Excellence in Teaching—Here Too, it Takes a Village

Abstract

This article takes as its starting point the conviction that high quality Jewish education depends heavily on high quality teaching. Grounded in this idea and in a multileveled exploration—one indebted to recent Jewish thought—of the nature of excellence in teaching and its defining characteristics, the article proceeds to try to understand policy implications that might flow from possible and actual conclusions concerning these characteristics. Along the way, the policy implications that would flow from an inability to identify a core of characteristics shared by excellent teachers are also explored. The article concludes by highlighting the indispensable role of communities in fostering excellence in teaching in Jewish education: In explaining this role, it seeks to identify some of the key qualities of communities that succeed in this challenge.

INTRODUCTION

Although sometimes only honored in the breach, since ancient times, a core idea in Jewish civilization is that the welfare of a community depends on high quality education and that such education depends on excellent teaching. At their own peril, as well as that of their children's and their community, adults who care about Jewish life neglect the idea that teachers are the soul of the educational enterprise; and today, as much as ever in the past, we need to take this idea to heart if the challenges that face the Jewish people are to be adequately addressed. This is not to deny that we have come to burden educational institutions and teachers with responsibilities that may go beyond their capacity; nor is it to deny that powerful education goes on in settings that do not depend on the kinds of teaching that typically are found in so-called formal educational settings like day schools and congregational schools. But it is to emphasize that teachers working in classroom settings have, and will continue to have, enormously important educational responsibilities, and that the ability of the Jewish community to ensure their excellence is therefore an essential component of any sound approach to ensuring quality Jewish education. Indeed, when, as is sometimes the case, the bulk of educational reforms, either in Jewish or general education, do not either directly or indirectly give rise to improvements at the classroom level that enhance the quality of the encounters between teachers and learners, there is reason to be concerned about their wisdom.

My own observations grow out of the foregoing considerations and are intended to identify a framework of ideas that are relevant to the emergence of communal norms, attitudes, policies, and practices that are likely to strengthen teaching and learning in everyday Jewish educational settings. More specifically, although my starting point may seem far removed and concerns the nature of excellence in teaching, my hope is to use this point of departure as a springboard for highlighting the critical role of the larger community—and especially of local mediating institutions—in promoting the kind of excellence in teaching that is the indispensable foundation of Jewish education at its best. I will develop the view—one already embodied in the practice of a very few communities—that in this as in a number of other important arenas (e.g., moral development) have been described, “It takes a village” to achieve our hoped-for outcomes. What this means is that, where excellent teaching is more than an outlier phenomenon in a sea of mediocrity—where it is exhibited on a regular basis—it is likely to be the product of a stable, thoughtfully designed network of communal practices and support structures that reflect norms that insist on the need to develop and maintain those conditions under which excellence in teaching is likely to be widespread. When present, such excellence is as much a communal achievement as it is the achievement of individual educators; for it testifies to the seriousness of the community's commitment to quality education. ¹

But all of this puts the cart before the horse, for we have yet to consider what excellence in teaching is and why it is important to do so. This second question can be quickly disposed of. If it is true that quality education depends on quality teachers, a community clear about the elements that are constitutive of excellent teachers is likely to be better situated to have excellent teachers than those who aren't. Should it turn out that these elements can successfully be fostered, knowledge of them will make it possible to develop and mount appropriate professional development opportunities. And should it turn out that some or all of the relevant qualities of heart and mind are incapable of being fostered but can nonetheless be found among the general population and the population of teachers, then we are still better off, except that now more of our efforts will go into the identification, recruitment, and retention of those individuals who already have the desired qualities. We thus really see the importance of becoming more thoughtful about the qualities that make for excellence in teaching. The other question identified above, though, the one concerning the nature of excellence in teaching, is more difficult and cannot be disposed of as quickly. I now turn to this matter.

