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This review has been accessed times since March 12, 2005

Block, Alan A. (2004). Talmud, Curriculum and the Practical: Joseph Schwab and the Rabbis. New York: Peter Lang.

Pp. ix +233
$29.95     ISBN 0-8204-6181-4

Reviewed by Barbara Slater Stern
James Madison University

March 12, 2005

Joseph Schwab’s enduring fame rests on his claim that the curriculum field was moribund and that curricularlists needed to rely less on theory and turn more to the practical if the field were to be revived. To that end Schwab published four essays between 1969 and 1984 that purport to clarify the meaning of the practical in terms of what school and education should be about. Alan Block (2004) in Talmud, Curriculum and the Practical: Joseph Schwab and the Rabbis seeks to explain these works and Schwab through a Jewish lens. Block believes that Schwab’s writing is difficult to interpret because it has always been viewed through a Western, i.e., Greek and Christian lens, rather than through Jewish thought, specifically the work of Rabbis from the early part of the last millennium (p. 9). Block states in his introductory chapter that he has three main points to explore as his thesis: 1. “The field of curriculum has been forever dominated by the discourses derived from Greek, Roman, and Christian principles and by the discourses and methods that derive from those principles” (p.10); 2. “Joseph Schwab”s work in curriculum, and particularly his exploration of curriculum . . . have been interpreted within the framework of these Greek, Roman, and Christian discourse systems and have been, therefore, either misinterpreted or misunderstood—perhaps even as a result of Schwab’s own reticence to name the “J” word in his published work” (p. 15); and 3. “there might be a renascence of the field of curriculum, a renewed capacity to contribute to the quality of American education when curriculum energies are infused with the discourses of Talmudic study” (p. 30).

Each chapter of the book introduces an educational problem, plunges into discussions of Talmudic disputation (what modern scholars might think of as a hermeneutic approach to research) that purport to relate to the problem and then attempts to link this discussion back to both the original problem and the author’s opinion of what Schwab would say about this problem by citing material from his four essays on the practical. This reader found this approach problematic for several reasons.

First, I did not find it difficult to accept the discussion in Chapter 3, “What is Jewish About Joseph Schwab,” to be as much of a stretch as the rest of the book. Whether or not Schwab publicly embraced or even acknowledged his Jewish heritage does not change the influences of his family and friends as he grew and matured into adulthood. I not only concur that Block can make a case for Schwab’s Jewish roots, but also that situating Schwab’s discourse by differentiating Jewish discourse from Greco-Roman and Christian discourse was an interesting and thoughtful idea. This was especially true in the chapter on the Value of Schooling (Chapter 2). When Block describes the difference between a yeshiva (I pictured the scenes in the movie Yentl) vs. a traditional classroom in the western tradition, the differences between active and passive learning were clear.

What was exceedingly problematic however was how difficult it was to separate the author, Block’s, views from Schwab’s. This is particularly true when one realizes that chronologically the issues of standards and standardized testing dwelt on in chapter 5 are issues Schwab could not have confronted as his last essay cited is from 1984, only one year after the Nation at Risk report and it’s unimagined stepchild, the No Child Left Behind Act. Now in and of itself this is not so terrible. After all, educators constantly examine our schools and wonder what Dewey would have thought? Why not Schwab too?

Second, the use of sections of prayers without their full text is disturbing. The casual, non-Jewish reader might not know for example, that when the liturgy concerning God’s judgment is cited, the sections on the responsibility of the human to repent are excised. Thus, Block cites the passages concerning judgment attempting to link a teacher’s evaluation of his or her students to God’s passing judgment on each person during Yom Kippur. Block is uncomfortable in the role of judge: it gives him a stomach ache. So, we shouldn’t judge, we are not God. True, but as Block extends the analogy about judging to teachers he conveniently ignores the part of the liturgy that paraphrased state ‘but prayer, repentance and charity temper God’s decree.’ In other words, if the full text were added to the chapter, then to follow Block’s reasoning, the students have a role in softening a teacher’s negative evaluation. But Block never mentions any role for the student other than that of the helpless learner who is being judged. No action is required, the relationship has no reciprocality. Now that may be so in Block’s world, but it is not so in the prayer used to make the case. Thus, as a Jewish reader, familiar with the text, I had major problems with the analogy in this, and in several other chapters.

In terms of readibilty, this book became tedious. The circumlocution of Talmudic disputation and the stretch the author requires to make the links, especially in chapters like “They Pelt Him With Stones” (Chapter 5), and “Who Holds this Book” (Chapter 6), are so abstruse that they make this reader wonder how the author could take the principles from the Talmud being used and apply them to these situations. The book bogs down in the Rabbinic disputations; and the circumlocution of argument, explained and commented upon in Peter Applebaum’s Afterword, becomes more of a distraction than a help in understanding the author’s thesis. The constant repetition of Rabbinic ideas and of citing the same text of Schwab’s multiple times in the same chapter is off-putting. As a reader I was also disturbed by the lack of attention to editing in terms of typographical and grammatical errors—this was simply sloppy work on the part of the proofreader.

In the balance, what does this book teach me about curriculum, Joseph Schwab, Jewish lenses or approaches to education or Alan Block? Well, less about Schwab and the practical than I would have hoped, although it did give me a new lens through which to view Schwab, albeit one that I am intimately familiar with as a practicing Jew. I learned more about the implementation of the practical in Applebaum’s Afterword than I did in the text of the book. I learned something about Talmud, much of it exceedingly trivial for most readers (e.g., the lengthy discussion of who shall or shall not be pelted with stones, or the borrowing and reading of books). I learned Block’s beliefs about schools and about parenting, rooted heavily in Jewish theology, and probably an interesting and positive way to think about reform and repair of schools. However, would the journey through this book be worth the knowledge gained by the curriculum student or practitioner? I have sincere doubts.

About the Reviewer

Barbara Slater Stern is the Coordinator of the Secondary Education Program and an associate professor teaching graduate curriculum and methods of teaching middle and secondary social studies at James Madison University.

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