Dear Shalom,
I'm responding to Stuart Zweiter's question about, "how Jewish high schools and junior high schools of all stripes are educating their students regarding Israel." For the last two years a research team from the Melton Centre for Jewish Education at Hebrew University has been engaged in studying precisely this question with support from the AVI CHAI Foundation, and also from the Jim Joseph and Schusterman Family Foundations through the iCenter.
Howie Deitcher and I have completed a number of reports and papers about this work, links to which are included below. At February's day school conference, in a keynote session, we will also be presenting data from video-interviews with high school sophomores.
* A summative report, based on a quantitative and qualitative study of Israel education at some 300 schools can be found at [
melton.huji.ac.il]
* A report of what we found from analyzing some 70 Israel education curricula can be found at [
melton.huji.ac.il]
* A searchable database of curriculum for teaching about Israel can be found at [
virtualmelton.huji.ac.il]
* A synthetic discussion of the research findings was published in Journal of Jewish Education 76(1), 52-73., at [
www.informaworld.com]
While we found evidence of outstanding practice in a number of settings, we summarize our findings as follows:
"Israel education in day schools lacks clear educational purposes; is undermined by poorly coordinated and fragmented practices; is distorted by an over-reliance on informal educational experiences that are often sub-contracted to external providers; and is bombarded by a confusion of initiatives that purport to solve the disconnect between American Jewish youth and the State of Israel."
You will note that we dont say that the field needs new curriculum. We actually think that it is overprovided to that extent. The challenge, we suggest, is not to write new materials, but to better deploy those that already exist.
Howie Deitcher and I would be happy to share more of our work, with anyone who is interested.
Alex Pomson
apomson@mscc.huji.ac.il
Melton Centre for Jewish Education, Hebrew University