QUALITIES OF EXCELLENCE

The Meno (Plato, 1956) begins with Meno bursting in on Socrates and abruptly asking, “Tell me Socrates—can virtue be taught?” To Meno's surprise and chagrin, Socrates responds that it's impossible for him to answer this question because he doesn't yet understand the nature of virtue; and until he does, the question of how it arises is moot. Only when we have achieved the relevant clarity concerning its nature, will we be able to specify the essential qualities that enter into it and the ways in which those qualities arise—hence, the need for a serious inquiry into what virtue is.

Although Socrates' response seems intuitively sensible, many of the assumptions that inform it have been called into question over the ages. But although some of these challenges may prove relevant to our own topic, for now, I would like to transpose the Socratic view to the case of teaching– excellence in Jewish education, suggesting that even—indeed, especially—as we lobby hard for funds to support professional development, we need to step back and ask the basic question pointed to above: In what does such excellence consist and what critical elements enter into it?

The views of three significant Jewish thinkers who have considered this matter will offer a useful starting point for this inquiry. Consider, first, the view of Professor David Hartman, founder and director of Jerusalem's Shalom Hartman Institute. In a letter to Morton L. Mandel that dates back to the mid-1980s (Unpublished personal correspondence, quotation of which was authorized by both of the correspondents), Hartman emphasizes the dependence of Jewish education on the quality of our teachers and then goes on to problem diagnosis and prescription:

The key figure for any successful development in education is the teacher who impacts directly on the student. His enrichment as a thinking human being cannot be avoided. All techniques, equipment, classrooms, didactic methods, etc. are secondary to the major key to any successful development of in Jewish education, the imagination and creativity of the teacher … If that link is weak, the whole system will collapse … Therefore … the top priority is the enrichment of teachers. Although didactic techniques are important, the teacher must master the material he is teaching. I want to be clear … that I am referring to formal education at this moment. How to raise the teacher's knowledge—how to free him from the drudgery of boring lessons, how to being a teacher a creative experience… . Israel alone can not and should not be the source of teacher enrichment … [P]eople will not be able to grow exclusively from what Israel produces. Therefore there should be a tender sent to Yeshiva University, the Jewish Theological Seminary and the Hebrew Union College, asking them how they can enrich subject matter and teacher knowledge.

The attentive reader will notice that in this passage Hartman seems to be pointing us to three different important qualities that enter into teaching-excellence in Jewish education, qualities that he appears to rank in the following way. At the core of excellent teaching is Jewish knowledge, and its relative absence among those charged with Jewish education sets the most important agenda for those interested in strengthening Jewish life through education. ² But, Hartman suggests, as important as it is, such content knowledge is not sufficient to give rise to excellent teaching, to overcome “the drudgery of boring lessons,” and here he makes reference to “the imagination and creativity of the teacher” (but without suggesting whether—and if so, how—he believes these can be cultivated). Finally, although he declares this of secondary importance, he points us to “techniques, equipment, classrooms, didactic methods, etc.”—an infrastructure of pedagogical skills and practical arrangements which, united with content knowledge, imagination, and creativity, facilitate meaningful translation of content knowledge into successful educational encounters with learners.

In contrast to the Hartman view (or more accurately, to the aspects of his view suggested in the passage just quoted), ³ some of Abraham Joshua Heschel's writings point us in a very different direction. Drawing a distinction between textbooks and textpeople, Heschel (1972) urges that our present need is for the latter:

What we need more than anything else is not textbooks but textpeople. It is the personality of the teacher which is the text that pupils read; that text that they will never forget. The modern teacher, while not wearing a snowy beard, is a link in the chain of a tradition … Nations are represented by heads of state. The Jewish people is represented by every individual Jew … Man has to learn that the meaning of living is to be an example. (p. 237)

But just what are “textpeople”? Although admittedly his comments are only suggestive, one can draw certain reasonable inferences concerning what Heschel has in mind. He seems to be intimating that textpeople are individuals whose lives embody, whose every breath is suffused with, profound ideas found in the texts that make up the core of Jewish life; they are people who don't just talk the talk, but walk the walk in their own daily lives.

