"Everything begins and ends with the teacher" An interview with Dr. Marcelo Dorfsman, the director of the international programs at Melton Center.

In recent years, online learning has become a prevalent reality in the academic world. Yet, before covid, only a few have developed the field and offered online studying. Dr. Marcelo Dorfsman is one of them. Dr. Dorfsman grew up in Buenos Aires, immigrated to Israel, and wrote a doctorate on online learning (already in 2012). In 2015, he became the director of the international programs at the Melton Center of the Hebrew University School of Education. A few years ago, he participated in establishing the Jewish Museum in Chile, an experience he describes as fascinating and significant.

As a researcher of online learning and as one of the most prominent and veteran people in this field, have you ever imagined that online learning would become so central in the 21st century?

I have been working in online learning since 1999. We never imagined it would become something so dominant, central, and accepted in our wildest dreams.

At the same time, we see that people have started to resist studying through Zoom.

Right. People did not recognize that we would have to stop schooling if it was not thanks to distance learning. If children are in quarantine and have nothing, then it is worse. 

Initially, the goal of distance learning was to make education more egalitarian and democratic. It started as vocational training for adults who didn't have access to vocational training centers for various reasons.

Do you think that there is a connection between Jewish education and online learning? After all, Jews have always been scattered around the world, and at the same time, big fans of scholarship. So perhaps It is no coincidence that one of the online flagship programs of the Hebrew University teaches Jewish education.

Historically, it is true that the Jewish people are dispersed worldwide, and that education has always been important to most Jewish communities.

We had, for example, the method of the responsa, people asked the rabbi, and if there was no rabbi, they sent questions to great rabbis elsewhere and waited for an answer. So you could say, somehow, that Jews are pioneers in distance learning. But, as the famous Jewish joke says, Jews always like to claim that they are pioneers.

I do not think it is essential to Jewish education, but it is helpful and constructive. I am very excited when we have a student from a remote Jewish community. Distance learning itself is supposed to bring people closer.

 

 ״מכתב מהגניזה הקהירית״:  Responsa from the 11th century found in the Cairo Geniza (Kedem auction house)

In your research, you have pointed out that a digital learning environment produces a discourse that you referred to as "Ethnocultural discourse." What is this discourse, and how authentic is it when it appears, in the end, in the digital space?

During the beginning of the 2000s, all kinds of research projects examined, for example, how a Western environment affects students who came from other backgrounds. I researched it in our program as well, in a qualitative study. I have found that an interesting characteristic has been created in such a rich cultural environment. This is the "ethnocultural discourse" in which students feel encouraged to bring their cultural capital to the [online] discourse.

Is it authentic? It might be even more authentic than other environments. For example, I do not always dare to say what I want to say when I'm in a class in face-to-face interactions. But, on the other hand, when I write, the exchange can become personal, significant, and profound, much more than interactions in a [phrontal] classroom where the discourse is rather intellectually deep.

In a university environment, these dimensions are not often reached. For example, we had a course [in the international online program]  ״Jewry and Jewish Education״, where students wrote about their family history in the Holocaust at the online forum. A Christian student wrote, "I apologize for what we did to you," he felt responsible, and the other students responded to him with open hearts, and these are not things that normally happen in regular classes; it's fantastic.

Why do you believe it is essential to train teachers?

In the field of education, everything begins and ends with the teacher. Training a teacher makes the system work as best it can.

Teachers' training can be examined at three career stations: the first level is the basic training, the second is their ongoing training, and the third is the professionalization that helps teachers reach the highest possible level and become educational leaders.

From my experience in Latin America, I can say that overall the Jewish educational system is excellent. Teachers reach the first and second stations, i.e., training and ongoing training, competently and proficiently. However, when we come to high-level professional training, there is clearly a shortage of institutions to provide what is needed. Here is where the Hebrew University becomes significant, as it is internationally renowned for its educational quality and highly prestigious lecturers and top-level technological resources.

This [international] program, in my opinion, offers the third professional training station, which was missing. It enables students to become future educational leaders in Jewish schools.

Sources: Dorfsman, M. (2018). The development of Discourse in the Online Environment: between Technology and Multiculturalism. International Journal of Educational Technology in
Higher Education, 15, 31 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-018-0110-5.