Of Quills, iPads and the New York Times

The other day I opened up my print copy of the New York Times (yes, I still rely on that ancient form of technology: The printed newspaper.) I couldn’t help but notice the article on the front page, above the fold: Grading the Digital School: In Classroom of Future, Stagnant Scores. The piece described how the drive to digitize classrooms has not led to improved student scores, as measured by current standardized tests. Its perspective, in part, mostly challenged the prevailing philosophy that educational technology will result in increased student achievement. As I read it, I couldn’t help but think that all this is beside the point.

It isn’t that using iPads and Google Docs will necessarily make our students smarter. For better or worse, we live in an increasingly electronic world. The screen of tomorrow will define how we will interface with our environment; just as ink and paper defined how previous generations interacted with their universe. What we as educators need to do is grasp how the ubiquity of digital technology is shaping the way our students learn how to live in their future. We need to redefine our paradigms and expectations so that we can help them be prepared for tomorrow.

Indulge me as I look backwards: This is something I wrote nine months ago:

Technology is not meant to be the end, but to be the means. Technology is a tool to engage our students. Web 2.0 has introduced us to new ways of creating and defining community. Just as the chalk board created new ways to create relationships between the student and the teacher and the nature of education itself, the digital universe we are entering is opening up new doors that will lead to a different learning and teaching reality. It is incumbent upon us to grasp this new type of chalk, and start writing on the virtual chalk board.

I wrote the above words as part of a homework assignment for my just completed education technology certificate course. I called this, at the time, my edtech “mission statement”. I still believe it. My understanding of the ramifications of using education technology in the Jewish classroom has deepened as I’ve learned how these tools can be used. More importantly, I believe more than ever that ultimately all of these programs and applications are merely aides to help us achieve a final goal – creating a Jewish future.

Yes we have no choice but to embrace this digital universe - but not blindly. We need to be critical consumers, analyzing whether this gadget or that program will serve our needs. Will using a smartphone help our students learn to chant Torah? How? Will creating a VoiceThread effectively teach our students what the Amida is all about? What would be a more effective way to learn about midrash: Through bibliodrama or Animoto? We need to define our goals, and then determine the best way to reach them.

Yes, I believe now, more than ever, that 21st century technology is a means to an end. But I also am mindful that the words of Torah are written on animal skin using a bird’s feather and ink made of gallnuts. They can be just as meaningful on that ancient form of technology as they are on my iPad screen. It doesn’t matter how I let those words touch me; its that they do. And that’s the point.

Genesis Redux

“The medium, or process, of our time – electric technology – is reshaping and restructuring patterns of social interdependence and every aspect of our personal life...Everything is changing…Societies have always been shaped more by the nature of the media by which men [sic] communicate than by the content of the communications.” (Marshall McLuhan)

These prescient words were written by Marshall McLuhan in his ironically entitled book The Medium is the Massage in 1967.  The volume was an accessible explanation of his earlier (and denser) work.  His premise, ergo the title, was that:

“All media work us over completely. They are so pervasive…that they leave no part of us untouched, unaffected, unaltered.  The medium is the massage. Any understanding of social and cultural change is impossible without a knowledge of the way media work as environments.”

Facebook has changed the world.  It’s not so much WHAT’S said on this social network.  It’s how it is said.  It is the way we make ourselves known. We declaim.  We share private moments. We express our opinions without regard of who reads our words. Being a friend is now a verb and relates to people who, in the past, we would have ordinarily forgotten. We publically open ourselves up to the world.  The public square, once the center of town, is no longer a place where we need to physically gather to find out “what’s happening”.  It is nowhere and everywhere. It is the global, virtual, social network. The soapboxes upon which we stand are plugged into an available power outlet.

So what do we do about this?  Embrace it.

If what we say becomes, as McLuhan wrote, shaped by how we express it, then we need to understand the social networking environment.  Notions of privacy are being thrown out, and replaced by new norms. The nature of public discourse is being redefined. The way our students conduct themselves in both the physical and virtual universes has been shaped by digital life and will translate into modes of behavior and learning in the classroom. The way we teach must reflect the way our students interact with their environment.  We, the instructors, are just one facet of that educational milieu. Rather than bemoan the accouterments of social networking, it is incumbent upon us to truly understand the ramifications of these new definitions and modes of behavior and direct our energies towards accommodating what we do, as teachers and educators, to these new realities.

