Summer courses at Olam Tikvah

Olam Tikvah has a relatively new Assistant Rabbi in Rabbi Ben Shalva. Rabbi Shalva will be teaching on Wednesdays, June 24-July 22, 7:30pm-9:15pm. Each week will be devoted to a different type of rabbinic text, from Talmudic debates to modern poetic reveries. Check out the details at OT's adult ed page, and then take a look at all the other summertime and all-year programs.

Jewish Study Center, DC

Does everyone know about the Jewish Study Center? It runs adult ed classes mostly in the District, but for the inside-the-beltway folks, it's very accessible. I taught a Jewish history class there a few years ago and the people in the class were good people who really enjoyed engaging each other and me. (Didn't do more than the one course as evening the schlep from Reston was more than I had bargained for.)

Take a look at the web site, and if there's anything that looks possible, get on their mailing list.

Anyone take any courses there? Anything to add?

Baltimore Hebrew University is no more

One great source of academic adult Jewish education for the Washington, DC area, including a few of us from NoVA, is history. See the story in today's Baltimore Sun.

The Baltimore Hebrew University was a great, if inconvenient, place to quickly learn a lot. In its new incarnation as a part of Towson State University, it's still the closest place for solid academic coursework at the advanced undergraduate and graduate level, but going to that funky little building on Park Heights is just a memory.

What are we doing and why are we doing it?

Adult Jewish Education—what are we all doing and why are we doing it?

This blog will be an extended discussion about these and related topics? It will be for teachers and students, clergy and laity, amateurs and professionals. My own background is highlighted over on the right, but if I had to classify myself, I’m a teacher and student, definitely not clergy (but I have been known to lead services on occasion and even give a drash), and, like many adult Jewish educators, both an amateur (when necessary) and a professional (when possible).

I intend to initiate discussions on topics that include (but are definitely not limited to):

· What’s happening in Northern Virginia—purely descriptively and for information? In that light, I welcome notices from teachers and from anyone putting together lectures, speeches, courses, seminars that are aimed at adults interested in Jewish topics.

· What works? Adult learners are very different from kids, high school students, or college students (how and why?)

· What resources are available to the teacher? This can include information on teaching adults, specific subject-matter resources for both teachers and students, and syllabi for particular courses that are commonly offered.

Any blog needs to be a conversation to be successful, of course, so your posts will be at least as important as anything I have to say. Very little in the way of subject matter is out of bounds as long as it can be tied, in some way, to Adult Jewish Education. So, if you’re planning on offering a course at your synagogue, at the JCC, or at a local college, please let us know about it. If you have a question on whether there are teaching materials available on some topic, ask here. If you’ve run across a particular good book on teaching adults (like Diane Tickton Shuster’s Jewish Lives, Jewish Learning: Adult Jewish Learning in Theory and Practice) we need to know it. If you think my approach to coordinating this blog can be improved, please let me know (my feelings won’t be hurt—I promise).

I’ll be starting a list of upcoming courses in the near future and invite anyone (whenever they read this) to add to (or correct) the list.

Welcome to the blog!