History Lessons: Teaching the Jewish Experience. Wed 4-6 pm, Thurs 5-6 pm, and by appointment campus: x62372 ASAC 123 mobile: (978)

Transcription

1 History Lessons: Teaching the Jewish Experience NEJS 171a Fall 2016 Th 2-4:50 pm Location: TBA Prof. Jonathan Krasner Wed 4-6 pm, Thurs 5-6 pm, and by appointment campus: x62372 ASAC 123 mobile: (978) Description This course will examine why we teach history and what history means in a Jewish context. In particular, we will discuss the similarities and differences between history and heritage and the relationship between history and memory. We will also discuss the dilemmas around teaching Israel and the differences between education and advocacy. In the second part of the course we will explore various pedagogical approaches to the teaching of Jewish history and how it can be taught in various educational settings, using American Jewish history as a case study. The course will include an oral history project component in cooperation with the Jewish Women's Archive. Objectives: Students who complete this course will be able to 1. Provide a set of rationales for teaching history in general and Jewish history in particular. 2. Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of David Lowenthal s distinctions between history and heritage, and apply these concepts to the Jewish experience. 3. Compare and contrast Yosef Yerushalmi and Amos Funkenstein s approaches to history and memory. 4. Intelligently engage with the proposition that memory can sometimes inhibit progress and reconciliation. 5. Problematize the gulf between the classroom and the academy. 6. Explore the differences between an advocacy versus educational approach to the teaching of Israel, and the implications of these differing approaches on students. 7. Understand what it means to think like a historian, and apply those insights to discussions of pedagogy 8. Appreciate the strengths and weaknesses of various pedagogical approaches to the teaching of history, including the use of primary sources, textbooks, oral history, and film. 9. Conduct an oral history and discuss the engage with the discourse around best practices and the value and limitations of oral history.

2 Required Books: Dianne Ashton, Hanukkah in America: A History, New York University Press, Gal Beckerman, When They Come For Us, We ll Be Gone: The Epic Struggle to Save Soviet Jewry, Mariner Books, Debra Schultz, Going South: Jewish Women in the Civil Rights Movement, New York University, Sam Wineburg, Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts: Charting the Future of Teaching the Past, Temple University Press, 2001 Yosef H. Yerushalmi, Zakhor: Jewish History and Jewish Memory, University of Washington Press, 1996 All other readings listed on the syllabus will be available on LATTE. All books will be placed on reserve in the library. Requirements: 1. Come to Class Prepared (i.e., complete readings and class assignments on time) and Actively Participate 2. Short Homework and Class Assignments Connected with the Readings and Class Discussions 3. Oral Presentations on Readings (Each student will be responsible for leading one or two discussions on a course reading) 4. Three Mini-Projects (Textbook Analysis, Primary Source Project, and Film Guide) 5. An Oral History and Educational Project on the Soviet Jewry Movement in Conjunction with the Jewish Women s Archive Projects: 1. Oral History Project Working in groups, students will conduct oral histories of American Jewish activists in the Soviet Jewry movement. Students will be trained in how to conduct an oral history by the staff of the Jewish Women s Archive. The oral histories will be used to create web-based educational resource on the history of the American Soviet Jewry Movement. The oral histories will be also be deposited in the Jewish Women s Archive. Students will read Gal Beckerman, When They Come For Us We ll Be Gone in conjunction with and as background for their work. Due Date: Monday, October 31

3 2. Textbook Analysis Working individually or in pairs, students will choose an event in Jewish history and analyze how it is portrayed in four different textbooks. Due Date: Thursday, October Primary Source Project Working in groups, students will use resources available at the Brandeis University Archives to create a primary source based lesson on the founding of Brandeis University and its significance in American Jewish life. Due Date: Tuesday, November Film Project Working in groups, students will create a teacher s guide for the 1927 film, The Jazz Singer, geared to Jewish educators. Due Date: Thursday, December 15 Grading: 30% Reading, Participation, Homework 10% Oral Presentations 10% Textbook Analysis 15% Primary Source Project 15% Film Guide 20% Oral History and Educational Project Four-Credit Course (with three hours of class-time per week) Success in this 4 credit hour course is based on the expectation that students will spend a minimum of 9 hours of study time per week in preparation for class (readings, reflection papers, research paper, preparation for oral presentation, etc.). Syllabus and Assignments August 25 Teaching History For What? David Lowenthal, Dilemmas and Delights of Learning History, in P. Stearns, P. Seixas, and S. Wineburg (eds.), Knowing, Teaching, & Learning History: National and International Perspectives, New York University Press, Joseph Kahne and Joel Westheimer, Teaching Democracy: What Schools Need to Do, in E. Wayne Ross (ed.), The Social Studies Curriculum: Purposes, Problems, and Possibilities. State University of New York Press, 2006, pp Benjamin Jacobs and Yona Shem Tov, Issues in the Teaching and Learning of Jewish History, in Helena Miller et al (eds.), International Handbook of Jewish Education, Springer, 2011, pp

