Down the Up Staircase

Down the Up Staircase: Tales of Teaching in Jewish Day Schools invites the reader to learn about day school teaching through the eyes of its newest practitioners. Ingall has created the first longitudinal study of Jewish school teachers, following three eager newcomers over a ten-year period. Weaving together excerpts from semi-structured interviews, artifacts like graduate school papers, reports, e-mail correspondence, and concept maps created by her collaborators, she draws rich portraits of three idealistic young women who reluctantly leave the field. Her analysis raises troubling questions about how Jewish day schools induct their new hires into the teaching profession and the culture of the school and how young teachers are nurtured and retained.