And to thine own self be true: ideological tensions of Orthodox Bible teachers in pluralistic schools

Abstract

This phenomenological study looks at the ideological dilemmas that religiously Orthodox Jewish Bible teachers face when teaching in a pluralistic environment, where the majority of students would identify with a non-religious or secular worldview, in its varied manifestations. The study used a theoretical framework of ideological dilemmas, combined with pedagogical hermeneutic orientations, to understand the lived experience of these teachers and to identify the specific tensions that they encounter in classroom interactions. Ten teachers of diverse Orthodox affiliations participated in semi structured interviews to uncover their lived experience of the pluralistic school milieu, their students’ beliefs. Their pedagogical decisions in interpretation of Biblical texts and their hermeneutical approaches, were used as a vehicle for understanding these experiences. Two areas of tension emerged: 1. remaining authentic to their own beliefs while being sensitive to those of their students, and 2. the tension between the value they placed on pluralism from a pedagogical standpoint, while resisting this worldview on a personal level.