A Link in the Chain: Tips for Teaching Jewish History in Elementary Schools

Educators have often been guided by a conventional "wisdom" that students in grades 5 and 6 do not yet have a sense of historical thinking. This idea is challenged in an article entitled "Historical Thinking in the Elementary Years: A Review of CurrentResearch"  by Amy von Heyking,  in which she concludes that:

1. Thinking historically does not just mean thinking about the past; it involves seeing oneself in time, as an inheritor of the legacies of the past and as a maker of the future. 

2. Many studies support the claim that elementary children and adolescents can develop quite sophisticated historical thinking skills within an appropriate context of active engagement with source material, alternative accounts and teaching that scaffolds children's emerging understandings and skills.

3. Understanding change over time is central to historical thinking.

4. Children who are able to appreciate the subtleties of historical change are those who can make connections with their own experiences.

These ideas are quite relevant to Jewish education, which attempts to help students view themselves as part of the continuum of Jewish history and tradition. In a recent article published in Hayedion entitled "Inheriting the Past, Building the Future: Developing Historical Thinking in Upper Elementary Student", JETS associate Stan Peerless, in collaboration with Lisa Micley, apply von Hayking's conclusions to Jewish education. In the article, they describe new online Jewish history modules being developed by Behrman House that can be integrated into different curricular areas in 5^th and 6^th grade Jewish studies. The program utilizes the idea of a time travel app that enables the children in the story to experience different events, personalities, and periods in Jewish history as they search for answers to essential questions that derive from their contemporary lives.

The article includes examples from the curriculum that demonstrate how von Hayking's principles are incorporated in the program.  These examples also indicate the degree to which online learning can be used to make classroom learning experiential.

The authors conclude with guidelines for teachers who might want to create their own Jewish history modules for upper elementary students:

·      The first principle that can be derived is that history teaching does not begin in the past. Rather, it must begin in the present, with the actual experiences of the students and with issues that they or their contemporaries face.

·      The second principle is that students should be introduced to the broad strokes of historical change in Jewish history rather than to isolated events that occurred on specific dates.

·      The third principle is that the historical changes found in history must be explicitly tied to the personal lives of the students and their contemporary reality. Furthermore, the students must be actively engaged in discovering and formulating those connections.

Effective teaching of Jewish history can provide students with a learning experience that fulfills the function of historical learning as described by historian Gerda Lerner: "It gives us a sense of perspective about our own lives and encourages us to transcend the finite span of our life-time by identifying with the generations that came before us and measuring our own actions against the generations that will follow … We can expand our reach and with it our aspirations."

JETS online history class "Comparing the Land for Peace issues that the Jews of  the Roman era faced with the Land for Peace issues that Israel faces today:

                  

Are You Team Zakkai or Team Saccari?

Who should rule over the Land of Israel? What should the Jewish government's relationship be with foreign powers? Does being a Jewish patriot mean that one should agree with everything that the leaders say? What is the "right" Jewish leadership anyway?

Interestingly enough, these questions have been debated by Jews throughout the millennium and students can now take part in this discussion via today's distance learning framework.

Kadima, a St. Louis Jewish Day School, has brought these and other issues into their Jewish history class as the students examine relationship between the Sacarii -- a Jewish group of rebels who terrorized the local population into revolting against the Romans -- and the followers of Rabbi Yochanan Ben Zakkai who led a more moderate faction in 1^st century C.E. Jerusalem.

After learning about the origins and philosophies of the two groups the students were encouraged to put their own spin into the discussion.

Why did the Sicarii believe as they did? Were they right to take their struggle to the extreme "in the name of G-d." How might the Sicarii be called today?

Using a wide range of online tools the Kadima students have begun to delve into the history, and the dilemmas, of the era. Students participate in an online poll to decide how to describe the Sicarii -- political assassins? Terrorists? Fascists? Zealots?  -- and to think about what they would do in such a circumstances. They share their thoughts and ideas on the Haiku board which the class uses as a Learning Management System for the class.

The students studied Yirmiyahu's letter to the exiles and then were encouraged to compose their own letter with advice and warnings. The class compared Yirmiyahu's letter to an early 20^th century writing by Rebbe Meir Simcha of Dvinsk and then reviewed the Roman expulsion of the Jewish from Jerusalem to subsequent expulsions and persecutions.

The Kadima class is unique in that the school's boys and girls learn separately. Using online tools however, the classes can participate as one unit. The class meets with the boys in one room and the girls in another as they all have access to the teacher simultaneously and can study, explore, provide feedback and comment on the same online forum.  

The course evaluation involves a choice of writing a skit about the historical period, creating a history game for the class, creating a wikiproject or creating a multi-media project. Students may also suggest their own final project based on the approval of the instructor.