Teaching Rabbinic Literature
On January 27-28, 2008, teachers of rabbinic literature from colleges and universities, Jewish day schools, yeshivot, institutes of advanced Jewish studies, synagogues, adult education and informal educational settings will gather at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts, for a research conference, Teaching Rabbinic Literature. This conference follows an earlier conference in 2005 on Teaching Bible.
The goal of a research conference, as opposed to a workshop, is to focus on the generation, sharing and critical analysis of ideas. The conference will be guided by a spirit of inquiry, rather than demonstrating techniques or training participants to teach in certain ways. Most if not all sessions will focus on a particular question that the presenter intends to pursue through disciplined inquiry.
At the same time, the conference will focus on questions that emerge from and are directly related to practice; in this case, the practice of teaching rabbinic literature in various settings. For example, some presentations will focus on particular challenges in teaching rabbinic literature. Some will take an apparently straightforward process –such as planning a lesson or developing a curriculum in rabbinics or helping students learn through a given sugya – and examine it closely. Some will explore the nature of what Shulman calls “pedagogical content knowledge” in the field of rabbinic literature. And some will examine the purposes of teaching rabbinic literature in particular contexts, in an effort to identify and analyze distinct orientations to the subject.
Tthere will be about 25 educators from day schools affiliated with the Solomon Schechter Day School Association at the conference, representing 9 or 10 schools. These include 14 from 4 schools that received grants to send teams of educators: Schechter of Manhattan (3), Chicagoland Jewish High School (3), Reuben Gittelman Hebrew Day School (4), and Perelman Jewish Day School (4).