4 Jonathan Sarna, Towards a New Approach to the Teaching of American Jewish History, The Principal (May-June, 1986), pp. 3-6 Jonathan Sarna, Why Study American Jewish History? HaYidion (Spring 2014), pp , 52. September 1 Towards a Usable Past Roy Rosenzweig, How Americans Use and Think about the Past: Implications from a National Survey for the Teaching of History, in P. Stearns, P. Seixas, and S. Wineburg (eds.), Knowing, Teaching, & Learning History: National and International Perspectives, New York University Press, Sam Wineburg, Making Historical Sense, in P. Stearns, P. Seixas, and S. Wineburg (eds.), Knowing, Teaching, & Learning History: National and International Perspectives, New York University Press, Eli Gottlieb and Sam Wineburg, Between Veritas and Communitas: Epistemic Switching in the Reading of Academic and Sacred History, Journal of the Learning Sciences 21 (2012), pp Robert Chazan, Faith and Critical Jewish History: A Complex Relationship, HaYidion (Winter 2010), pp. 50, September 15 Heritage and History David Lowenthal, Fabricating Heritage, History & Memory 10 (Spring 1998), Beth Wenger, History Lessons: The Creation of American Jewish Heritage, 2010, 15-57, Jonathan Sarna, Columbus and the Jews, Commentary 94 (November 1992), pp September 22 History and Memory Yosef Yerushalmi, Zakhor: Jewish History and Jewish Memory, University of Washington Press, Chapters 1&4 Amos Funkenstein, "Collective Memory and Historical Consciousness," History and Memory 1:1 (Spring/Summer 1989): Alex Sinclair, Between History and Memory in Israel Education, in Hayidion, Spring 2014, pp , 25. September 29

5 Workshop: Conducting Oral History Oral History Valerie Yow, Interviewing Techniques and Strategies, in Robert Perks and Alistair Thomson (eds.), The Oral History Reader, Routledge, 2016, pp Kathryn Anderson and Dana C. Jack, Learning to Listen: Interview Techniques and Analyses, in Robert Perks and Alistair Thomson (eds.), The Oral History Reader, Routledge, 2016, pp Fred Allison, Remembering a Vietnam War Firefight: Changing Perspectives Over Time, in Robert Perks and Alistair Thomson (eds.), The Oral History Reader, Routledge, 2016, pp October 6 Inventing Tradition Eric Hobsbawm, Inventing Traditions, in Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, The Invention of Tradition, Cambridge University Press, 1983, pp Yael Zerubavel, The Death of Memory and the Memory of Death: Masada and the Holocaust as Historical Metaphors, Representations (Winter 1994), pp Dianne Ashton, Hanukkah in America: A History, New York University Press, 2013, pp October 13 The Stories We Tell Jon Levisohn, Patriotism and Parochialism: Why Teach American Jewish History, and How Journal of Jewish Education 70 (2004), Sam Wineburg and Chauncey Monte-Sano, Famous Americans : The Changing Pantheon of American Heroes, Journal of American History (March 2008), Meira Levinson, Let Us Now Praise Rethinking Role Models and Heroes in an Egalitarian Age, in Yvonne Raley et al. (eds.), Philosophy of Education in an Era of Globalization, pp Robert Chazan, A New Vision of Jewish History: The Early Historical Writings of Salo Baron, AJS Review 39 (April 2015), Deborah Dash Moore, Beyond Haym Solomon (and Hank Greenberg): Teaching American Jewish History to 20th and 21st Century Jews, in Moving Beyond Haym Solomon: The Teaching of American Jewish History to Twentieth Century Jews, American Jewish Committee, 1995, pp October 20 Listening Like a Historian

6 Debra Schultz, Going South: Jewish Women in the Civil Rights Movement, New York University, Glenn Whitman, Motivating the Twenty-first Century Student with Oral History, in Donald Ritchie (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Oral History, Oxford University Press, 2011, pp ***Thursday, October Due Date for Textbook Analysis October 27 Teaching Israel: Education versus Advocacy Sivan Zakai, Learning Our Histories: History and Identity at a Jewish Community High School, Ph.D. Dissertation, Sanford University, Lisa Grant and Ezra Kopelowitz, Israel Education Matters: A 21st Century Paradigm for Jewish Education, Center for Jewish Peoplehood Education, *** Monday, October Due Date for Oral History Project November 3 Workshop: Using Primary Sources Meet at the Farber Archives in the Brandeis Library November 10 Thinking Like a Historian Sam Wineburg, Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts: Charting the Future of Teaching the Past November 17 Reading Like a Historian: Primary Sources Sam Wineburg, Daisy Martin and Chauncey Monte-Sano, Reading Like a Historian: Teaching Literacy in Middle & High School History Classrooms. Teachers College Press, 2013, pp. xi-31, Robert Chazan, Teaching Jewish History: A Major Impediment, in Hayidion, Spring 2014, pp ** Tuesday November 29: Due Date for Primary Sources Project December 1 Watching Like a Historian: Teaching History Through Film Hester Street, 1975 (Joan Micklin Silver, dir.) Abraham Cahan, Yekl

7 *** Thursday, December Due Date for Film Project