Advancing the Learning Agenda in Jewish Education

Abstract

Introduction: What the "Learning Agenda" Is and Why It Matters on lernen-a Yiddish term which is typically Anglicized to "learning" but which, unlike the standard usage of the word "learning" as an achievement term, actually signifies the process of reading and discussing classical texts. Baruch Schwarz believes, however, that we have a lot to learn from how haredim engage in lernen in yeshivas, especially in terms of the positive valuation of argumentation and the cultural conditions that support high levels of self-motivation for study.The contemporary liberal Jewish summer camp is about as far from the traditional haredi yeshiva as one can imagine. But just as Schwarz brings the perspective of the learning sciences to bear on the latter, Joseph Reimer brings that perspective to bear on the former. And what he sees, when he does so, is an educational opportunity that is not fully realized-in part because it is not well conceptualized. His particular focus is on Shabbat at camp. Kids learn to do Shabbat, which is unlike anything they know from home, over time, through a process that looks a lot like Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger's "legitimate peripheral participation." 2 But then their learning trajectory flattens out. Reimer argues that David Perkins' concept of "whole game learning" 3 provides a more compelling framework, not just for understanding what does happen when kids learn to do Shabbat at camp, but for imagining about what could happen if we were to think about this process more ambitiously.The last chapter in this section turns to Holocaust education as a location for thinking about learning. Simone Schweber begins by admitting that we may be averse to trying to learn from an extreme case like Holocaust education, but persists in her inquiry nonetheless. She avoids the standard approach, which is to emphasize the moral lessons of the Holocaust. Instead, she finds other important lessons about learning-about appreciating the "messiness" of real lives and real moral quandaries, about the ways in which contexts shape our thinking, and most generally, about a desired outcome of Jewish education that she calls "reasonable Jews. "The third and final section of the book, "Conceptualizing Learning Outcomes," includes four chapters that tackle the question of learning outcomes directly. Of course, this distinction is somewhat artificial, because other chapters also propose ways of thinking about what we want students or participants to learn. Dorph and Schunn, for example, proposed "Jewish learning activation" as an outcome. Kolodner focused on fostering a self-conception of