Socrates, in Plato’s Phaedrus, bemoans the state of humanity, blaming its inevitable demise on the invention of those insidious new technologies, the alphabet and writing.   He claims that this new fangled idea of writing things down will result in the destruction of memory. How far have we gone! Technology shapes the way we experience the world. McLuhan wrote: 

“The wheel is an extension of the foot; the book is an extension of the eye…clothing, an extension of the skin…electric circuitry, an extension of the central nervous system.  Media, by altering the environment, evoke in us unique ratios of sense perceptions. The extension of any one sense alters the way we think and act – the way we perceive the world.  When these ratios change, men [sic] change.”

Social media has led us to new ways to interact with the world and with each other. Maybe this is the next step in human evolution. 

And it was evening, and it was morning, the next day.

Answers to Open the Door

Pesach is a time for questions.

So, in the spirit of the season, I would like to ask you some.  I’ll start with one: How do Jewish educators learn to use 21st century educational technology in the Jewish classroom?  This will lead to a few more.  What follows is a survey with 15 questions (an auspicious number for Pesach). The goal of this short (5-8 minutes) questionnaire is to find some answers to the question of how and what we learn.  

My friend and colleague Barry Gruber recently posted a piece about the smorgasbord of opportunities to learn what the ‘net provides. He’s right – it truly is a blessing.  I wonder if this cornucopia is so bountiful that there will be many who, like the 4^th child, will be so intimidated by all the resources available that they will be daunted by the act of beginning to learn. They won’t know where to start. They won’t know what to ask. If this is the case, what should we do about it?

Ergo the survey.   This is an independent project to explore the nature of on-line Jewish professional development related to the utilization of educational technology.  It’s focus is to find out how we Jewish educators learn about these new tools, where we learn from, and if we need to make these learning opportunities more accessible.  I'm hoping that this information will help shape the way Jewish educators can easily learn more about the use of digital tools in their classrooms.

Teaching is leading.  We educators create an environment for our students to construct their knowledge base.  The tools that are being developed today and tomorrow empower us to achieve this goal.  The complicated part is that we need to learn how to use them.  There’s the rub.  What’s the best way for the educators, who can’t go to conferences or don’t have local resources provided by central agencies, to learn how to take the next step into the world of digital Jewish learning?

Questions.  There are many.  And the answers may lead us to an understanding of what we can do to build a solid base of Jewish educators who can comfortably engage their students, speaking a common language. This is why I’m asking you all to take part in this adventure.

I must thank Jonathan Woocher and Rebecca Leshin of the Lippman Kanfer Institute for supporting this project and providing the platform to make it possible. I also want to acknowledge the many educators in the Jewish cloud who have contributed ideas to help create this survey.  There are too many to mention by name, but I do want to thank you all for you assistance.

So please click here to access this professional development survey.  Answers can be signposts leading us in the direction of creating Jewish futures for our students. We just need to start with the questions.  Together let’s find the answers.

Teva-JNF seminar: pt 4 - The Jewish Edge Effect

Changing frames of reference.  That’s really the best way to describe this past week’s Teva Seminar on Jewish Environmental Education. Old ideas were presented in new packaging, and new concepts were introduced in the context of tradition (albeit in new garb, as well). These are examples of what I call the “Jewish Edge Effect”.

A few days ago I wrote about the scientific concept of “the edge effect”: the phenomenon of increased biodiversity in areas where different habitats meet. We can observe the Jewish edge effect when different Jewish perspectives converge and create new approaches to both tradition and modernity, challenging and modifying conventional wisdom.  That’s what happened here, specifically in terms of the JNF and Israel.

The presentations and programs from the Jewish National Fund were geared to present Israel in a benign, green fashion, sidelining the political elephant in the room.  I think to a great extent they succeeded:  The educators who participated in those sessions came away with ideas of how to present the Jewish State in positive ways that are accessible to all, and especially speak to young people – those who, according to research and experience, are the least engaged when it comes to Israel. 

This is where the Jewish edge effect comes in. At the Teva seminar, all participants learned that “nature has no boundaries” (Noam Dolgin) and that preserving the ecological balance in the region can be the key leading to less hostilities and even (dare I say it?) peace.   But this was just one small piece.  Sessions on climate change, Shabbat as an example for sustainable living, and rabbinic perspectives on consumption created a mindset for all participants to open up to other possibilities.  The “Topsy-Turvy” bus that sat by the lake in the parking lot across from the dining hall was, I think, the most salient example of how things can be seen differently.  This had a significant impact on how those Jewish educators from “main stream” institutions who participated in the JNF programming will approach teaching about Israel in the future.

