Multiple Identities as Asset, Educational Goal (with an aside about Seymour Fox ז"ל)

Yesterday afternoon I had the profound pleasure of listening to Lee Shulman for the third time in my life. I've been to three academic conferences, and Shulman has been slated as a key-note speaker at each; this guy's for real (and he's a CRW alumnus and devotee).

Before Shulman spoke, in the closing session of the IARJE's conference on Multiple Identities in Jewish Education, Annette Hochstein, the President of the Mandel Foundation-Israel, spoke movingly about the individual to whom the session was dedicated, Prof. Seymour Fox זצ"ל. In what appeared to me to be a word-for-word translation of the English version she delivered at JTS last year (in a conference wholly devoted to Fox's memory), Hochstein painted a moving picture of Fox's uncanny ability to make whomever he was speaking with feel as if they were the center of the world, while simultaneously (depicted in a wholly positive light by Hochstein) pushing his own agenda about educational research, practice, and innovation. Fox was larger than life - Hochstein's premise was answering the question "How did this man accomplish so much in one lifetime?" - and the nods and murmurs around the room were testaments to his reach and impact. I wrote about Fox for a "Yom Shishi Thought" for the Wexner Graduate Fellows shortly after the conference at JTS:

I spent the better part of Sunday and Monday at a conference in memory of the greatest Jewish educator of the last sixty years, Seymour Fox (ז"ל). It was my first conference as a graduate student, and I thoroughly enjoyed the collegiality that permeated the meeting for doctoral students in Jewish education; the level of discourse in presentations by established and rising stars in the field; and a sense that I, too, get to find my place and make my way through this world. But most of all, I missed Seymour, whom I never met, and in whose gigantic institutional, philosophical, and visionary shadow I hope to make my mark.

The organizer of the conference made it quite clear in his introductory remarks: save one session of reminiscences by four of Fox's close friends and colleagues, this was not to be a conference about the man as much as it was supposed to focus on areas of scholarship that lie at the center of Fox's powerful legacy. Fortunately, for me at least, the same organizer pointed out, in his concluding remarks, how wrong he was. Each and every presentation, from the sublime clarity and fresh agenda of the reigning dean of the world of teaching and learning, to the passionate presentation of Fox's most intimate and enduring collaborator (that I am quite sure most of the audience dismissed as out of their league), began with an anecdote (or three) about Fox, and proceeded to embody parts of his personality: his energy, his humor, his Judaism, his scholarship, his inquisitiveness, his rigor, or – in a few lucky instances – all of these and much more.

Fox blazed a trail in the world of Jewish education we cannot hope to repeat. His work in the Ramah movement, at the University of Chicago, Jewish Theological Seminary of America, Hebrew University, and with the emerging powers of both the Melton and Mandel Foundations created key infrastructure and developed crucial research paradigms. Most impressively, however, he worked tirelessly to cultivate no less than three generations of successors, often possessing an uncanny ability – clearly rooted in his own remarkable talents and unwavering commitment to the Jewish people – to convert people to his cause, Jewish education.

At this time of year, in particular, I am anxious about living up to our predecessors' standards. We move into the twilight of the semester, and I wonder if I am worthy of contributing in a way that matches up favorably with those whose work preceded me. As we read of his first wanderings in this week's parashah, I internalize Ya'akov's existential angst (How can I possibly live up to my grandfather's example? Will I be able to pass the torch to my own children?). In light of all this, and as a living testament to a man whose exercising of leadership we all will miss in the coming decades, I ask that we consider the challenge that Seymour Fox and his generation have left us, and that we also gain strength from Fox and others' example of how exactly to blaze new trails, to inspire others, and to do the holy work to which we have committed ourselves.

Now for summarizing Shulman's message, clearly grounded in what I understand to be his second great contribution to the field of education (after the introduction of the notion of "pedagogical content knowledge" as the "missing paradigm" in his famous 1986 article in Education Researcher): the notion of professional identities as consisting of "habits of the mind [cognitive], hand [practical], and heart [ethical]." This notion has been at the core of the Carnegie Foundation's (of which Shulman is the President Emeritus) "Preparation for the Professions Project" (PPP), a comparative study of professional education in a variety of fields, including medicine, nursing, law, education, ph.d. programs, clergy, and more.

After a number of illustrative anecdotes, Shulman began with the first of three claims he was hoping to make: identity consists of more than a sense of self and belonging, and this larger sense of definition includes the thinking [cognitive], the doing [practical], and the feeling [ethical] of professional identities.

