This article about the course I will be teaching this semester, authored by
Dr. Evie Levy Rotstein, appeared in
eJewishPhilanthropy on
September 14, 2017:
Each year the challenge seems to grow. Jewish educators are
frantically searching for qualified teachers to fill open positions in
their religious schools. Research for many years has indicated that
there is a shortage of well-trained teachers in Jewish settings,
exacerbated by the challenge of retaining strong teachers for these
part-time positions. (Westheimer, 2007). This past summer, though, the
problem was particularly striking: I received more requests than ever
for graduate students to fill multiple empty positions in the New York
metropolitan area. Is this problem intractable, or can something be
done?
Last winter, a group of seasoned NYC educators that form a peer
network group hosted by the Jewish Education Project in Manhattan began
to explore this very issue. They discussed how they might collaborate to
offer high level professional learning to encourage current religious
school teachers to become teacher leaders. One of the educators, Saul
Kaiserman, teaches our “Laboratory in Teaching in Learning” course to
rabbinic, cantorial and Masters in Religious Education students at
HUC-JIR New York School of Education. What would happen if these
educators could offer their faculty members such a course for graduate
credit at a highly subsidized tuition fee? What if the congregations
themselves paid for the course and then offered the teachers a salary
bonus upon the completion of the course? Might avocational teachers
begin to consider a career in Jewish education? There was significant
back and forth as the group hammered out what they would want in such a
course, whether their teachers would realistically attend such a course,
how many transferable credits it would be, and ultimately if the
finances would be feasible.
And behold a strategy for change was born. HUC-JIR made the bold
decision to offer students enrollment at an incredibly subsidized rate,
similar in cost to the introductory course for the Executive Master’s
Program. The professor offered to teach the course gratis, Congregation
Emanu-El of the City of New York agreed to host the course, and all of
the congregations were willing to provide the funding for the tuition.
At the time of writing, teachers representing congregations across NYC
have applied for a spot in this course
This is a story of community collaboration and the desire to address
the challenges of the teacher shortage and retention. We as leaders in
the field of Jewish education must continue to find ways to recognize
and validate the fact that our teachers need to continue their own
growth and learning to keep them from leaving the field. We know from
the data, that teachers who do not participate in ongoing professional
development are less effective in the classroom and less likely to meet
the emerging needs of students, administrators, and the field of Jewish
education. Our hope is that this course may be the catalyst for teachers
to seek a graduate degree and ultimately a full time career in Jewish
education. We also need to think about the future of Jewish education
leadership.
If you are interested in learning more about the course please follow this link or contact Dr. Evie Rotstein at erotstein@huc.edu.
