From April 26th-27th, our friends and co-founding producer, Hebrew College, are holding a conference in the Boston area on the topic of teaching Hebrew to Jewish students with special needs.
At the conference, they will be honoring Dr. Scott Sokol as the inaugural Bernard J. Korman Professor of Jewish Special Education.
On Sunday, April 26, Dr. Scott M. Sokol will be inaugurated as the Bernard J. Korman Professor of Jewish Special Education at Hebrew College. The professorship is the first of its kind in the nation.
“For Jewish education to be truly inclusive, educators need to reach out to students of all learning abilities,†said Sokol, who spearheaded the creation of Hebrew College’s new Center for Jewish Special Education.
Sokol’s inauguration will be a highlight of the Center’s first international conference, GISHA (Good Ideas Supporting Hebrew Access), April 26–27. The conference will convene leading researchers from the U.S., Canada and Israel to explore how to help students with special needs to learn and use Hebrew reading skills in a variety of educational settings.
A neuropsychologist as well as a cantor, Sokol has focused his research and clinical practice for the past 25 years on the intersection of psycholinguistics and neurolinguistics, specifically regarding how individuals acquire and process first and second languages.
“My interest in Jewish special education is related to how we can use what we know about language development to teach Hebrew to individuals with special needs,†said Sokol. “As the People of the Book, we need to have access to the book. If we are serious about enabling all Jewish learners to have access to Jewish texts, we need to take a close look at how we teach Hebrew to all learners.â€
