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During the month of March, I will be publishing a daily proposal to transform the British Jewish community. Email your own idea (up to 350 words) to miriamshaviv@thejc.com
Today's idea comes from (my father) Paul Shaviv: Create a UK Centre for Jewish Education.
We could radically improve the quality of Jewish education by creating a UK Centre for Jewish Education.
This would be a national in-service training and resource centre serving all schools (from all streams, without distinction; kindergarten through secondary, full-time and part-time) and would produce curricular and teaching materials. Under the direction of a small permanent staff, teams of teachers could be seconded to the centre to work on practical projects.
The centre could organise and run multiple short courses – in the UK or perhaps summer schools in Israel – on content and methodology. It would preferably be linked to a cluster of ‘lab schools’, where materials could be tested in the classroom. An important part of the work of the centre would be the creation of a UK Jewish educational resource mega-website.
The Centre would work hard to raise standards in every area of Jewish studies. Material produced could be shared country-wide, giving a common language of instruction and common materials to an otherwise notoriously fragmented profession. It could educate the educators, and give a permanent home to the Jewish Studies teaching profession. It would encourage and facilitate the sharing of best practice. It could produce publications for students, parents, families and communities. It could have a special division to help small communities.
The UK Centre for Jewish Education could work with individual schools on ‘School Improvement Planning’ specifically in the Jewish content of the schools. It could suggest comprehensive minimum standards for Jewish studies programmes which, if met, could lead to some form of community accreditation – giving parents an assurance of quality. It could act as an information clearing house, centrally disseminating information to UK Jewish educators on the best and the most interesting happenings in the Jewish education community around the world. It could run seminars on Governance for lay leadership.
It could do many things; but its overall effect would be to give a properly funded, central, professional, effective ‘hands-on’ address to Jewish education in the UK.
Paul Shaviv, originally from the UK, is the Director of Education of TanenbaumCHAT, the community High School of the Toronto Jewish community, and author of The Jewish High School: A complete management guide.
Check out our previous ideas: 16 - Learn to talk to each other about difficult subjects 15 - Merge some of our charities and community services 14 - Hold joint events for JSocs and Islamic societies every term 13 - Create a virtual community 12 - Turn Anglo-Jewry into a learning community 11 - Turn Shabbat into the Greenest day of the week 10 - Focus on people, not institutions 9 - Create an online platform for Jewish students, 8 - Appoint anti-antisemitism champions, 7 - Share our synagogues and community centres with other religions, 6 - Establish a Succah in Trafalgar Square, 5 - Create a 'community service' programme for young Jews, 4 - Recruit older people to volunteer for the community,3 - Establish a fund for the Jewish arts, 2 - Pay membership fees to your community, not your shul, 1 - Make 2010/11 the year of synagogue renewal
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