If we present Israel as a place where nature happens, a place where the inhabitants cope with sharing scarce resources, could this possibly effect how our students look at Israel in the future; not as a venue of conflict, but as a land that needs to be worked and protected (Genesis 2:15)? A changing frame of reference regarding Eretz Yisrael, focusing on the context of The Land that is shared by all, might create a new spark of caring for those who don’t remember ’67, but do remember Gaza and the flotilla.  

I’m not so naïve as to believe that JNF’s mission has changed:  its raison d’être is classic Zionist: to create a majority Jewish presence on the Land.  However maybe if the sentiments of future supporters of JNF and Israel are not just motivated by demographic and nationalist concerns, but rather by caring for the Land and its promise, we may find a renewed interest in Israel and Zionism, which might then have a real influence on Israel itself.

The Jewish edge effect describes a framework for the promise of an evolving Judaism.  One that draws from different cultural, technological and intellectual habitats that converge and from which can spring forth a flourishing Jewish tomorrow.  

Teva-JNF seminar:pt.3

I was on an upside-down bus today.  Actually it’s called the “Topsy-turvy bus”.  Here it is:

 

Originally a work of art by the late artist Tom Kennedy, this unique mode of transportation has now become a tool for education: teaching new paradigms in the way we look at our relationship with the planet.  The bus runs on vegetable oil and has recently completed a cross-country trip, the goal of which was to deliver green education to all and sundry. For more information you can go to the Jewish Climate Change Campaign Tour blog.

Rachel, one of the drivers in the recent journey described the teaching method behind the bus madness as “taking folks by surprise.” Getting people’s attention is way to get them to be more receptive to a new message and way of seeing reality.  I think we have  a lot to learn from this when it comes to teaching about Israel.

One of the sessions I attended today was offered by the Jewish National Fund and focused on the “GoNeutral Project”. Its purpose is to create a connection between Israel and planting trees as a means of controlling carbon emissions.  It’s a clever idea, and makes it easy to care about an Israel where the politics are irrelevant.  It’s effective because most of us associate the JNF with the blue boxes and the issue of land ownership.  This reaches us because it frames the whole issue in the surprising context of Israel's role in reducing the threat of greenhouse gases. A good beginning towards getting us to change how we look at the Jewish State. More work needs to follow, but at least we are starting to make the first baby steps.

Teva-JNF seminar:pt.2

I learned a new concept today: “The Edge effect”. This is a term used in environmental sciences that describes the phenomenon of increased biodiversity in areas where different habitats meet. This means that in areas where a forest and a meadow touch each other, you’ll find greater varieties of species coexisting. The introduction of new and seemingly disparate elements into a system expands it. Nili Simhai, Director of the Teva Seminar on Jewish Environmental Education, introduced this theme as she welcomed us all to this year’s 16th annual conference. She was teaching it in the context of Jewish environmental awareness and the interface between the learner, the teacher and the land, but I’m going to extrapolate from it: The education experience is like an ecosystem. The way we teach something has an impact on what we’re teaching. By bringing in new and possibly novel ideas and modalities, we can have an influence on both the learner and on what she is learning. While this isn’t such a revolutionary idea, the setting in which it was articulated made it special.

Rabbi Arthur Waskow followed Nili by exploring a spiritual aspect of the current environmental crises: Finding God in the Gulf, if you will. He started with the unpronounceable name of the Deity, explaining that it can only be articulated by exhaling. He’s right. Try to pronounce those 4 Hebrew letters. You can’t. If God’s essence is in a breath, then all life (human and other) is united by this. “The breathing of all life is God’s name.”  The implication is that “God’s own name is at risk” today on this planet, because of the threat to its ecological soundness. I found this thought refreshing not because I’ve become a follower of Jewish renewal (I have not), but because it reframed the question of our relationship to the environment, adding an extra layer to how we relate to it, interact with it, and influence it. The edge effect in action, if you will.

In my last post I wrote about my expectations of this seminar and how I hoped it would provide a new way to teach about Israel. Now I want to see how this “edge effect” can also describe the influence our teaching can have not only on the learner, but also on The Land.