When we ask what more concretely this view suggests, several important ideas come to mind. First, Judaism, in general, and perhaps especially its fundamental texts embody powerful ideas—ideas with the potential to be exemplified in the lives of human beings like ourselves. Second, people who exemplify what it means to take these ideas seriously in their daily lives prove powerful teachers of these ideas. This is likely to be true whether or not the ideas they embody in their lives are the same ones that they are formally concerned with communicating in their teaching; nor does their ability “to teach” the ideas they embody necessarily have any direct correlation with their effectiveness as so-called formal educators. The critical point is that through the encounter with such people the nature and profundity of the ideas they embody shine forth, as does the possibility of really and meaningfully living them out. A corollary of this is that encountering such people may inspire and have a significant impact on the attitudes and lives of learners. In Dewey's (1963) parlance, encounters with such individuals is a powerful and positive instance of what he calls “collateral learning” (p. 49). ⁴

As an example, imagine a teacher whose job is to teach Jewish history but who is a person who exemplifies the idea that we should treat everyone in the spirit of “[t]his person has been created b'tzelem Elohnim”—in the Image of God. ⁵ The learners have in all likelihood heard this idea many times, but suddenly they encounter a person whose dealings with each of them (with other faculty, with secretaries and janitors, with parents—with everyone) is clearly shaped by this idea. If Heschel is right, the encounter with such people is likely to deepen their understanding and appreciation of such Jewish ideas and to influence the direction of their own lives in powerful ways. ⁶

Consider now a third view, one articulated by Martin Buber (1965) in an article entitled “Education”:

The relation in education is one of pure dialogue.

I have referred to the child, lying with half-closed eyes waiting for his mother to speak to him. But many children do not need to wait, for they know that they are unceasingly addressed in a dialogue which never breaks off. In face of the lonely night which threatens to invade, they lie preserved and guarded, invulnerable, clad in the silver mail of trust.

Trust, trust in the world, because this human being exists—that is the most inward achievement of the relation in education. Because this human being exists, meaninglessness, however hard pressed you are by it, cannot be the real truth. Because this human being exists, in the darkness the light lies hidden, in fear salvation, and in the callousness of one's fellow-men the great love.

Because this human being exists: therefore he must be really there, really facing the child, not merely there in spirit. He may not let himself be represented by a phantom: the death of the phantom would be a catastrophe for the child's pristine soul. He need possess none of the perfections which child may dream he possesses; but he must be really there. (p. 98)

Here we find Buber's dialogical outlook beautifully applied to educational settings. Whatever else the educator is attempting to accomplish, the core and soul of the activity of teaching is the relationship between teacher and learner. It is this that has the unparalleled potential to influence the learner's development as a human being—his or her whole orientation to life—in profound and decisive ways for all that follows. In a world in which human beings are threatened to be enveloped by a sense of meaninglessness—and indeed one in which they may not yet have experienced an anchoring sense of existential meaningfulness, the one remedy is an authentic relationship to an encountered Other who meets them in a way that facilitates an I–Thou moment. At such moments the individual glimpses the heart of being itself as revealed in the teacher and in him/herself. Here, in the midst of such a relationship, as Buber explains in I and Thou (1958), is the source—the only source—of real being. And it is clear from Buber's various writings that even one such moment of authentic encounter can decisively shape the direction of a person's life. ⁷ Note in addition that because Buber also holds that the I–Thou encounter is simultaneously the road that leads to glimpses of and encounters with the Divine and with the deepest truths to be found in Judaism, the facilitation of such encounters is not distinct from the challenges of Jewish education; on the contrary, such encounters must be at the heart of our lives as Jewish human beings and, to echo Hillel, “Everything else is commentary. Go and study it.” Thus, for Buber, as for educational philosophers like Nel Noddings (1984) who have followed his lead, the most important qualities to be sought in a teacher are those that facilitate entry into authentic relationships.

