יצירת מערך לימוד בחינוך לישראל: עקרונות ונושאים

Curricularizing Israel: Principles and Themes

Jan Katzew

Many factors shape a curriculum for Israel education. There are ideological issues related to one’s vision of Israel. There are educational questions about presenting Israel to diverse ages and making the subject age-appropriate. How do educators handle sensitive topics? How do we deal with potential conflict between what a curriculum presents and the views of families? And perhaps most importantly, are our educators equipped to engage the young with this fascinating but complicated topic?

Many of these questions have surfaced throughout The Aleph Bet of Israel Education™. My task is to clarify the idea of an Israel curriculum for you who actually make education happen. In this chapter, I propose directions and practices which can guide our work in the field. Let me begin with a few preliminary assumptions.

First, as I have hinted, creating a curriculum is one of the most complicated tasks of Jewish education. One doesn’t sit down and write a curriculum. As you shall see, a curriculum is more than a list of topics I should teach tomorrow, or what materials should be used. It might be more accurate to talk about the process of curricularizing or curriculum development.

Second, the term curriculum is not just...

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