Leading with a Diversity Mindset and the Challenges of Teaching Others to Do So as Well

ABSTRACT

This paper is an exploration of the pedagogic challenges experienced in teaching emerging Jewish educational leaders about how to lead with a diversity mindset and create inclusive spaces for teaching and learning. Employing elements of self-study and phenomenology, we identify felt difficulties, examining how those were evident in our planning and teaching of the course and in student work. From those challenges we name lessons to be learned and questions for further study about the professional development of Jewish educational leaders who are responsible for creating cultures of belonging in their institutions.

KEYWORDS:

• Diversity mindset
• enduring dilemmas
• felt difficulties
• pedagogical content knowledge
• training educational leaders

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ During the 2020–21 academic year, Rabbi Ruth Abusch-Magder, PhD, a member of the professional staff of Be’chol Lashon, was contracted to teach segments of the course. Rabbi Abusch-Magder was involved in the planning and design of the course that year, as well as experienced some of the felt difficulties described in this paper. Her experience of the course was documented in our reflection notes and communications generated and shared during the teaching of the course. In addition, Dr Miriam Heller Stern, Vice Provost for Educational Strategy and Director of the HUC-JIR School of Education also participated in several reflective conversations with Winer and Steinman. We are grateful to both of them for their collegiality and support as we navigated the challenges of teaching.

² We are also cognizant that the terrorist attacks on the citizens of the State of Israel on October 7, 2023, the ensuing war, and the concurrent increase in anti-Semitic events in the diaspora are already impacting the present and future of Jewish educational leadership and the Jewish people.

³ Some experts and purveyors of this work no longer even use the acronym DEI, and have shifted to REDI (Racial Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion) or JEDI (Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Laura Novak Winer

Laura Novak Winer is the Director of the Master of Educational Leadership program at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion and a member of the HUC-JIR School of Education faculty. Email: [email protected]

Eleanor Steinman

Eleanor Steinman is the senior rabbi of Temple Beth Shalom in Austin, Texas and an adjunct instructor at Hebrew-Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. Email: [email protected]