Having encountered three different Jewish perspectives on the key qualities that enter into the teachers we should seek to identify, educate, and place in educational settings, how should we proceed to use these perspectives as vehicles of addressing the larger question that triggered the inquiry? How can they help us achieve excellence in teaching? One possibility that may seem promising might be to work toward some integrated perspective that builds on the insights of all three of those views we have encountered. Whatever the potential to achieve such an integration (and I believe it is considerable), this strategy for clarifying excellence in teaching immediately faces an objection: Why [declares this objection] stop with these three perspectives? Are there not—within Jewish thought and in general education—many other compelling ideas about the core qualities that make for excellence in teaching? If you are seeking an adequate, integrated conception, wouldn't you benefit from incorporating these other ideas as well? But this objection forces us to recognize that, in the spirit of Ecclesiastes, to the listing of core qualities that enter into teaching excellence, there is no end! And, this in turn suggests that although we have encountered some powerful insights concerning teaching along the way, the strategy we have adopted for developing an adequate account of excellence in teaching may, for the reason just specified, be seriously flawed.

It is important to add that, predicated as it is on the assumption that certain shared, universal virtues will be found in the activities of all excellent teachers, the strategy we have been pursuing may also be wrong headed for another reason: For if, proceeding intuitively and pre-theoretically (i.e., without stacking the decks in favor of some conception of excellence), we seek to identify people who exemplify excellence in teaching, we are likely to find that they are extraordinarily different from each other, embodying and bringing to bear on their encounters with learners unique constellations of qualities (i.e., knowledge, skills, attitudes, habits of mind and heart, modes of engagement). Though a contemporary Jewish Socrates would shake his head in dismay, we need to acknowledge the possibility that excellence in teaching takes irreducibly different forms—so different that it will not be worth our time to keep trying to identify any essence that unites its various instances. ⁸

Whether or not this is a reasonable conclusion (and later on I revisit this idea), at this point let's explore the implications of this hypothesis for the strengthening of Jewish education. If we respond too quickly to this hypothesis, our first impulse may be to wring our hands in despair: Aren't we, some might say, helpless to improve teaching if we can't specify a set of excellence-associated characteristics that can be cultivated and strengthened in those who teach? But a little more time and thought should suffice to dissolve this sense of despair: Even if we can't identify some common characteristic that enters into teaching-excellence, we may, as suggested above, be able without difficulty to identify individuals who in their own unique ways exemplify excellence in teaching. If so, this would give us a powerful lever for improving practice: Our challenge will be to identify such individuals, to attract them to the field if they are not yet teaching, and to provide them with the appropriate arenas and the support (financial, social, and other) to enact their unique potential for excellence in teaching in a way that will prove sufficiently rewarding and meaningful to ensure that they won't burn out.

Second, even if excellence in teaching assumes irreducibly different, heterogeneous, even incommensurable forms, it doesn't follow that professional development designed to improve the quality of teaching is impossible. Here, I point us to ideas long ago articulated by Abraham Maslow (1968). Looking to the example of boxing and to the challenge of cultivating boxers of the highest quality, Maslow begins with the observation we have already made in relation to teaching: There is no single template for “excellence in boxing”—excellent boxers come in a variety of different shapes and constellations of qualities, with unique strengths, weaknesses, and potentialities. He goes on to say that the wise coach doesn't take boxer Joe Dokes (or, to be more contemporary, “Joe the Boxer”) and try to reshape him in the image of some predesignated ideal boxer. Rather, the coach's job is to work with what Joe brings, with his unique constellation of qualities, so as to help Joe become the best of his kind—the best Joe Dokes he is capable of becoming. The analogue in the case of the professional development of teachers is not hard to sketch out.

