Learning to be Present: How Hevruta Learning Can Activate Teachers' Relationships to Self, Other and Text

Abstract

This article focuses on the ways hevruta learning can contribute to teachers' capacity to be present to self, other, subject matter and the cultural context in which the learning occurred. Hevruta learning, when conceptualized for the purposes of teachers' professional development, brings to the fore both the interpretive and relational aspects of the learning process. The theoretical frameworks of philosophical hermeneutics and relational psychology infuse our design of hevruta learning as well as our analysis of teachers' unfolding awareness of presence.

Drawing on qualitative data reflecting teachers' experiences in a week-long Summer Teachers Institute dedicated to text study and hevruta learning, this article describes the teachers' engagement with and exploration of each dimension of the relational triangle (i.e., teacher, student, and subject matter interactions; Hawkins, 2002). Data suggests that there was an activation or intensity in these dimensions, which was the result of the consistent and constant demands to engage with specific hevruta learning practices. This study's findings suggest that hevruta learning can be a powerful form of professional development because the intensity of experience with the relational dimensions of the learning process allows teachers to assume a new stance. The nature of this experience invited teachers to develop their capacity to be present to self, fellow learners and the text, thereby offering them the opportunity to consider how they would bring back and translate these lessons to their own classroom worlds.

The authors wish to thank Harriet Cuffaro, Mark Raider, Vicki Stieha, and the anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful questions and feedback on earlier drafts of this article.

Notes

¹The authors wish to thank Kimberly Fulbright for sharing this passage with us.

²The STI was sponsored by the Center for Studies in Jewish Education and Culture, University of Cincinnati, in partnership with Brandeis University's Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education and the Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives. The STI was supported by the University of Cincinnati, The Jewish Federation of Cincinnati, The Fisher Family Foundation, The Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives, and Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.

³We thank Sharon Feiman-Nemser for teaching us this concept of principled practice.

⁴The Beit Midrash Research Project investigates teaching and learning in a unique professional development experiment using text study and hevruta learning. It is co-directed by Elie Holzer and Orit Kent. See http://www.brandeis.edu/mandel/projects/beitmidrash.html

⁵For an examination of teachers' experiences of feeling othered or marginalized during the STI (see Raider-Roth, Stieha, & Hensley, in progress). For an investigation of teachers' examination of multiple identities see Raider-Roth & Holzer, 2009).

⁶All teachers were assigned pseudonyms to protect their identity.

⁷This is not to imply that the STI curriculum assumed a simple transfer from teacher experience to practice. In fact, the issue of transfer in professional development is highly complex and is beyond the scope of this article (Borko & Putman, 1996; Munby, Russell, & Martin, 2001; Wideen, Mayer-Smith, & Moon, 1998).

⁸For more on the connection between reflection and presence, see Raider-Roth, 2008, and Rodgers, 2002.