I*EARN conference. Moscow 2002
Marina Karpova,
Pedagogical Club "The New Jewish school",
St. Petersburg
United experimental grope on teaching the Book of Ruth
Before I'll begin to tell you about the united experimental grope on teaching the Book of Ruth, I'd like to tell a bit about my organization and our activity.
The organization I am presenting in this conference is called Pedagogical Club “The New Jewish School”. It is a union of more than 2000 thousand of Jewish educators as well as the people interested in the development of Jewish education and Jewish culture in the Diaspora countries.
The idea of an union of Jewish Educators was born about 12 years ago when the Jewish Education in the former Soviet union have been reborn after many years of interruption. And the main idea of this kind of educators' union was (and is till nowadays) to help to develop creative power of many people on basis of Jewish classical sources and Jewish tradition.
So, about 12 years ago in many cities and towns in Soviet Union many people who have felt something special, not so clear for them about their roots, their past, present and future, began to study together and to teach.
And one of the first results of this activity was a pedagogical journal “The Jewish School”.
10 years ago it was the first possibility to join Jewish teachers, students and sometimes pupils from all sides of USSR and other Jewish Diaspora countries.
It was some kind of World Wide Web for us.
The time passed. And due to the development of technology and, of course, due to the help of our friends from US, Israel and other countries we began to use not only a paper but also the Internet.
About 4 years ago a grope of Jewish educators from Saint Petersburg registrated an official organization – the non-profit partnership Pedagogical Club “The New Jewish school”. And in the frame of the Club we continue our common studding and work.
First of all we continue to publish the journal (our first WWW equipment). And more than 2000 Jewish and non-Jewish educators from the former Soviet Union are joined around this edition. Part of them is participating in our new project, which was born about 8 months ago, and called “Virtual learning Community”.
As you can see from its name the main part of our activity is done with help of new technologies and Internet.
The Virtual learning Community (VLC) is a community of educators as well as other people who interested in Jewish culture and development of Jewish education in the Diaspora.
The project includes different kind of common work as web-site construction, seminars for teachers, publishing of different textbooks on Jewish subjects and 6 mail-lists on:
- Jewish tradition
- Jewish history
- Hebrew literature
- Jewish children literature
- New Education
- History of anti-Semitism and Holocaust
And in the September we are going to open a new one – a list for Hebrew teachers.
The work of each list includes sending the materials, correspondence between the participants, on-line meeting.
The total number of E-mail addresses in our address-book is 130 addresses.
And in the frame of VLC project we had the united experimental grope on teaching the Book of Ruth.
Here I'd like to say a few words about the theme of our mini-project – why did we decide to study and to teach the Book of Ruth.
Jewish tradition is based on Tanakh (Old Testament in Christian tradition). Jews are commandment to study Torah (Pentateuch) during all their life. Different Books of Tanakh are included to religious ceremonies. One of these Books is the Book of Ruth (Sefer Rut or Megilat Rut in Hebrew). Sefer Rut is a text we read and study in holiday of Shavout (Whitsuntide in Christian tradition).
So when we've began to organize our grope – in March, 2002 - we thought about practical needs of the teachers – part of them had to began to teach it after the Passover (during April – may, 2002).
The grope began to work in April 10.
Steps of the work:
Invited to participate in the project were: teachers of Jewish tradition, literature (both world and Jewish), history, Hebrew and the aesthetics.
The aims of the project:
- Deep study of the Book of Ruth.
- Presentation different teachers' books on teaching the Book of Ruth to the participants of the project.
- Exchange of experience of teaching the Book of Ruth between the participants of the project.
The main task of the project:
Creation of a complex textbook on teaching the Book of Ruth.
Steps of work:
Project «United experimental group on teaching the Book of Ruth» included:
- Work with teacher's book on teaching the Book of Ruth by Dr. Kohen, University Bar-Ilan (Israel);
- Work with additional teaching books and materials on teaching the Book of Ruth;
- Series of virtual seminar lectures for the participants of the project (with the support of the Technical Center of Sokhnut, Jerusalem);
- Independent work of the participants of the project (fulfillment of tasks worked by G. Ch. Kohen and methodologists of the Pedagogical Club Nesh; working out of their own teaching materials on teaching the Book of Ruth and other topics connected with the holiday of Shavuot);
- Participation in the Seminar of Advancing teachers' qualification for teachers of Jewish schools, held on June 24-July 04, 2002, Moscow. Completion of the work over the project.
Organization of the work of the project
1. Enrolling for participation in the project was done:
2. The work with teacher's book on the Book of Ruth by Dr. Kohen
The deadline for fulfillment of each task was determined individually for each of the participant within the common terms of the project.
The terms of the project: April 10-July 4, 2002.
2.1. The text of the teacher's book divided into 7 lessons, accompanied by tasks and questions was sent to the participants in the frames of mail-list.
