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lxcellence in TeachingHere Too, it Takes a Village
Daniel Pekarsky
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203
Journal of Jewish Education, 75:203215, 2009
Copyright Network for Research in Jewish Education
ISSN: 1524-4113 print / 1554-611X online
DOI: 10.1080/15244110903120963
UJJE 1524-4113 1554-611X Journal of Jewish Education, Vol. 75, No. 3, July 2009: pp. 119 Journal of Jewish Education
Excellence in TeachingHere Too,
it Takes a Village
Excellence in Teaching Journal of Jewish Education
DANIEL PEKARSKY
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 explorationone
indebted to recent Jewish thoughtof 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 indispens-
able 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 childrens 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
Daniel Pekarsky teaches philosophy of education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, with
interests focusing on the moral dimensions of education, educational aims, and Jewish education. He also
serves as a consultant on education to the Mandel Foundation. E-mail: pekarsky@education.wisc.edu
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204 Journal of Jewish Education
found in so-called formal educational settings like day schools and congre-
gational 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
communityand especially of local mediating institutionsin promoting
the kind of excellence in teaching that is the indispensable foundation of
Jewish education at its best. I will develop the viewone already embodied
in the practice of a very few communitiesthat 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 mediocritywhere it is exhibited on a regular basisit is likely to be
the product of a stable, thoughtfully designed network of communal prac-
tices and support structures that reflect norms that insist on the need to
develop and maintain those conditions under which excellence in teach-
ing 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 communitys 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
1
Readers 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.
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Excellence in Teaching 205
teachers than those who arent. 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 quali-
ties that make for excellence in teaching. The other question identified above,
though, the one concerning the nature of excellence in teaching, is more diffi-
cult 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 Socratescan virtue be taught? To Menos surprise
and chagrin, Socrates responds that its impossible for him to answer this
question because he doesnt 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
arisehence, 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 evenindeed, 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 Jerusalems 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,
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206 Journal of Jewish Education
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 teachers knowledgehow 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 con-
tent knowledge is not sufficient to give rise to excellent teaching, to over-
come the drudgery of boring lessons, and here he makes reference to
the imagination and creativity of the teacher (but without suggesting
whetherand if so, howhe believes these can be cultivated). Finally,
although he declares this of secondary importance, he points us to tech-
niques, 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
Heschels writings point us in a very different direction. Drawing a distinc-
tion between textbooks and textpeople, Heschel (1972) urges that our
present need is for the latter:
2
This 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.
3
The 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.
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Excellence in Teaching 207
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 repre-
sented 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
dont just talk the talk, but walk the walk in their own daily lives.
When we ask what more concretely this view suggests, several impor-
tant ideas come to mind. First, Judaism, in general, and perhaps especially
its fundamental texts embody powerful ideasideas 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 Deweys (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 btzelem Elohnimin the
Image of God.
5
The learners have in all likelihood heard this idea many
4
It is worthy of note that not only individuals who occupy formal roles as teachers are, in Heschels
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
Btzelem Elohimthe idea that we are made in the image of Godis only one of many illustra-
tions 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
Yisraelthe love of, and remaining identified with the Jewish people, even those among them whose
views and ways are repugnant to us, etc.
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208 Journal of Jewish Education
times, but suddenly they encounter a person whose dealings with each of
them (with other faculty, with secretaries and janitors, with parentswith
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 existsthat 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 ones
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 childs 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 Bubers 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 learners
development as a human beinghis or her whole orientation to lifein
profound and decisive ways for all that follows. In a world in which human
beings are threatened to be enveloped by a sense of meaninglessnessand
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 IThou
moment. At such moments the individual glimpses the heart of being itself
6
These 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.
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Excellence in Teaching 209
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 sourcethe only
sourceof real being. And it is clear from Bubers various writings that even
one such moment of authentic encounter can decisively shape the direction of
a persons life.
