Instruction of Jewish Studies in Public Schools to Be Offered As In-service Course to Nyc Teachers

A weekly course on the introduction of secular Jewish studies in public schools, approved by the New York City Board of Education, will be offered this year to junior and senior high school teachers. While in-service courses have previously been offered in Jewish subject matter and in Hebrew language instruction, the American Association for Jewish Education series is believed to be the first to deal specifically with the introduction and teaching of Jewish studies in New York public school curricula, according to Bernard Schwartz, the Board of Education’s coordinator of in-service courses.

The 15-week in-service course, to begin Feb. 6 at Jamaica High School here, will be conducted by the AAJE’s Commission on Jewish Studies in Public Schools. An in-service course allows teachers to accumulate credits to qualify for salary advancement. The AAJE applied for permission to offer the course “so that English and social studies teachers would be encouraged to acquaint their students with aspects of the Jewish experience,” said Dr. Theodore H. Lang, chairman of the group’s public school commission.

Dr. Lang, who is director of graduate programs in educational administration and supervision at the Bernard Baruch College of the City University of New York, said the Jewish studies programs to be taken up in the course “are neither artificial nor capricious” for inclusion in public school curricula. “Rather their portrayal of Jewry’s contributions to the development of Western thought, culture and literature distinguishes them as curricularly compatible and academically valid,” he said.

Max Nadel, consultant to the AAJE commission, said the course “will provide teachers with information on available course outlines, texts and materials for Jewish studies programs and will demonstrate methods and materials for teaching them.” He said it will cover the integration of supplementary materials on the Jewish people into regular English and social studies courses; the addition of “mini courses” on Jewry’s contributions to Western civilization, and to the American democratic process, to existing or contemplated ethnic studies programs; and the introduction of semester courses on Jewish history and Jewish literature as high school electives.

However, Nadel, who was formerly English Department chairman at the Bronx High School of Science, noted that the course would convey an approach that makes Jewish studies programs “acceptable to the entire school community–Jewish and non-Jewish alike.” He cautioned that these programs, or those of any other ethnic group, “must not project a single-minded focus that blurs the total picture pedagogically and sociologically. This means that a course in American Jewish literature, for example, cannot be regarded as a substitute for a general course in American literature, and that it should not be introduced without parallel programs offered in other ethnic writings,” Nadel said.

The course will include seminars on the Jew in ancient, medieval, American and modern world history; the Jew in American and East European literatures; Israel’s place in Middle East history, and the teaching of the Holocaust. Lecturers are members of the city’s Board of Education, principals and department heads of high schools. All are members of the AAJE commission.