Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Jewish religious education of childern'

The Jewish community has increasingly relied upon Experiential Education as a pedagogical approach to instilling Jewish identity and communal affiliation over the past twenty years. The Experiential Education format of travel programs has specifically been emphasized and promoted for Jewish Emerging Adults for this purpose, and outcome studies of these trip programs have demonstrated success in instilling identification and affiliation with both the Jewish community and the state of Israel among their participants. However, little is actually empirically known about the processes that impact the participant during the trip experience – the so-called "black box" – or how significant a participant's predisposition towards Israel and Judaism are in how they process their trip experiences. Even less is empirically known about the identity development of Jewish Emerging Adults in large part due to a pre-disposition to study Jews developmentally only as affiliates of a religion rather than members of a distinctly multi-layered group.

This grounded theory study examines participants in two different trip experiences, Taglit Birthright Israel and an Alternative Spring Break, through post-trip interviews. The emergent theory suggests three conclusions: The predisposition of a participant towards their own Jewish identity can influence how they process their experiences on the trip; the actual trip experience can be best understood as repeatedly processing multiple and ongoing experiences within the trip itself; the processing of those experiences can be descriptively modeled as a theory that allows an glimpse in to the "black box." Such a theoretical model can be used to better train trip staff on how the trip experience impacts the Jewish identity of those participants and also to plan trip itineraries to optimize the trip's experiential impact on participant Jewish and Zionist identity and communal affiliation.

How does the ritualist conceptualize the educational elements of the brit milah process?

Jewish educators function in diverse roles and venues. Teachers formally instruct in classroom settings, camp counselors informally teach in the bunk or dining hall and clergy teach about our Jewish tradition by carefully planning experiential education programs, preaching from the bimah (podium), chanting from the lectern and carrying on their daily activities in synagogues. In accord with an expansive vision of Jewish education, I suggest that ritualists too, through language and action, teach fundamental aspects of Jewish life as they interact with others in the context of guiding families through life-cycle events.

This dissertation examines the interactions of the ritual leader or circumciser referred to as the mohel during the life-cycle rite of passage of ritual circumcision or brit milah. I examine the mohel's educational work by describing his interactions with celebrant families and their guests before, during and after the ritual ceremony. After reviewing aspects of ritual theory and educational theory, I employ Schwab's four commonplaces of education as the lens through which to determine how ritual affects pedagogy and, as a corollary, how pedagogy is affected by ritual structure. This study explores the conceptualizations of seven prominent mohalim, three of whom were studied in-depth over a seven month period. I used a mixed methods qualitative research approach by conducting in-depth interviews, observing mohalim in their natural settings and conducting follow-up interviews. In addition to material gathered from these interviews, data collection included field notes, transcription recordings and artifact collection.

The data analysis shows that mohalim employ a number of teaching styles and orientations and accommodate multiple meanings during the brit milah process. Additionally, through their interactions, mohalim implicitly teach about both ritual structure and Judaism in general.

A conclusion of the research shows that both through their actions and use of ritual language, it is the educational goal of mohalim to present and communicate a vision of Judaism as a morally sound way of life, and that by fostering feelings of connectedness, to family, generations, spiritual ancestors, community, the people of Israel, or the heritage of Judaism, people's lives become imbued with great meaning and significance. As two practical implications of the study, I propose nine pedagogic principles of ritual engagement and the expansion of collegial interaction which may serve as useful tools for mohalim as they become more reflective regarding their educational responsibilities. Additionally, this work implies a new way to orient the educational thinking of ritualists in general as they approach their work as a potentially transformative experience found along a continuum of Jewish encounters with celebrant families.

This mixed methods study investigated teacher, parent, and school leader perceptions of the impact of parent communications and expectation on teacher practices, focusing specifically on four categories: grading, communication, instructional, and curriculum practices. Quantitative data were collected through online surveys from 25 teachers in second through fifth grades, as well as 96 parents of second through fifth-graders, in five private Jewish day schools located in the Southeastern United States. Qualitative data were collected from ten teachers, ten parents, and three school leaders who provided interviews, where they elaborated on the nature of parental communications and expectations at their own schools and their perceptions of their impact on teacher practices.

The findings indicated that parent communications take place with high frequency, and are initiated fairly evenly between parents and teachers. Parents and teachers differ on their perceptions of negativity of communications, with teachers reporting more negative communications than parents. A t-test was conducted on the survey items that corresponded with the four categories to compare parent and teacher responses. There were some statistically significant differences in the perceptions of parents and teachers of the impact of particular types of parent communications on teacher practices in private Jewish day schools. These included requests for reviews of a child's grade or a grade change, as well as requests for changes in the content of homework. However, the qualitative data overwhelmingly indicated that parents and teachers have similar perceptions of the impact of parents communications and expectations. They felt that parents occasionally request certain changes, but that these changes have minimal impact in the classroom, outside of isolated, individual events. The school leaders who participated in the study agreed that, for the most part, the day-to-day practices of teachers were not greatly impacted by parent communications.

Akiba Hebrew Academy was founded in Philadelphia in 1946 as the first community Jewish secondary day school in America. Akiba was a drastic departure and in effect, counter-cultural: an all-day secondary school program defined as community (not attached to a denomination and certainly not Orthodox), integrative (general and Jewish studies), and progressive, a term that carried weight in the Philadelphia marketplace, drawing talented faculty and skeptical parents to this yet unknown entity. Most Jewish parents were committed to public school education, favoring denominational supplemental religious schooling.

Despite Akiba’s status as the first of its kind in American Jewish educational history, little has been written about it as a progressive school or about its leadership. Even less is known of the influence of the curriculum or the faculty on its graduates. Using archival material, this study examines the nature of the school’s curriculum and especially the leadership of its visionary curricular architect, Louis Newman, from his selection as principal in 1951 until 1963, when he left the school for an appointment to a national curriculum initiative. It specifically explores to what degree the overt and hidden curriculum followed the founders’ initial intent. Through the use of narrative inquiry methodology, the use of participant interviews and the examination of archival material such as personal letters and communication, the study also investigates the impact of those decisions on administration, parents, faculty and early graduates in an effort to understand the influence of the school on the community and especially its students’ identities.