Distinct Perspectives within One Context

One of the elements emphasized frequently in these Editors’ Notes is the diversity of the articles featured. In the current issue, we again see a broad diversity of topics, but within one setting—that of Jewish day schools. Thirty-six years ago, as Alex Pomson states, the Jewish day school seemed not only an anomaly, but an “unpatriotic impediment to upward social mobility” (Pomson, 2011, p. 713). Today, as Pomson observes in the same publication, few sectors of Diaspora Jewish education provide so many opportunities for research.

Each of the four articles featured in this issue of the Journal explores distinct perspectives within this context.

We start the issue with an article by Eran Tamir, Nili Perlmutter and Sharon Feiman-Nemser which focuses on induction programs for new teachers within a broader scope of professional support and learning. How Day School Teachers Perceive Their Working Conditions: A National Study begins by observing that induction and mentoring are widely considered in the U.S. and in OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries as a basic universal and critical intervention for a successful launch of new teachers. Based on an expanded set of survey data, this paper focuses on how Jewish day schools offer professional support and learning opportunities from the head of school, the administration, colleagues, parents and the school community and how useful teachers perceive these resources to be. This study reveals that less than half of all teachers in the schools surveyed report participating in formal induction programs and believe their schools take the learning needs of new teachers seriously. The authors suggest that schools would do well to attend to this aspect of teacher support and consider the systems and structures that do, and do not, exist to help orient, support and develop new teachers. They conclude by observing that developing the structures and culture to promote on-going teacher learning not only advances professional development, it also stimulates growth and renewal on the part of mid-career and veteran teachers. The authors conclude that transforming accomplished teachers into teacher leaders rather than spending school funds on outside consultants builds capacity, strengthens teacher retention and satisfaction and has the potential to improve both teaching and learning.

Our second article, by Dr. Alissa Beth Burstein and Rabbi Dr. Eli Kohn: What Makes a Good School Leadership Program? A Qualitative Study of the Lookstein Center Educational Leadership Advancement Initiative (ELAI), poses the question: How do educators become successful leaders? This qualitative study sets out to learn more about The Lookstein Center ELAI program in Israel, as well as mentoring and leadership training in general, with the hope of offering insights to other school leadership programs. The mentor-mentee relationship was seen to develop into a collaborative partnership, with the reflective relationships becoming enriching for both the mentor and mentee. The findings also emphasize the value of mentoring for mid-career educators. In addition, the importance of the cohort experience was stressed. Finally, unique to the ELAI program, the authors explain how location was viewed as a very influential aspect of this leadership training program for Jewish educators. They suggest that whilst Israel as a location for leadership training is unique to the Jewish experience, attention can be given to how location and educational experiences can be an inspirational component to any leadership training. This study seems to indicate that, as with teaching, the affective components of such a school leadership training program can be of equal or even more significance as the cognitive ones. After all, as Burstein and Kohn state, educators train the heart as well as the mind.

Moving away from a focus on teacher development, our third article investigates an approach to character growth emerging as a movement in the 18th century, known as Mussar. This is an approach that has increasingly been incorporated into contemporary Jewish education. The purpose of Mussar—the cultivation of character—is consistent with the goals of Jewish day schools and other settings. In his paper Learning From A Mussar-Based Initiative in a Community Day School, Jeffrey S. Kress examines the implementation of a Mussar-based program in a Jewish community high school. He pays particular attention to questions raised by the introduction of this program into a pluralistic school setting, for example how the extent to which the program is able to straddle universal themes and particularly Jewish texts and language allowed it to flourish with the religiously/Jewishly diversity of a pluralist school. Implications are discussed in terms of the broader goals of Jewish education.

The final article in this issue looks at assessment in an ultra-orthodox school for girls. In this article Are There Jewish Digital Badges?: A Study of Religious Middle- and High-School Girls’ Perception of an Emerging Educational Technology-Based Assessment, the author, Sam Abramovich, explores how assessment can increase motivation to learn about Judaism, provide formative and summative feedback for Jewish learning goals, and provide more authentic Jewish credentials that will all lead to improved Jewish learning outcomes for young people building their Jewish identity. But knowing how an assessment should be constructed is only part of the challenge of education reform. Assessment tools that provide flexibility in dealing with the myriad of variables in any learning setting are necessary for creating the type of assessments dictated by current education theory. To generate these assessments, this article explains to the reader how digital badges have emerged as an educational technology that can motivate, generate feedback, and act as credentials. Abramovitch shows how digital badges can be representations of learning outcomes. He shows how digital badges have been used to indicate accomplishments, skills, identity, values, credentials, and interests in both formal and informal learning environments.

For Jewish education, digital badges can provide an alternative to traditional assessments. However, the emerging research on badges suggests a complex relationship between learning opportunities, the learner, and the design of the badge. An investigation of a digital badge system reveals new findings on digital badges as well as how badges can be used in Jewish education. Qualitative analysis of student interviews details how badges can motivate, provide feedback, and serve as credentials in Jewish educational organizations. This research proposes a view as to whether digital badges are Jewish.

Four articles, each of which in Kress’ words “appl[ies] a Jewish lens that enriches the work being done.” Kress’ paper explores Mussar’s focus on bringing Jewish text and tradition to bear on both self-understanding and action, using Jewish tradition to inform thinking about contemporary issues. Each of our other three articles also takes a contemporary issue in education, whether it is induction of new teachers, teacher development or student assessment, and also explores the issue through a Jewish lens.

This issue, 83(2), of the Journal, certainly illustrates Alex Pomson’s second observation cited at the start of this Editor’s Note. And the Journal of Jewish Education owes a huge debt of gratitude to Alex. We thank him not only for his contribution to research in Jewish day schools in the Diaspora, much of which has informed the work of many of his colleagues world-wide, but also for his enormous contribution to the work of the Journal of Jewish Education. Alex is stepping down after fourteen years of serving as an Associate Editor for the Journal. We have benefitted from his wisdom and sound advice and it is fitting that we can use these pages to formally thank him for his years of service.