commonalities as well as illuminating differences. Similarities include the perception that Judaism and Jewish education are in crisis, the belief that Jewish peoplehood must include commitment to meaningful content, the need for teachers to teach from a position of…

Michael Rosenak uses the twin metaphors of "language" and "literature," borrowed from Oakeshott and Peters, to argue that the goal of education is initiation into a language. This goal transcends the study of literature in that language. It includes, as well, the development of the capacity both to critique literature and to…