Making Choices: Teachers' Beliefs and Teachers' Reasons

摘要

Edward Greenstein's article (this issue) reminds us of the important contributions that academic scholars of subject matter can make to the discourse of Jewish education. This response highlights some of Greenstein's argument and explores an area that his article does not examine in depth: the role of teachers' beliefs in the pedagogic decisions that they make. Greenstein's article might suggest that teachers' educational choices are determined by their training and by rational decision making. This response suggests that such a view underestimates the important role that beliefs—of various sorts—play in the teaching that we see in classrooms.