הוראת סיפור ×”× ×¡ המקראי ×‘×—×™× ×•×š הממלכתי בישראל - ×”××•× ×™×‘×¨×¡×™×˜×” העברית ...

and aspire to make the contents of these subjects relevant to students` lives. The key
to influencing teachers to consider new kinds of teaching is to engage them in
reflective thinking about their teaching methods and about other aspects of their
educational situation. If teachers are persuaded that they will have a more beneficial
effect on students and on their religious outlook both in the short and in the long term
if they adopt alternate teaching approaches to the biblical miracle story, they might
agree to enter into a reflective process. Inasmuch as teachers do not naturally or
automatically think reflectively, it is necessary to train them to think in this way, and
we suggest ways of implementing this training, using concrete examples. However,
just as coercion is both ineffective and morally dubious in the teaching of children, so
it is the case in the pre-service or in-service training of teachers; hence teachers must
be addressed in language that corresponds to their thinking patterns and worldview.
The key to doing this in the mamad is to present a range of traditional Jewish sources
that (a) advocate innovative thinking, and (b) incorporate in their exegesis metaphoric
and dialogic approaches to the biblical text.
In the final stage of the paper, we demonstrate how reflective thinking can be
applied to the three hermeneutical options posited in the previous chapter.
Representatives of the commonplaces scrutinize the various readings in order to
ascertain their appropriatenes for the teachers, students, and milieu of the mamad.
They determine (a) the hermeneutical underpinnings and assumptions of each option
as applied to the particular story under discussion, (b) the theological message of each
approach, (c) the learning skills that might be acquired from the adoption of each kind
of reading. On this basis they will make a judgment as to the usefulness of each
approach in the educational setting of the mamad. In order to decide upon the final
curriculum, committee members weigh various options, including the adoption of one
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