The Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education:
transforming the quality of Jewish teaching and learning
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The Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education in its home
on the Brandeis University campus |
The Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education is housed in a beautifully renovated building on the Brandeis University campus that formerly served as the American Jewish Archives. As an archive, the building was focused on protection: thick concrete walls with few windows, lower level buried underground. To create the Mandel Center's offices, holes were cut into the windowless concrete, and tons of dirt were excavated to reveal the ground floor.
This transformation of the Mandel Center's home could serve as a metaphor for the transformation that the Mandel Center, with the support of the Mandel Foundation, has begun to effect in the world of Jewish education.
The Mandel Center approaches its work by first identifying the "black boxes" of Jewish education: the walled off, hidden worlds of scholarly research, teacher education, and the teaching of Jewish studies; and then designing openings -- doors and windows that foster interaction between Jewish educational practice in the field and Jewish educational research in the academy.
Founded in 2002 as the first academic center of its kind, in its current building since 2004, the Mandel Center is dedicated to transforming the quality of Jewish teaching and learning by supporting innovative research initiatives, and pioneering new approaches to the education of Jewish educators. To reach key audiences, the Center shares the knowledge and practices it has generated in a variety of formats, from articles in journals and its website, to seminars and study groups in partnership with national organizations.
"The Mandel Foundation has enabled us to bring together a team of exceptional
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MCSJE Director Prof. Sharon Feiman-Nemser |
people," says Director Sharon Feiman-Nemser, Mandel Professor of Jewish Education at Brandeis University. "The Mandel Foundation has shared our vision from the start, consistently supporting our work, and partnering with us as we advance our thinking."
An accomplished scholar of teacher education and teacher learning with 20 years of research and teaching at Michigan State University, Dr. Sharon Feiman-Nemser also brings to this endeavor a third-generation family tradition of Jewish teaching and learning. Her grandfather and her mother were Jewish educators of note in different times and places in American Jewish history. At the Mandel Center, she continues this commitment.
Assistant Academic Director Jon A. Levisohn, whose research and teaching in philosophy of education focuses, in particular, on understanding the interpretation of texts, both historical and sacred, in the context of teaching and learning, complements Sharon Feiman-Nemser's intellectual leadership.
Sharon Feiman-Nemser and Jon Levisohn have assembled a team of classroom and university educators, researchers, doctoral and post-doctoral fellows, and visiting scholars, along with a staff dedicated to facilitating and communicating their work. Together, they are building a body of usable knowledge and scholarship on the teaching of Jewish studies and the professional development of Jewish educators, bridging scholarship and practice.
The Educating of Jewish Educators: A Continuum of Professional Learning
Broadly speaking, the Center's projects are constructed across two strands: projects and research focused on the educating of Jewish educators; and the study and development of pedagogies of Jewish studies. The educating of Jewish educators is the subject of research in professional development with educators at different stages of their careers, and can be arranged along a continuum of professional learning:
Preparation (teacher candidates)
DeLeT (Day School Leadership Through Teaching) prepares
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A still from a video of a rounds discussion at South Area Solomon Schechter Day School in Stoughton MA. From left: Vivian Troen, DeLeT instructor; Shira Lowenstein, teacher and DeLeT alum; Marcia Shimshak, teacher; Sharon Duman Packer, DeLeT mentor teacher; Lee Silverberg, DeLeT Fellow.
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beginning Jewish day school teachers for grades one through six, while serving as a site for studying the goals, curriculum and impact of Jewish teacher education.
Induction (beginning teachers)
- The "Choosing to Teach: Enacting Values in Practice" study
examines the influence of teacher education and school contexts on the identities and practices of new teachers in Jewish, Catholic and public schools.
The Induction Partnership investigates the ways that Jewish day schools address the needs of beginning teachers, and helps schools build the institutional capacity to support beginning teacher development.
Continuing Professional Development (experienced teachers)
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Prof. Lee Shulman, President of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching addressing an invited audience of day school leaders during his Brandeis University visit. Co-sponsored by the Mandel Center, the Education Program, the Spencer Program in Educational Research, and the Brandeis University Office of the Dean of Arts and Sciences, his public lecture and several smaller meetings sparked important conversations about teaching and learning. |
- The Mentor Teacher Study Group and Summer Institute
creates a community of practice among Jewish day school teachers in which active leadership and rigorous exchange about teaching and learning lead to continuous improvement.
The Boston Mandel Teacher Educator Institute (MTEI) works with teams of educational leaders from Boston-area supplementary and day schools to build the schools' capacity for serious, ongoing learning opportunities for teachers.
The Intersection of Research and Practice: Boston as a "Laboratory"
Jewish life in the Greater Boston area is in the midst of what some have called a "Boston Renaissance." It is rich with Jewish educational opportunities for children,
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Teacher leaders from five Boston-area day schools participating in a full day working session of the Mandel Center's Induction Partnership. |
families, and adults of all ages. With the leadership of Dr. Sharon Feiman-Nemser, this vibrant community is a "laboratory" for the study of Jewish teaching and learning and the education of Jewish educators.
Day schools work with the university to develop theories, generate new knowledge, and create new practices of Jewish teaching and learning that will serve as national models. Examples include:
- The Induction Partnership helps schools to build the capacity to support the development of beginning teachers. Concurrently, Mandel Center researchers document the challenges these schools face as they create induction programs.
- Susie Tanchel, an instructor in the DeLeT program as well as a teacher and administrator at Gann Academy, a pluralistic community high school, was the inaugural Mandel Center Dissertation Fellow (2004-2005). In March, she successfully defended her doctoral dissertation in the Brandeis University Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies. Her project, entitled "Honoring Voices: Listening to the Texts and the Teacher, the Scholars and the Students, A Study in the Uses of Subject Matter Knowledge of Tanakh in the Contexts of Research and Teaching," combined original scholarship on Bible and innovative research on the teaching of Bible.
- Experienced teachers serve as mentors for the full-year internships of DeLeT fellows preparing to teach. They are supporting the next generation of teachers, while honing their own practices as educators. As DeLeT enters its fifth year, alumni of the program will soon be among the corps of mentors.
Transforming Jewish Teaching and Learning
The goal of the Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education is as big as it is straightforward: to transform Jewish education. Through rigorous study of the core practices of teaching and learning, and new approaches to developing Jewish educators, the Mandel Center has begun to effect that transformation.
As the Mandel Center nears its fifth anniversary, its impact is beginning to stretch far beyond that once-windowless building open to the sun and air since 2004, beyond Brandeis University, and beyond Boston. The Mandel Center is shaping discourse in the field of Jewish education, and directly impacting the lives of children and teachers.