Training Methods for Cultivating Vision
VU has focused its experimental work in the development of methods for the cultivation of vision among educational leaders in four basic areas.
Tutorship in MLI long-term programs: All fellows studying in MLI’s Mandel School for Educational Leadership and Mandel Jerusalem Fellows programs are required to study with tutors from among its staff and consultants throughout the one or two years in which they learn. VU identified this aspect of the programs as providing a solid basis for the development and application of pedagogical methods for the cultivation of vision among educational leaders. Initial activities were undertaken during the early years of VU’s work, including the primary formulation of the aims and means of tutorship as a pedagogy for the cultivation of vision, the convening of an ongoing MLI tutor’s forum to discuss aspects and cases of tutoring and to learn from theories and practices employed in other professions, the development of a core literature on tutorship on the basis of which to induct new MLI tutors and collaboration with program directors to establish the role of tutorship in the larger curricula of their programs. After a temporary break from these activities, VU is now be resuming its activity in this area, beginning with the publication of a volume that summarizes all the work that was done until now and places it on the larger map of pedagogies for in-service mid-career professional development.
The Visions of Jewish Education Project in North America: One of VU’s initial working assumptions was that cultivating vision among educational leaders was an activity that required sensitivity to the communal and institutional contexts of their practice. This assumption was first applied to North America, where VU undertook its first major training activities, working centrally with Professor Barry Holtz of the Jewish Theological Seminary. These activities began in the wake of the publication of Visions of Jewish Education with a launching seminar for 23 leaders of Jewish Education from all over the continent and with a wide range of dissemination activities for leaders of Jewish education at central institutions, boards of Jewish education, day schools, philanthropic foundations and educators networks such as CAJE and the PEJE Jewish arts educators cohort. Longer term training activities included: the convening of a Professors of Jewish Education group around the challenges of teaching philosophy of Jewish education in general and the Visions book in particular; collaboration with Gail Dorph, Daniel Pekarsky and others from among the leadership and staff of the Mandel Teacher Educators Institute in developing a special seminar on vision for selected graduates. Experimental training initiatives were also undertaken in the course of the project in an effort to develop demonstration sites. The first was led by Rabbi Jeff Saks of the VU staff with educational leaders of the Modern Orthodox community. The second was led by Dr. Jennifer Lewis of the University of Michigan with the teaching staff of a community day high school. Records, reports and products of these and other activities are available on the project’s website.
Two year seminar for facilitators of educational vision in organizations of Israeli education: This seminar was developed for educational leaders from organizations of Israeli education on the basis of the five principles for facilitation of educational vision articulated by Daniel Marom in his chapter in Visions of Jewish Education. These organizations work with schools and communities all over the country on the basis of a specific agenda relating to Israeli society and culture. They included: ORT School Network, TALI Foundation, College for Quality Government in Israel, Meitarim School Network, Tel Chai College – Municipality of Kiryat Shemona, Morasha School Network and others. Daniel Marom directed the seminar with the help of VU staff member Sima Yaniv. The training methods developed in this seminar explored alternatives to those employed in MLI long term programs: eg. curriculum based on a systematic definition of vision and use of materials directly relating to vision in Israeli education; pedagogy aimed at transforming the professional identity and orientation of participants to their practice so that it consciously works towards vision guided practice on a daily basis; employment of a second track alongside that of group study on which VU staff worked with each participant in their work contexts to apply their study to practice; appeal to alternative incentives for study instead of stipend; focus on pilot initiatives rather than individual projects; the use of written summaries of each group session as part of the curriculum of study. A report on the implications of this seminar for MLI training at large was written and submitted its leadership and an edited version of the proceedings of the seminar is available on-line.
Research and Development related to VU Theory of Training: VU’s systematic definition of educational vision and its cultivation through training rests on theoretical infrastructure that is itself in need of ongoing development. This work has included diverse activities ranging from scans of state-of-the-art theory and practice relating to leadership education to the development of a description of five levels on the continuum that lay between theory and practice in education by Seymour Fox and Israel Scheffler. In some cases, ideas presented at staff meetings have been further developed into more systematic formulations of leadership education. Mordecai Nissan’s monograph ’Educational Identity’ as a Major Factor in the Development of Educational Leadership was developed and published on this basis and is now appearing in its third edition.
