Preparing Teachers for Jewish Schools: Enduring Issues in Changing Contexts

Abstract

The chapter summarizes the history of Jewish education and, specifically, Jewish teacher education as a response to the needs of Jewish education, from the late 1800s to the Present. It focuses on Hebrew Teachers Colleges as a response to the needs of immigrants at the beginning of the 20th century and the kinds of teachers needed for the time. It focuses on Teachers Institute at JTS as an example. The second half of the chapter looks at the growth of non-Orthodox and Orthodox day schools from the middle to the end of the twentieth century and the programs that grew to provide teachers for those schools. While PARDES and Melamdim were mentioned, the focus is on the DeLeT Program. A theme running throughout the chapter is the tension between teacher preparation focusing on content or pedagogy. The author makes a case for combining both.