Teva-JNF seminar:pt.1

Whew.  Finally got a seat at a bar as I await my flight here in Ft. Laurderdale as I begin my journey to the Teva-JNF Ambassadors’ seminar.  I’ve been mulling over the next few days – what can I expect, especially in this past week of Zionist maritime adventures?

This whole conference, initially meant to teach educators how to present Israel in a green perspective has taken on a more poignant perspective.  It’s not just about creating a connection between Creation (ma’aseh b’resheet) and Jewish life and Israel.  It’s become more urgent – building a link between Jewish youth of today and tomorrow and Eretz Yisrael in a language that speaks to their sensibilities. And now, after the events of the week, we need to find ways that create positive links to Israel, despite the troublesome stream of bad news from the region. We're not talking about PR.  It's not about image.  It's about how we want our kids to teach their kids about Israel.

So…my expectations?  What do I want to come away with?  A way of presenting the idea of Israel that is not linked to blockades and ships and commandos landing on a deck being attacked.  A way that will help us look at Israel as a fulfillment of the dreams of a people searching for freedom for themselves, and not at the expense on another.

Let’s see what the next week brings. I'll be tweeting  (you can follow me as redmenace 56) and blogging here.

Choosing to Squeeze the Trigger

Yesterday was a difficult day.  As Daniel Gordis described it: A yom kasheh - a tough day. It’s irrelevant if the decisions of the Israeli government regarding the flotilla were right or wrong.  There are as many articles being published in Israel by fathers and mothers of Israeli soldiers calling the operation a debacle as there are hailing the bravery of our Israeli boys and nefariousness of the so-called “peace activists” (see the Gordis piece above). And now government ministers are protesting that they were not included in the decision.  I’m not sure we’ll ever really know the truth of what happened, but what concerns me is something different:  What has this conflict done to our sense of humanity and how  will it impact on what we teach the next generation.

I’m an old-time Zionist whose pride in Israel was shaped by the events of June 1967.  But as I grew, my belief in the righteousness of Jewish nationalism was enhanced by another Jewish value:  “That which is hateful to you, don’t do to another.” As a Jewish educator, I try to teach that the value of Tzedek – Justice, is a fundamental component of Jewish living, especially expressed in the context of the Jewish State. It is for this reason that I am repulsed by Golda Meir’s statement of how difficult it will be for Israel to forgive Arab leaders for “forcing us to kill their children.”  You see, it’s us, the Jews/Zionists/Israelis who are choosing to squeeze the trigger.  Yes, it is in self defense, but I can’t help but wonder if there could be another way.

Zionism is not a movement to create a country that’s just like others, like Thailand or Russia.  Its mission is to create a Jewish state – a place where Jewish values thrive.  Kedoshim Tehee’yoo – You shall be Holy.  These words are from the book of Leviticus, in Parashat Kedoshim.  Kadosh means special, distinct. Not like everyone else.  It means that we need to take the extra step towards imitating God, in whose image we were created.   This belief informs how I approach what happens in Israel, which I consider my homeland, from which I live in exile. I don’t know how to reconcile a blockade of 1.4 million people with holiness.  And Hamas be damned - we are talking about human beings.  Kids.  Old people. They are suffering.  Hamas is forcing us to do this?  We are squeezing the trigger. How is this holy behavior? In the name of self-defense can one put striving towards holiness on hold?  How do I explain this to a 7^th grader?

Yes we are at war, and we need to defend ourselves.  But, are we doing it the right way, the just way?  How do we teach this to our kids?  I don’t know.  That’s what’s scaring me and made yesterday a yom kasheh.

Learning To Read All Over Again: Part 2

# 1. Our task as Jewish educators is to prepare and motivate students to use their power, talent, and passion to build their own Jewish lives, rooted in who they are and what they consider important. When through this individualized Jewish exploration, am’cha leads themselves into their own dreams, they will contribute in new and beautiful ways to the diversity of Jewish life. Even in these challenging times, there is no greater investment we could make. (Beth Cousens: http://ejewishphilanthropy.com/making-jewish-meaning/)

#2. The core of any mature tree is old wood. The old wood is crucial to maintaining the tree’s structure, its ability to withstand the changing winds, but no growth is going on there. The living processes that are the growth of the tree, its message to the future, take place only in the tree’s newest and outermost ring. We today are that outermost ring, and the growing is up to us. (Rabbi Zalman Schachter Shalomi, quoted in Contemporary American Judaism by Dana Evan Kaplan)

