The newest issue of The Covenant Foundation magazine - Sight Line - focuses entirely on Jewish supplementary schools, and features an interview with David Behrman, Behrman House publisher, and Vicki Weber, director of communications and customer support. Here's an excerpt from the piece, "A View From the Stacks: Behrman House Reflects on the Changing Landscape of Jewish Education."
What changes have you witnessed across the Jewish supplementary school landscape over the last 20-odd years?
David: It might be helpful to think about the different goals synagogue schools have today, rather than 20-30 years ago. Today, families are more concerned with affective learning—building identity, commitment, and a sense of caring—and less concerned with pouring facts into their kids for retention. So, for example, we might want to teach our kids to love Israel, but it’s less important to us if they know that Israel was founded in 1948. And this change in goals also changes the nature of the educational experience. On top of that, there’s less contact time in the classroom than there was before.
Vicki: Also, it seems that there’s more of an emphasis on pedagogical methods that put the child and child-thinking at the center. Many educators at congregational schools have embraced this educational philosophy as a way to connect kids emotionally to some of the things that we’re interested in having them understand.
Click here for the full interview.
