Career Envy: Elevating the Profile of Jewish Education Careers

Rona Milch Novick

From early childhood through high school, schools introduce students to professionals and professions. Whether it is a dentist who teaches preschoolers how to brush their teeth, a high-tech entrepreneur who explains his discovery as part of a STEM program or an author who give a book talk to students, by highlighting careers schools make an implicit statement of the value of certain professions. Similarly, middle and high schools create clubs and internship or volunteer experiences to respond to students’ interests but also to promote skills and careers with which students will engage.

As I regularly receive impassioned pleas from Jewish educational leaders for qualified and inspiring educators, I cannot help but experience career envy. Schools and career guidance/advisement professionals may think that since students are exposed to those in the teaching careers every day, they see what teachers do. However, they do not have the opportunity to see inside the profession and to hear about the rewards and fulfillment it offers.

Additionally, by omitting education from career nights and internships, what message are schools sending about career choices? How might we elevate the teaching profession and give students a real opportunity to consider the career path that is perhaps the most critical for the growth of the Jewish people?

Choosing a Career

There are multiple theories about how career choices are made. There is the popular notion that if you see it, you can be it. Certainly, all students see teachers, and many may even see teachers that are culturally similar to them, though there are exceptions, especially in Jewish studies. Having Ashkenazi teachers for Sephardi students and vice versa may limit students’ identification with the teacher and the career. A similar challenge may occur when Jewish studies are provided by educators whose religious observance is considerably different from that of their students. Gender is equally important, especially for women who need to see Jewish women as Torah scholars and Torah educators.

Role models are important, but career choice requires more than simple exposure. A phenomenon that has been considered in career choice and leadership is the “tap on the shoulder,” the value of someone in the field specifically identifying your talent and steering you towards activities and choices that will enhance your skills. Schools are uniquely positioned to identify those students who demonstrate an interest in or affinity for learning, teaching and caring for others. However, unless schools can offer meaningful opportunities for such students to increase their teaching exposure and experience, tapping them on the shoulder is unlikely to result in more young people considering careers in education.

A third model of career cultivation emphasizes personal development, including self-awareness of potential, motivation to pursue the career and exposure to experiences that promote mastery of career-related skills. This model combines the “if you can see it, you can be it” approach of exposure to role models with the “tap on the shoulder” as a motivator. What it adds is the critical component of opportunities that allow those making career choices to experience their growing competence and potential in their chosen field.

This multi-component model is consistent with our experience working with college students, who are closer to their career choices than middle or high school students. In our MafTeach Fellowship, we select students with teaching potential and combine exposure to mentors who are themselves inspiring educators with fellows’ own authentic experiences as teachers. MafTeach participants have reported shifts in their self-perception to include seeing themselves as Jewish educators and increased commitment to teaching limmudei kodesh as a profession.

Stoking Excitement in Teaching

Waiting until college may be too little too late to inspire future Jewish educators. We may be missing an important opportunity when our schools could be simultaneously elevating and celebrating their educators and cultivating our future professional teaching force. Leveraging existing programs such as career days and professionals’ classroom visits is one opportunity.

I believe we can go further. We can create future teachers clubs as early as sixth grade. With a faculty advisor, sixth graders could plan a weekly lesson for a younger class, deliver the lesson with supervision, and receive feedback and mentoring. Such teaching clubs could also be expanded through middle and high school with increasing responsibilities afforded those who have demonstrated their skill and commitment. For those high school students who have required chesed hours, or internships, meaningful teaching “placements” in their local area or as a residency in other locales could be offered.

At the high school level, students are excited to add to experiences to their resume, and equally excited about competitions that allow them to showcase their talent amongst their peers and also afford them social opportunities to mingle with like-minded others. The Model UN sponsored by Yeshiva University and STEM hackathons are examples of highly popular programs that may begin with local, school-based “teams” and graduate to large-scale events that are highly energizing.

How impactful it would be for Jewish schools to participate in a teachathon, or a lessons learned competition, growing students’ skills in crafting and delivering engaging educational experiences. School-based teams would work on developing lesson plans, honing their curricular and teaching skills. Regional convenings would allow sharing their work and receiving expert judges’ feedback. A national convening, as is done in STEM hack-a-thons, might introduce a specific challenge such as teaching a particular Torah segment or holiday theme to various grade levels. The event could culminate with peer review and expert judges’ scores identifying the best offerings, which could be published and distributed among Jewish day schools.

For any and all of this to happen, an investment of effort, time and some funds will be necessary. Seasoned, motivated and inspiring educators will need to be enlisted and given time to plan and deliver programming. Coordination across schools would be important to share best practices as well as to build regional and national initiatives. Of course, it will require quite some time to see the dividends of this investment. It is possible that even adding future teacher clubs in elementary schools, inviting inspiring educators to school career programs, developing regional and national teaching events for students may only yield a small number of Jewish educators.

There may, however, be another payoff. We certainly hope all of today’s students will be tomorrow’s day school parents. What better way to help future generations appreciate the wondrous, all-encompassing, challenging and meaningful work that Jewish educators do than to have had them walk, for a while, in their shoes.