We have now identified two fruitful policy directions for enhancing the quality of teaching in Jewish education that are grounded in the notion that excellence in teaching cannot be reduced to any single constellation of qualities; and I personally believe that both of them are worthy of serious consideration and perhaps implementation by policy makers in Jewish education. Perhaps this is a reasonable point at which to draw the current discussion to a close. But I can't resist the temptation to briefly reconsider an hypothesis that we explored but tentatively dismissed earlier on—namely, the idea that we could identify certain constitutive excellences that are shared by excellent teachers who may otherwise be radically dissimilar. Is it possible that the search for such characteristics failed because we were seeking them at the wrong level? Guided by this hypothesis, and without making the sweeping claim that they will all apply to each and every case in which we are interested (i.e., that we will be unable to identify any difficult borderline cases or counterexamples), I suggest that the following list of excellence-associated characteristics at this other level may be a useful guide in our efforts to strengthen the field of Jewish education.

1. “By their fruits ye shall know them” (or “The proof is in the pudding”). Excellent teachers are the ones who regularly exhibit the capacity to fully engage learners in the present intellectually and emotionally and to influence them in ways that empower them to seek out and take advantage of opportunities to apply what they have learned and/or to engage in further education. ⁹

2. Integrity. Excellent teachers believe in (and—if often only very quietly and modestly—exude belief in) what they are doing.

3. Passion for excellence. Excellent teachers desire to do their work at a very high level of quality. They therefore tend to hold themselves to high standards—to be self-critical and self-correcting and to seek out opportunities for professional growth in ways that continue to enhance their effectiveness.

Although I believe that the alleged special importance of these three characteristics needs a robust defense, I will not stop to offer it in the context of this discussion. Rather, I offer them as promising candidates worthy of consideration. And if I am to be completely candid, I must add that I am not yet confident that precisely these three characteristics as currently formulated will survive critical scrutiny: Not only might one or more of them drop off the list of core characteristics that will regularly be found in excellent teachers, but we might want to add others. I draw attention to this not just for the sake of intellectual honesty, but because perhaps more significant than any particular list we can come up with right now is the idea that it may be premature to abandon the effort, Socratic in spirit, of trying to identify common characteristics that are typically found in excellent teachers. More important than the particular characteristics that make up the list I have proposed is the underlying hypothesis that, if we search for universal characteristics associated with excellence at another level, we may prove more successful—we may come up with a not-endless list of nontrivial elements, attention to which will help us to strengthen teacher quality in the field. But here it is worth re-emphasizing that if and how a list of such characteristics would help us design more adequate policy initiatives designed to enhance teacher excellence in the field will depend on the nature of the characteristics we identify. Note, for example, that, to the extent that one or more of the three elements identified above may not be amenable to cultivation but may need to be assumed (e.g., integrity and a passion for excellence), embracing such a list might lead us to heavily emphasize policies designed to recruit and keep the right kinds of teachers rather than to equip them with said-qualities. ¹⁰

THE COMMUNAL DIMENSION

It is important to add that establishing even a superb list of excellence-defining qualities will be insufficient to improve the field of Jewish education—even, I would add, if we have some pretty good ideas about how to cultivate such qualities in Jewish educators. In order for improvement to come about, a wholly other constellation of ingredients is necessary. This brings me to the last stage of my argument of which the decisive importance is signaled by the reference in the article's title to the phrase “It takes a village.” As is widely known, this phrase captures the idea that, at least in some important arenas, the cultivation of human beings who exhibit the most desirable set of qualities of mind and heart is unlikely to be brought about through any narrowly instrumental process designed by experts in the relevant arena. Rather, it depends on the opportunity for the targets of our hopes to be immersed in a culture the elements of which jointly, indeed, massively, support the emergence of these qualities. This is what Plato (1992) emphasized when addressing the challenge of cultivating citizens who would thrive in and help to sustain his ideal republic, indicating that not just the formal educational practices and the people that surround the young but also the popular culture must be at one with the desired ideal of citizenship. In a similar vein, this is what a number of thoughtful educators today intend to convey when they rail against quick fixes that can be introduced into schools in the hopes of promoting the moral growth of the young. Critics of these relatively conventional educational interventions note that none is likely to give rise to the significant and enduring results that their champions promise; on the contrary, only if children grow up in a community that is saturated with the relevant moral ideas and practices, including people and a popular culture that embody them in meaningful forms, are the young likely to emerge with the desired constellation of qualities and dispositions.