2.2. The text of the book was also placed at the site of the Club.
The participants, who have chosen this form of receiving the materials for work, received additional questions and tasks through the mail-list.
2.3. The article by Dr. G-Ch. Kohen ” Teaching the Book of Ruth» was published in the magazine “Jewish school”, 1993, #2.
The participants could use the published text for the work over the project. The participants, who have chosen this form of receiving the materials for work, received additional questions and tasks through the mail-list.
In all cases the additional questions, tasks and materials on the project, prepared by methodologists of the Pedagogical Club were sent to the participants only upon reception of the fulfilled tasks on the main course (by Dr. Kohen).
3. Receiving materials and organization of feedback:
3.1. With the help of e-mail instruments:
Materials on the course (both the main and additional ones) were sent to the members of the group upon receiving the confirmation of participation in the project and presentation of the fulfilled tasks.
The fulfilled tasks, questions to the specialists, comments on the work of the project were sent by the members in free form by e-mail.
3.2. With the help of the Web instruments.
The text of the book by Dr. Kohen was placed at the site of the Club. After work with this or that lesson participants sent their answers to the test questions to the address of the Club.
The answer form could be filled directly at the site or sent usual e-mail message in free form.
In case of any problems with e-mail or web, participants could sent their answers, comments, questions, etc. by fax or by regular mail.
4. Additional materials on the project.
A number of additional tasks and questions to the teacher's book by Dr. Kohen as well as some additional articles and teaching materials on teaching the Book of Ruth were placed at the site of the Club and sent to the participants by e-mail.
5. Virtual classes on the course
We have held 5 seminars in April-May 2002. They were supported by Technical Department of Sokhnut (Jerusalem).
The topics:
- «The scene on the barn» (Chapter 3; the Book of Ruth). Leader of the discussion: Arye Olman, Israel
- «Nomen est omen» («Name is sign»). Leader of the discussion: Arye Olman, Israel;
- Reading with stops. The Book of Ruth, chapter 1. Leader of the discussion: Mikhail Epstein, St. Petersburg;
- «Redemption» (Property relations in the Book of Ruth) Leader of the discussion: Arye Olman, Israel
- «Wrong granny» (The problem of conversion to Judaism and its interpretation in the Book of Ruth). Leader of the discussion: Arye Olman, Israel
6. The Seminar of Advancing teachers' qualification for teachers of Jewish schools held on June 24-July 04, 2002, Moscow. Completion of the work over the project.
Participating were teachers of Jewish tradition, history, Hebrew, literature and primary school.
The program included deep studies of the specialties, survey lectures on Jewish culture, classes on teaching and psychology, studying of computer technologies in education and individual creative work.
Teachers – members of the experimental group:
- before the seminar presented the supervisors all fulfilled tasks;
- at the seminar presented their own mini-project on teaching the Book of Ruth at the lessons of Jewish or aesthetic cycle;
- at the seminar took part in the work on completion of work over experimental methodological book on teaching the Book of Ruth.
The members of the project, who took an active part in all the steps of the project, received the certificates of the Open Institute (Moscow) on completion of the 144-hour course for advancing teachers' qualification.
The list of materials used in work over the project:
7.1. The Book of Ruth. Ketuvim (Scripts). Transl. from Hebrew under the supervision of David Iosephon. Jerusalem. Pp. 171-176.
7.2. Kohen G. Ch. Teaching the Book of Ruth //Jewish school. 1993, ¹ 2-3, pp.128-161
7.3. Bakhrakh I. The Mother of the Kingdom (in Hebrew). Jerusalem.
7.4. Teaching the Book of Ruth in middle school. A book for teacher. In Hebrew. Jerusalem, 1989.
7.5. Sherman N. Ruth and the seed of Mashiakh. Jerusalem, 1992
7.6. Rotman H. Teaching the Book of Ruth at Hebrew lessons. Grades 7- 11. To be published.
7.8. Sinilo G. The Book of Ruth. Religious and ethic sense and artistic originality// The New Jewish school, 2002, ¹ 11, pp.86-116
7.9. Olman A. From studying text to studying the Torah The Book of Ruth // The New Jewish school, 2001, ¹ 9, pp. 71-81
7.10. Bloch Sh. Tanakh. Preparation for the examination for the certificate on school leaving for the new repatriates. Tel-Aviv, 1999. (In Hebrew).
7.11. Adar Tz. Studying of the Tanakh and its teaching. Tel-Aviv, !983. (In Hebrew).
7.12. Adar Tz.. The Book of Ruth. Teacher's book. Jerusalem. (In Hebrew)
Supervisors of the project:
- Hana Rotman. Pedagogical Club “The New Jewish school”, St. Petersburg
- Arye Olman, doctorate of Bar-Ilan University, Israel; researcher at Chase Center for teaching Judaics in Russian at Jewish University, Jerusalem.
- Marina Karpova, Pedagogical Club “The New Jewish school”, St. Petersburg