7
Note in addition that because Buber also holds that the IThou
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 facili-
tation of such encounters is not distinct from the challenges of Jewish educa-
tion; 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 Nod-
dings (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 possibil-
ity 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 notwithin Jewish thought and in gen-
eral educationmany other compelling ideas about the core qualities that
make for excellence in teaching? If you are seeking an adequate, integrated
conception, wouldnt you benefit from incorporating these other ideas as
well? But this objection forces us to recognize that, in the spirit of Ecclesi-
astes, to the listing of core qualities that enter into teaching excellence,
there is no end! And, this in turn suggests that although we have encoun-
tered some powerful insights concerning teaching along the way, the strat-
egy 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
7
See, for example, Bubers (1965) discussion entitled A Conversion, in which he painfully recollects
a moment in which he failed to be fully presenta failure that he believes contributed to the suicide of
a person who came to him at a moment of personal decision.
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210 Journal of Jewish Education
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 formsso 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 lets 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: Arent
we, some might say, helpless to improve teaching if we cant specify a set
of excellence-associated characteristics that can be cultivated and strength-
ened in those who teach? But a little more time and thought should suffice
to dissolve this sense of despair: Even if we cant 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 wont burn out.
Second, even if excellence in teaching assumes irreducibly different,
heterogeneous, even incommensurable forms, it doesnt follow that profes-
sional 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
boxingexcellent boxers come in a variety of different shapes and
constellations of qualities, with unique strengths, weaknesses, and potenti-
alities. He goes on to say that the wise coach doesnt 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 coachs job is to
work with what Joe brings, with his unique constellation of qualities, so as
to help Joe become the best of his kindthe best Joe Dokes he is capable of
8
In 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 Wittgensteins (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.
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Excellence in Teaching 211
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 cant 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 diffi-
cult 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 (andif often only very quietly
and modestlyexude 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
standardsto be self-critical and self-correcting and to seek out opportu-
nities 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 con-
text 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
9
Students 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.
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212 Journal of Jewish Education
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 sig-
nificant 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 teach-
ers. 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 successfulwe may come up with a not-endless list of nontrivial ele-
ments, 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 char-
acteristics 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 cultiva-
tion 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 culti-
vate 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 articles 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 rele-
vant 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,
10
Note, 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.
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Excellence in Teaching 213
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 encour-
aging 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 charac-
teristics 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 devel-
opment opportunities. It, therefore, behooves those interested in encour-
aging 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
workwork 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
11
See John Deweys (1944) chapter, The Vocational Aspects of Education, for his powerful discussion
of meaningful work.
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214 Journal of Jewish Education
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
seriouslycommunities 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 levelsplanning that offers teachers and educating institu-
tions 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 educationand
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 pro-
fessional 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 excellencea striving that is informed by good
sense, imagination, and dogged perseverance over many years. There are a few
communitiesbut unfortunately, a handful at mostthat serve as existence
proves that such communities can come into being and sustain themselves.
Lucky are the teachers who find themselves in such a communityand
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
12
The 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.
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Excellence in Teaching 215
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
REFERENCES
Barber, M., & Mourshed, M. (2007, September). How the worlds best-performing
school systems come out on top: A McKinsey report. New York: McKinsey & Co.
Buber, M. (1958). I and thou. New York: Charles Scribners Sons.
Buber, M. (1965). Between man and man. New York: The Macmillan Company.
Commission on Jewish Education in North America. (1990). A time to act. New York:
University Press of America.
Dewey, J. (1963). Experience and education. New York: Collier Books.
Dewey, J. (1944). Democracy and education. New York: The Free Press.
Gamoran, A,, Goldring, E., Robinson, B., Goodman, R. L., & Tammivaara, J. (1994).
Policy brief: Background and training of teachers in Jewish schools. New York:
Council for Initiatives in Jewish Education.
Heschel, A, J. (1972). The insecurity of freedom. New York: Schocken Books.
Maslow, A. (1968). Some educational implications of the humanistic psychologies.
Harvard Educational Review, 38(4), 685696.
Noddings, N. (1984). Caring. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Plato. (1956). Protagoras and meno (W. K. C. Gurthrie, Trans.). Baltimore: Penguin
Books.
Plato. (1992). The republic (G. M. A. Grube, Trans.). Indianapolis, IN: Hacket.
Wittgenstein, L. (1991). Philosophical investigations. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell.
13
Although 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.
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