Analogous considerations apply to the cultivation of excellent teachers: As important as it may be to identify certain excellence-associated teacher characteristics, the likelihood that individuals with the potential to have them will actualize this potential, or that individuals who embody them will be drawn into the field of education, will continue in this work at a high level of quality, and will continue to grow professionally depends very heavily on whether they are situated in an hospitable and actively encouraging educational and communal setting. While it may be difficult, at least for now, to identify all of the essential features of such a community, it seems reasonable to believe that, at a minimum, the desired community will embody conditions that:

1. enable it to identify and recruit individuals who already have the characteristics that make for excellence in teaching or who have high potential for achieving such excellence. Not everybody is necessarily cut out to be an excellent teacher, even with the aid of exceptional professional development opportunities. It, therefore, behooves those interested in encouraging teacher excellence to think of those who have the capacity for excellence, either actualized or potential, as a scarce resource that needs to be discovered and treated with the best of care. Part of what this means is suggested by the two points that follow immediately below.

2. enable and encourage high quality teachers to find meaningful arenas in which to ply their trade and in which to continue to grow professionally. As Dewey (1944) and others have emphasized, people crave meaningful work—work through which they can make contributions to purposes they genuinely embrace through activities that draw on their talents and enable them to grow professionally and as human beings. ¹¹ Work that meets these conditions is not only likely to prevent burnout or alienation but to add to their abilities in ways that assure increasing effectiveness.

3. ensure that high quality teachers feel adequately supported financially and genuinely appreciated for their efforts and contributions. While offering teachers such rewards is unlikely to mean much if opportunities for meaningful work (as specified in point 2) are unavailable, these rewards are, both symbolically and practically, of critical importance if high-quality teachers are to continue in the field at a high level of quality.

There is good reason to believe that, other things being equal, a community that intelligently attends to these critical matters will over time be much more likely to sustain high quality teaching than a community that fails at these critical challenges. ¹²

It is important to add that a communal orientation of this kind towards teaching is not likely to be found in isolation from other important communal characteristics. More generally, communities that take teaching seriously in the ways just identified are likely to be communities that take education seriously—communities that recognize and embrace the potential of high-quality education to strengthen life at both individual and communal levels. Such communities are likely not just to exhibit high quality opportunities and support for professional development but also serious educational planning at all levels—planning that offers teachers and educating institutions rich inputs, guidance, and support without the kind of stifling control that chokes initiative and a sense of empowerment. The existence of such a community depends on the existence of local organizations passionately and intelligently committed to the improvement of Jewish education—and such organizations depend on and are likely to be nested in more basic organizations (especially, a dedicated community Federation) and a culture that support and empower the work at hand. Even more fundamentally, everything depends on the support and wisdom of enlightened lay and professional leaders who recognize that the kind of educational improvement we need will not come about through any quick fix, but will depend on a continuing striving for excellence—a striving that is informed by good sense, imagination, and dogged perseverance over many years. There are a few communities—but unfortunately, a handful at most—that serve as existence proves that such communities can come into being and sustain themselves. Lucky are the teachers who find themselves in such a community—and lucky is the community in which such individuals can be found.

