My approach
In 2016, I started experimenting with educational approaches that invited disagreement about Israel/Palestine, led with curiosity, and centered multi-vocal primary source material. A few years later, I coined this approach the "Inquiry-Centered Model". My goal was to create a learning space that was accessible to students of differing political backgrounds, moving them towards meaningful learning and inviting productive disagreements in a generative way. The model has four core steps:
1. Begin with an Essential Question: design teaching around a single, timeless and perpetually-arguable universal question.
2. Present multiple narratives using specific source material: ground that universal question in the real world and explore competing responses or ideas.
3. Identify the values and ideas motivating each narrative: Trust that each narrative believes in its own legitimacy, and venture to articulate what is important to each and why.
4. Reflect on your own relationship to the texts and ideas: Recognize that learners are not intellectual vessels but real people with their own emotional resonances and complications with the material. Invite reflection, critical thinking, and synthesis into the room.
This approach was distilled into a written pedagogy in 2021, while I was working as the Director of Israel Education at Hillel International. It is still Hillel's foundational pedagogy for Israel education and continues to be the cornerstone of my own teaching philosophy, trainings, and consulting.
For examples of sessions that I have taught as a guest lecturer/scholar-in-residence, see the Teaching section of this website.