By Elisheva Goldberg , other
I learned the word “andragogy” in a phone conversation with Rivy Poupko-Kletenik, the Seattle Hebrew Academy’s head of school and a world-renowned educator. Andragogy is a theory of teaching — distinct from pedagogy — developed by a man named Marcus Knowles. Whereas a pedagogue has full responsibility for all learning decisions for a child, an andragogue involves the adult learner in the process of learning itself.
The single ingredient for the recipe of adult education that Jewish educators in Seattle agree upon grows from the spirit of andragogy. The most effective teaching method is when an adult experiences, makes mistakes, and sees how what he or she is learning can have a direct impact on his or her life. The basic Knowlesian concept, as Kletenik put it, is that “adults are interested in learning subjects that have immediate relevance to their lives.”
When asked about Jewish learning in particular, she explained how “adults are able to look at some of the Jewish learning of their childhood with new eyes,” she says. “That refreshing look can be invigorating to their lives and to the meaning that they are able to receive from Judaism.”
It is precisely that new, invigorating look that the Jewish educators of the area are trying give to their Jewish community outside of the confines of any specific synagogue.
Kletenik does not merely preach about adult Jewish education, she lives it. Giving three weekly volunteer classes (Tanach, Midrash, Women’s Talmud), she will soon launch a new program through the Seattle Hebrew Academy called SHA Adult Learning. The year-long course for parents has the stated goal of exploring “the nuances of navigating the challenges of modern culture and sensibilities using the Torah as our guide, all the while continuing to be a source of guidance to our children.”
Although a text-based program, all materials will be hands-on, direct and, most importantly, immediately applicable, according to Kletenik.
Throughout the city of Seattle, educators have built their own varied methodologies to forge involved, active relationships between adult learners and Jewish ideas and texts. LivingJudaism, led by executive director, Rabbi Chaim Levine, is one such organization.
According to Levine, the goal of LivingJudiasm is to have “people connect to the core values of Judaism beyond the intellectual and particularly to the applicable and actionable,” he said. “We want people to walk away with tangible Jewish values that they can bring into their home.”
The assortment of classes, workshops and programs that LivingJudiasm offers reflects the notion that the thoughtful and the functional go hand in hand. The array ranges from “Hope for Heroism,” which connects Jewish people with Israeli combat soldiers — even bringing soldiers to Seattle for a few days — to private counseling sessions for family development. Another program, “Pay It Forward,” encourages community giving as a method for self-development. In each of these programs, Levine incorporates Jewish values to help people develop themselves, their families, and their communities.
“The values of Judaism are so central and core to the human soul that they resonate with people,” Levine said.
While LivingJudiasm teaches Judaism’s relevance to the day-to-day experience, organizations like Jewish Family Service take a slightly different approach. JFS has long integrated a Knowles type of learning into its class offerings, although the programs are generally more human-service oriented and less focused on the Jewish tradition itself as an end. Marjorie Schnyder, JFS’s director of Family Life Education, explained that while “some programs may have specific Jewish focus, some may not, though they would be in a cultural context.”
The Family Life Education department has been around for 31 years and has recently doubled in size. Schnyder said the past few years have been exciting because she’s been able to see “that not only problem-oriented, but preventative things are being offered to the community.”
At its core, Jewish Family Life Education provides programs that aim to balance the social and emotional aspects of daily life with Jewish values. Programs include “Mother’s Circle,” “Death and Dying,” as well as the newest program, “Alternatives to Addiction,” which provides people with any type of addiction with a safe connection to a culturally specific group.
All of the classes are small and relevant to other organizations or educators so they can reach deeper into the broader community. Their partners include, among others, Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum, who will be giving a two-part series beginning in September titled “Parenting and Teshuva.” Nussbaum is executive director of the Kavana Cooperative, an organization that, in Nussbaum’s opinion, “has embraced the concept that at first blush sounds like an oxymoron: voluntary obligation,” where the obligations to the community comes from the community itself.
In the Kavana forum there are, what Nussbaum termed, “two points of entry” for adults interested in personal Jewish education. Adults can learn for the sake of learning — that is, for personal gain and growth — or adults can learn with the goal of becoming their children’s educators. Programs of the latter can take the form of Kavana’s more traditional Wednesday night Torah learning sessions, a program that has been running for more than two years, or they can go in a more cultural direction, such as Kavana’s book club, where people read and converse about various sorts of Jewish literature. An upcoming “Jewish Identity Workshop” will center on the concepts of what it means to have a Jewish identity through the assorted lenses of psychology, rabbinic texts, history, culture, and many others.
The second “entry point” is geared toward making parents comfortable in educating their children, including the Saturday morning parent-child group. Each week, one midah, or character trait, is taught and discussed to parents and children alike, each at an age-appropriate level.
For a more traditional approach, the Seattle Kollel takes adult Jewish education in a different direction. As a “community Kollel” or “mini Kollel,” executive director Rabbi Richard Toban said that his organization does “inreach to the shomrei Shabbat community [and] outreach to the community and institutions like the Kline Galland Home, JCC, The Summit at First Hill, and high school.”
For three hours every morning, the rabbis of the Kollel learn together, and spend the rest of the day in service to the community by providing classes on every level for those interested deepening their knowledge of Judaism, and becoming comfortable in a traditional setting because, quipped Toban, “Judaism is not a spectator sport.”
The vast variety of courses that the Kollel offers ensures that anyone, regardless of belief, can find something, whether it’s a one-time guest lecturer, a crash course in Hebrew with an eye toward independent learning, “The Jewish Journey,” a two-year course covering the fundamental concepts in Judaism for two hours every week (a new course begins this September), or a downtown lunch-hour class on Maimonides’ Thirteen Principles of Faith.
In a much more formal and behind-the-scenes approach, the Jewish Education Council, an agency of the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle, brings Jewish education to adults in a different way. According to JEC director Barbara Kadden, although the JEC budget recently received a significant cut, actual programming will not change aside from a renewed focus on teacher education.
Although, as Kadden said, the “primary focus will be teachers,” the JEC is open to any interested community members who choose to participate in its programs. The majority of the JEC’s programming consists of workshops that they provide for all religious schools that fall into their five-county service area. Of the various programs the JEC offers, those termed “Jewish Content Knowledge workshops” are the ones that appeal to adult learners who are not necessarily professional educators. The purpose of these courses is to provide teachers with knowledge of basic areas of Judaism: Holidays, values, ethics, history, texts and prayer.
Coming from a different perspective is the Pacific Northwest’s local Chabad organization. With 16 rabbis in Washington State, led by regional director Rabbi Sholom Ber Levitin, Chabad keeps with its philosophy of “joy, scholarship and unconditional acceptance and love of every Jew,” according to the Chabad of Whatcom County Web site, by providing all sorts of venues, events, Shabbat meals and educational classes to the far reaches of the state. Levitin, an educator who has taught Jewish ideas and texts for decades, teaches as many as six or seven classes weekly.
“I like to pick a topic with what I call ‘kishka,’” he said, “one that’s very relevant to people. Jealousy, friendship — tangibles in life.”
According to Rabbi Levitin, Torah study is “how we develop our spiritual core” since the Torah is the “Godly manual for how to live life as a Jew.”
Just as Levitin’s approach to teaching uses the principles of andragogy, the goal of any of these organizations’ workshops and classes is to allow adults to be involved in their own personal evolution; a never-ending advancement through education that is both practical and full of meaning.