#3. One Book, One Twitter: What the hell do we do now, #1b1t? (@crowdsourcing)

#4. Chester Middle School Principal Ernie Jackson… challenged reading and social studies teacher Mel Wesenberg to find ways to use text messaging to teach poetry. The results were surprising: Kids who used their cell phones to boil down the main points of the stanzas got 80 percent of the questions about a poem correct on a state test. Kids taught the same poem in the traditional way – reading, reciting and discussing – got only 40 percent of the questions right. (http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100426/NEWS/100429736)

In my last post I pondered the concept of cultural and technological literacy, and how it applies to the craft of Jewish teaching. I just read an article written by Beth Cousens, (see #1, above) that articulated the need for personal ownership of knowledge. Learning needs a heart to be real. Without belonging to the student, it becomes sterile, and ultimately besides the point. But wait…there’s more.

I’ve just finished Contemporary American Judaism by Dana Evan Kaplan. It’s a fascinating read that describes how we ended up where we are today. Reb Zalman’s musings on the relationship between tree growth and the Jewish tomorrow (see #2) struck a chord in me, articulating the dynamic between the past, the future and today’s students. Jewish learning is a force that connects all generations. This linkage, by necessity, leads to an obligation. We are each responsible, one for the other – including teaching those who have not yet been born. The meaning we create leads to conceptualizations that have yet to be grasped. But wait…there’s more.

I imagine you’ve all heard of the concept of “One Book, One Community”, where a whole community reads and discusses a book - all in “the real world”. Wired Magazine’s Jeff Howe (@crowdsourcing) has gone one step further, proposing and making real an idea so simple in its elegance: a community in the twitterverse will read one book and then discuss it “one tweet at a time” (#3). Thousands of “tweeps” (denizens of the twitterverse) will exchange ideas about a piece of modern American fiction (in this case American Gods by Neil Gaiman). The kehillah, the community, is redefined, giving birth to new modes of interaction. A new type of learning community is born. The revolutionary Talmudic trans-generational conversations of the past have led us to digital discussions in virtual time. But wait…there’s more.

A New York State middle school has made a successful step in integrating the way 21^st century technology can be used in a language program, using cell phone texting as a teaching tool (#4). The initial results seem positive, the validity of state testing as a valid measure of student achievement being in question, notwithstanding. The implications of this lead us to consider the creation of a new form of midrash, reflecting new forms of realities and unthought-of technologies.

Where does this lead us?

The new language in which we need to immerse ourselves to reach our students is a tool that forces us to encounter a world in which poetry and novels can be interpreted in 140 characters. It’s a world where the mechanics of learning are newly defined in the contexts of digital brains and the ability to hyperconnect: to actively participate in an interactive virtual world where information from a myriad of sources is assimilated, translated and reduced to bits and bytes that are easily manipulated by these 21^st century minds. When we build our new models for learning and teaching, we need to understand the hardwiring in our students’ heads, taking advantage of its schematics as an opportunity to grant our students the gift of creating personal meaning as they initiate their own Jewish explorations.

As a tree grows it adds new rings on old; its roots grow deeper and its branches longer and higher. It expands in all directions, taking nourishment from the earth, the air, and from itself: old wood feeding the new. Reb Zalman is right: We are currently the outermost ring; it’s up to us to provide the sustenance that will nurture the next one.

Learning To Read All Over Again

It’s that time of year again. I’m not talking about Yom HaAtzmaut, or Shavuot. I’m not even referring to end of the year progress reports, Hebrew evaluations and confirmation services. This is the time that my thoughts focus on the next few years. What will my school look like in a year or two? How can I, in partnership with my school parents, initiate and implement constructive and transformational change?

There are a lot of interesting ideas floating around the cloud these days. One I just discovered can be found at Yerusha (here: http://www.yerusha.org/index.html and here: http://www.forward.com/articles/127124/). This new model of Jewish education aspires to returning parents to the role of primary educator through learning experiences that integrate technology and homeschooling. I would love to know how and if it works. I do know that there is much to learn from this program. This is just one proposal – one way that we can reach our students, whoever they are.

