GLENDALE – Congregation Beth Israel Ner Tamid is making its Sunday school look more like traditional Jewish learning.
Traditional Jewish learning — an educational model practiced in yeshivas and kollels — often features a pair of people studying together, called chavruta. The pair will typically discuss ancient texts with one another and explore applications to daily living. This fall, when the CBINT religious school starts back up, paired learning, including the study of original texts, will be a core feature.
“Learning in the past looked very different than our new model. It was a teacher presenting material to the class and leading a conversation, activity, or possibly a project,” said Beata Abraham, executive director at CBINT. “The learning was teacher led and was geared to full class engagement.”
Paired learning will be different. Paired students will read texts and talk about them, with a teacher available to facilitate. Later, the teacher will discuss the material with the class.
“A key experience in traditional text study is that one feels oneself to be in conversation with people who lived hundreds or thousands of years ago,” said Rabbi Joel Alter, spiritual leader of CBINT. Jewish values, he said, can be more meaningful when connected with original text.
Younger students, particularly through first grade, will be exposed to text-based learning but will more likely work directly with teachers.
But for older students, the new CBINT learning model allows students to take ownership of their learning by engaging with the material one-on-one with a partner, Abraham said. Classrooms will have learning stations, where paired students work together. Some students may choose to sit on chairs, others on the carpet. A student can grab a pillow to make a corner into a chair if they like.
Rather than presenting the material, a teacher will be there to facilitate the partner learning, allowing students to build skills to continue learning in the future. After the one-on-one learning, the teacher and students will gather to discuss the material with the class.
“It’s going to be age appropriate, and then starting in second grade and up, that’s when we’re introducing actual Torah text and Hebrew words that are extrapolated from the content,” Abraham said.
Abraham said she understands there will have to be active guidance on how to make the process work. She sees hurdles to work through: “What do you do if your partner is not engaging in a meaningful way? How do you ask for help? How can you bring them back in? What if you’re confused?”
Alter said this kind of approach to learning is hard to do well, but it helps that CBINT is not operating a large school with hundreds of students. This will make a nuanced approach to education easier to manage. “We hope to create a space that’s really fun and interesting and engaging,” he said.
“We feel very strongly that our congregation should be text-based learning congregation, and that starts in the Sunday school,” Abraham said. “It weaves all the way through adult learning.”
Other synagogues and institutions around the nation have incorporated text-based learning into their schools. Abraham is researching and connecting with them to better inform the CBINT model.
Abraham said she has “a beautiful vision” for what she hopes to see happen between two students:
Student one: “Well, this is what I think this means. Right?”
Student two: “Well, where in the text? What in the text makes you think that?”
“And I’d like them to learn from each other and say, ‘Well, I didn’t think of it that way. That’s kind of interesting. That wasn’t my point of view. What’s your point of view?’”
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