Education, Experimental


Resolution Adopted by the CCAR

EDUCATION, EXPERIMENTAL

Digests of resolutions adopted by the

Central Conference of American Rabbis

between 1889 and 1974

Our religious school students are being exposed increasingly to new and

stimulating

media and to a variety of innovative materials in general education. While we

were

once in the vanguard with the production of audiovisual materials and other

types

of educational software, we are now lagging seriously behind in terms of the

new orientations

and expectations of our students.

Because it is essential and urgent that we meet these rapidly growing needs,

the Commission

on Jewish Education urges the Central Conference of American Rabbis and the

Union

of American Hebrew Congregations to endorse the establishment of, and urge

prompt

allocation of the necessary funds for, a Department of Experimental Education

with

a full-time director within the Department of Jewish Education to carry out

the following

functions:

  • Testing and evaluating in our schools samples of proposed new materials

    before actual

    publication.

  • Working intensively with certain schools around the country engaged on

    their own

    in new and creative programs without proper direction and guidance,

    specifically:

    a. Orienting teachers.

    b. Stimulating teachers through workshops to produce useful materials.

    c. Visiting and observing classes to guide teachers.

    d. Testing.

  • Discovering, encouraging and supervising authors of texts, teachers’

    syllabi and

    audio-visual materials.

  • Implementing curricular changes in contrast with proposing them, the

    latter being

    the function of the Curriculum Committee.

  • Encouraging and implementing experimental approaches in existing

    publications.

  • Testing, surveying and evaluating schools with stress on self-evaluation

    and self-surveys.

  • Coordinating resource personnel from congregations throughout the country

    to serve

    the Commission in consultative capacities.

  • Keeping in touch with new developments in public and Christian education

    to suggest

    applications to the Reform Movement.

  • Collecting and analyzing new new projects in our own schools and

    circulating successful

    projects through the UAHC Creative Education Series.

  • Producing temporary and inexpensive materials for experimentation, making

    recommendations

    on the basis of evaluated experiments.

  • Developing and testing audiovisual media and materials, such as the

    following:

    a. Simulation games

    b. Video tapes

    c. Film loops

    d. Films and slides

    e. Telelectures

    f. Educasting

  • Exploring the multitude of devices and materials being produced by

    commercial firms.

  • Co-operating with the Departments of Teacher Education, Camp and Youth

    Education,

    and Adult Education in meeting their respective needs for experimentation.

    (1969,

    pp. 145-46)

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