Shulman made the compelling etymological observation, that professions involve the act of professing - a profession means sharing a set body of values and commitments that professionals profess (excuse the circular logic, but I think you get my point). Identity, then, is not something as "simple" as a collection of all our communal affiliations (Jewish, American, of generation Y, et c.) - however complex that definition of identity might be - but rather a representation of how we think, act, and feel in the world. Our identity, then, is not just shaped by the lenses through which we see the world, through which we examine and interpret texts - it is also the person who lived through the journey to those specific lenses.

Which moves us into Shulman's second claim, that it is a colossal mistake to view the notion of "multiple identities" as he thinks (and I think he's right, to a certain extent) we do, as "an absence of unity," "a burden" to be tolerated and suffer through. Rather, Shulman suggests - and here he relies on the richly diverse intellectual notions of bricolage (Levi-Strauss), "remix culture" (Brown), and the "eclectic arts" (Schwab) - that multiple identities are a capacity and a virtue (within limits); that the creation of multiple identities should be an educational goal.

Therefore - and here is Shulman's third claim - we must begin working on "pedagogies of multiple identity formation," because such an educational goal should not be left to chance for its own development.

Identities, then, like intelligences (in Gardner's theory) can be utilized in complementary ways, as we develop different types of identities in students and encourage them to use different ones at different times. Thus - as in Gardner's theory (which Shulman claimed he disagreed with but then utilized anecdotally not twenty minutes later - would love to sit with him and work that one out) - we are acknowledging the existence of something in the hopes that we can turn the accidental outcome of life into an intentional potential of our educational models.

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Shulman caught my attention with these three claims; his riffs during the rest of the presentation were pure academically educational ecstasy.

• Mentorship no longer exists the way it used to in the professions. Instead of a one-on-one relationship between a teacher and a student, we now have a reciprocal and multi-directional experience. That experience, then, leads towards the development of multiple identities - of different people we hear in our heads when we ask ourselves (what would my mentor do in this situation?). Those assumed identities (of your first boss, favorite professor, best friend) work well together; wearing them at once or switching between them freely is decidedly not a burden, but a toolbox from which to choose.
• To have but a single identity is to be bound to that identity, to lose autonomy. Therefore, embracing multiple identities allows us to grow, to choose, to build one off the other.
• This one is mine, inspired by Lee: singular identities means every situation is either a win or a loss; it either benefits or detracts from your existing self and that self's claims. Multiple identities allows many more winning situations, as we play with multiple variables at once. What's the נפקא מינה for this? Well, for me, it's all about the mistake of using the marriage-identity as the predominant variable of success or failure in Jewish education. If we assume that this tribal, partnering identity is paramount (or singular), then we exist in a win-or-lost situation, and are therefore forced to make absurd and unnecessary conclusions. Rather, the adoption of a multiple identity (and, therefore, multiple spectra) model of outcomes means that we can acknowledge the positive and the impactful in all that we have done. (Same goes for people who insist on voting for so-called "pro-Israel" candidates, with no care as to what other horrific things they stand for ....)
• Borrowing from Miriam Ben-Peretz's notion of "Curriculum Potential," Shulman suggests a language of "identity potential," whereby multiple identities can potentially flower into a diverse tree-like complexity, as opposed to converging in "identity monoliths."
• What are some models in this approach? Medical, nursing, and Ph.D. programs, whereby mentorship exists across multiple people at different stages. Additionally, these programs (well, especially medicine and nursing) highligh the repetition of practice, which is how we form Shulman's "habits" in the first place. (N.B.: This matches up nicely with Gladwell's idea in Outliers of the 10,000 hour rule - the difference between successful expert and unsuccessful novice is 10,000 hours of practice.)
  
• The principles for effective habit formation (and I apologize for not getting down the source on this one - this language is not Shulman's): enactment (the vision must be enacted into a reality); embodiment (the mentors must embody an holistic sense of the vision); and dailyness (a + b must happen on a daily basis).
• Thus, following Merton, Shulman argues against the search for a unified theory of Jewish identity (which Alan Hoffman had suggested should be our goal) but, rather, for "middle range theory," little theories that need not coalesce together under one umbrella or another that each helps to explain and push forward our thinking.

It was an enriching pleasure to listen to Shulman speak, and I look forward to continuing to develop his ideas and how they interact with my own work. Hopefully, he'll also write this up at some point in time.

As Sharon Feiman-Nemser (increasingly one of those voices in my head to whom I turn to ask "What would Sharon do?") likes to say (and said last night): this was generative.