What Makes a Good School Leadership Program? A Qualitative Study of the Lookstein Center Educational Leadership Advancement Initiative (ELAI)

How do educators become successful leaders? This qualitative study set out to learn more about The Lookstein Center ELAI program as well as mentoring and leadership training in general, with the hope of offering insights to other school leadership programs. The mentor-mentee relationship was seen to develop into a collaborative partnership, with the reflective relationships becoming enriching for both the mentor and mentee. The findings also emphasize the value of mentoring for midcareer educators. In addition, the importance of the cohort experience was stressed. Finally, unique to the ELAI program, location was viewed as a very influential aspect of this leadership training program for Jewish educators.     

The retention question in context-specific teacher education: Do beginning teachers and their program leaders see teachers' future career eye to eye

This paper discusses the challenge of retaining teachers in hard-to-staff schools by examining how it is addressed in three context specific teacher education programs, which prepare teachers to teach in urban public, urban Catholic, and Jewish Day Schools in U.S.A. The findings of this study suggest that counter to teaching force trends teachers from the three programs that we studied expressed high motivation to serve as teachers or leaders in their particular schools and communities. In particular, we found that teachers' career commitments developed around the religious or civic missions promoted by their respective programs. Finally, teachers' career perceptions seem to correlate, though not entirely match, with those of their program leaders.     

以犹太巨人反观中国的儿童教育

犹太民族流浪世界各地数千年,历经坎坷不但没有使他们磨灭殆尽,反而造就了众多的犹太巨人。这样的成就与他们视学习为敬神的宗教观念和对早期教育、家庭教育的高度重视有着直接的关系,而大力投资教育和注重对创新精神的培养也使犹太民族人才辈出。本文在通过对以上因素的分析的基础上来反观中国儿童教育所存在的问题,并试图提出相应的对策。     

The “Job” of Jewish Education: Making Mensches at Camp and Beyond

ABSTRACT

This article argues that contemporary resources drawing from 19th-century Mussar wisdom and Positive Psychology in the context of Jewish camp are a great vehicle for communicating our virtues and teaching “21st Century Innovation and Learning Skills.” Based on practitioner research, this article draws on over a decade of working with Jewish camps across North America. Several common areas are identified: discernment of priority virtues, understanding the relationship between values and virtues, a common language, importance of developing resources, and cultivating communities of trust.     

Embracing Jewish day school education in England, 1965–1979

Between 1965 and 1979 the demand for places at Jewish day schools in England rose dramatically. In the preceding decades, most parents sent their children to state non‐denominational schools, showing little interest in providing their children with a solid Jewish education. Sunday or after‐school Hebrew classes, rarely extending beyond Bar/Bat Mitzvah age, sufficed. Yet beginning in the mid‐1960s, parents evinced increasing enthusiasm for Jewish day schools, both primary and secondary. This phenomenon has been attributed to various factors, such as the changing ethnic mix at state schools and Anglo‐Jewry’s communal pride after the Six‐Day War. It is argued in this article that the major concern of Jewish parents was academic achievement. Upon the introduction of the non‐selective comprehensive schools, parents fled the non‐denominational state system, preferring voluntary aided Jewish day schools, or, for those who could afford them, private schools.     

One country,two cultures – a multi-perspective view on Israeli chemistry teachers’ beliefs about teaching and learning

This paper presents a study focusing on differences in Israeli Jewish and Arab chemistry teachers’ beliefs regarding teaching and learning of chemistry in the upper secondary schools. Israel is a country experiencing the problems of diverse cultural orientation of its inhabitants but applying the same educational system to its diverse cultural sectors. Education includes the same curriculum in chemistry for both the Israeli Jewish and Arab cultural sectors as well as final examinations (matriculation) set centrally by the Ministry of Education. Thus, this study can serve as a striking case for other countries facing similar cultural diversity. The study is based on two different instruments that are both qualitative and quantitative in nature. The qualitative data stem from chemistry teachers’ drawings of themselves as teachers in a typical classroom situation accompanied by four open questions. The data analysis follows three qualitative scales: beliefs about classroom organization, beliefs about teaching objectives and epistemological beliefs. A quantitative study gives insights into teachers’ beliefs about what characterizes good education. The main goal of the present paper is to determine whether both groups of chemistry teachers with different sociocultural background in Israel hold different views about education in general and chemistry education in particular. The findings provide evidence that in Israeli chemistry classrooms, the beliefs of Arabic teachers differ from those of the Jewish teachers, although both groups live in the same country and operate the same educational system.     

价值多元时代的价值观教育——大学价值观教育的问题反思与理论建构

价值多元时代在丰富人们生活选择的同时,使大学教育尤其是大学价值观教育陷入了某种危机。在多元甚至相对的价值评判标准下,大学生的道德价值观、政治价值观、生活价值观等方面均暴露出许多不容忽视的问题。价值观教育是大学教育的灵魂与核心,面对上述问题与危机,大学教育必须坚守价值引导,培养学生的价值理性,以价值体验的方式形成学生的价值认同感。     

发达国家终身教育体系的构建及启示

发达国家基本建立了终身教育的推进机制,主要表现在:观念层面,重视并运用终身教育的理念指导教育改革和发展;理论层面,终身教育理论研究逐步深化;制度层面,终身教育走向法治化与规范化;实践层面,终身教育凸显多元化.深入研究发达国家推进终身教育的进程,对于我国构建终身教育体系有着重要借鉴作用.     

Theocratic pluralism is impossible

Educational diversification allowed and encouraged by pluralism is the opposite of diversity due to segregation: the one is tolerant and open, the other intolerant and restrictive. The education system of Israeli non-Jews is segregated, and administered by the Ministry of the Interior. Jewish theocracy justifies the discrimination post hoc and caused the Israeli education system to split into shades of religiosity, which is not pluralist as it breeds intolerance and narrow curriculum.     

从教育多元化的角度看教育公平问题

改革开放以来,我国的教育事业蓬勃发展。教育公平问题也日益突出。与此同时,教育向着多元化的方向不断扩展,更多的人获得了教育机会。因此,一些观点认为,教育多元化是解决教育公平的唯一途径。但教育多元化只能对教育不公起到协调和缓解的作用,并无法彻底解决。教育的绝对公平不易实现,对教育公平要正确理解,但我们仍可以通过继续加强普九成果、取消重点非重点之分、对贫困地区的学校加大政府财政投入、改善户籍制度、改革就业政策等措施达到教育的相对公平。