In the belief that much can be learned from an examination of such communities that could benefit less fortunate ones, I close with the suggestion that it would be invaluable for the field of Jewish education to undertake systematic inquiries of this kind. The key questions concern not just what, in their mature forms, these exemplary or near-exemplary communities look like and do, but also how they emerged as communities of this kind. Even if such inquiries do no more than call our attention to some relevant variables that we might otherwise have neglected, rather than produce hypotheses and approaches that can be directly generalized and applied to new social contexts, they could prove valuable to reformers. This article is intended to encourage those eager to improve Jewish education to embark on such research and to bring their findings to the attention of those with the ability to shape social and educational policies in Jewish communities in North America and elsewhere. ¹³

Notes

¹Readers interested in a valuable study that offers empirical confirmation for some of my key claims concerning the importance and the possibility of enhancing teacher quality in a community, claims that are made herein largely based on a combination of theoretical and intuitive considerations, are referred to a recent McKinsey Report (Barber & Mourshed, 2007). In this illuminating study, the reader will find cross-cultural evidence for claims relating to the dependence of education on high quality teaching, as well as to the feasibility of developing intelligently conceived policies that will enhance teacher quality in a community.

²This view is consistent with research that was done in subsequent years (e.g. Gamoran, Goldring, Robinson, Goodman, & Tammivaara, 1994). Gamoran et al. suggested that Jewish teachers tend to be high on commitment to their work but weak with respect to their level of Jewish learning and their formal educational training.

³The parenthetical comment is important because in the case Hartman and the other two thinkers I discuss in this section, what I describe is unlikely to represent more than an aspect, albeit an important one, of their ideas about teaching-excellence and education, more generally.

⁴It is worthy of note that not only individuals who occupy formal roles as teachers are, in Heschel's view, under the obligation to be textpeople. On the contrary, as the quoted passage suggests, he insists that all Jews are called on to embody the powerful ideas that Judaism represents and to thereby function as teachers. All the more so in the case of those who have agreed to take on formal teaching responsibilities and to represent what Judaism stands for.

⁵“B'tzelem Elohim”—the idea that we are made in the image of God—is only one of many illustrations we might offer in this context. That is, the general point could as easily be made by considering a person whose life embodies one or more of the following core ideas found in the Jewish tradition: “the love of learning, informed by the belief that it is a holy, intrinsically reward activity”; “we are under a religious obligation to address social injustice within and beyond the Jewish community; “Ahavat Yisrael”—the love of, and remaining identified with the Jewish people, even those among them whose views and ways are repugnant to us”, etc.

⁶These ideas are consistent with a variety of other views and research findings. In particular, when people say that, more than anything else, “we teach who we are,” they have in mind a view like this.

⁷See, for example, Buber's (1965) discussion entitled “A Conversion,” in which he painfully recollects a moment in which he failed to be fully present—a failure that he believes contributed to the suicide of a person who came to him at a moment of personal decision.

⁸In abandoning the Socratic search for a universal essence that is at work in all forms of teaching excellence, it is tempting to reach for Ludwig Wittgenstein's (1991) idea that the various instances of a concept (“games” is the example he offers) are united by something that can be described as “family resemblance”; but, although better, even this metaphor may fail to capture the variety of things we are, in our encounters with the world, likely to characterize as teaching-excellence. But about such matters there may be disagreement.

⁹Students of John Dewey will no doubt recognize the indebtedness of this formulation to chapter 3 of Experience and Education (1963), in which he considers the challenges of pedagogy and curricular design and the basis for evaluating high quality education in light of his discussion of interaction and continuity.

¹⁰Note, moreover, that the first of the three characteristics (“The proof is in the pudding” item) is different from the others in that it refers not to a quality that infuses good teaching but to a criterion for judging excellent teaching. While it may be an important characteristic for us to attend to in assessing excellence, and though it may be instructive to study what people who satisfy this criterion are doing, it would not necessarily help us to develop a strong professional development curriculum.

¹¹See John Dewey's (1944) chapter, “The Vocational Aspects of Education,” for his powerful discussion of meaningful work.

¹²The need for reformers to focus on conditions that a concerned community needs to attend to in its efforts to strengthen education was effectively framed in the final report of the Commission on Jewish Education in North America (1990) in its discussion of what it calls “enabling conditions.”

¹³Although I have been concerned in this article with Jewish education, the argument as a whole (including the suggestion that we can learn important things from Jewish communities that are, in relation to the professional development of educators, state-of-the-art) also applies to general education.