A group of Jewish college students charged today that the “level of sophistication in teaching” in Jewish schools does not grow as young people mature in their ability to think.
Some 30 undergraduates at B’nai B’rith Hillel Foundation’s annual summer institute at Camp B’nai B’rith here said that as students progress in Jewish there education, they study the same basic “body of knowledge” they first learned at an “uncritical age.” The group, participants in a seminar on Jewish education that was added to the institute’s agenda at the student’s insistence, complained that young people did not learn how to interpret what they are taught in terms of their own lives and interests.
In calling for “issue-centered” school curricula, the group criticized educators who tried to “perpetuate Jewish values without explanation” instead of training students to question what they are teaching them.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