I recently attended the 2010 Technology Conference hosted by the Palm Beach County School District. There, I explored how the iGeneration (or whatever you want to call folks born in the last decade or so) speak a different language. We educators need to adapt to shifting notions of literacy, adopting the concept of “Transliteracy”: the ability to read, write and interact across an array of platforms and tools. This doesn’t just mean that we need to integrate the iTouch and Google Earth into our lessons. What it demands from us is that we must re-learn how to read. It is incumbent upon us to develop the ability to understand the new alphabet that our students are embracing. At the same time, we need to learn to listen to the language our school parents are speaking, as they strive to find ways of connecting their kids to a Jewish future.

Jason Ohler defines literacy as “being able to consume and produce the media forms of the day. The default media form has shifted from the essay to the multimedia collage.” (http://www.jasonohler.com/storytelling/beyondwords.cfm). What this means in the world of Jewish educational engagement is that we need to reset our defaults. These new modules may vary from cell phone texting as a classroom tool to a community oriented spiritual experience by a lake. It doesn’t matter if the learning is electric or organic. Labels are irrelevant. What matters is not that we can decode a language – reciting a string of symbols without comprehension - but that we can really read - ascribing meaning to the words written in those symbols. It means immersing ourselves in a new literacy that will shape how the future will be perceived. It means that maybe, if we become fluent enough in these new languages, we too can become writers, reaching the readers, opening doors to Jewish tomorrows.

But first we need to learn to read all over again.

What's the Point?

One of the hardest things I do is try to figure out what to teach my students, whether they are supremely unmotivated 8th graders or the teaching staff at the religious school I direct or my daughters. I find myself getting caught up in what I want them to learn, what I want them to know, and I forget that maybe I need to think about what they are ready to learn, what they are ready to know. If I start from where they are, I may make more progress.

This week in the twitterverse a fascinating question was raised: Is there such a thing as a universal Jewish curriculum? I translate that to mean “what are Jewish basic skills? What does a person need to know to be a member of the tribe?” Prayer? Which nusach, Ashkenazi or S’faradi? Keeping Kosher? Which heksher, OU or Star K? Affinity to Israel? Which ideology, Jstreet or ZOA? My point is best articulated by Jay Michaelson in his recent piece in The Forward called “The Myth of Authenticity” (www.forward.com/articles/121663) in which he exposes the idolatrous nature of Jewish-ideological-correctness. Once we understand that the concept of Jewish Absolute Truth is not at all clear-cut, we can begin to create a standardized Jewish curriculum.

What are the Jewish big ideas (or enduring understandings if you prefer) we want to pass on to the next generation? As I mulled this over, Rambam’s 13 Articles of Faith popped into my head. These are the 13 things (http://www.mesora.org/13principles.html) that Jews are supposed to believe, according to the 12th century Maimonides. They are summarized in the siddur in the prayer called the Yigdal. Are they, as written, still relevant to the 21st century Jewish world? Do you, as an educator or 21st century Jew, accept these 800 year old statements as core values in your faith? For instance, do you believe in the physical resurrection of the dead? How about the assertion that the Torah was actually given to Moses at Sinai? Do you believe in the messiah as an actual person who will be descended from the House of David? If we tried to create a curriculum based on these tenets, would our students accept them? Would they be relevant to them at all? I’m not sure.

So as we discuss Jewish big ideas, we need to make sure that they have meaning to the modern mind. If we start teaching about values that have no connection to the belief system of our students, we will be so totally out of their frame of reference we will ultimately be teaching to empty classrooms.

The strength of Judaism is its ability to evolve. Back in the days of the Mishnah, Pharisees , Sadducees and Essenes were arguing over the definition of authentic Judaism. Should Torah interpretation be permitted? Is there life after death? What about free will and angels? Today’s arguments over the role of women, the centrality of the State of Israel, matrilineal vs. patrilineal descent need to inform whatever curriculum we create. If anything is authentically Jewish, it is the dynamic nature of pluralistic Jewish spiritual and ideological development. Maybe that’s the big idea, the enduring understanding with which we begin: The glory of Jewish diversity.

Of Parking Meters and Particle Colliders

At the beach I was flummoxed by technology. Once upon a time we’d go the shore, find a parking spot and deposit whatever loose change we had into the parking meter. There has been a revolution, though. The old fashioned parking meter was replaced by a computerized one, which now handles the entire lot. We keyed in our parking space number, deposited the requisite amount of quarters, and the meter remembered how much time we had. Cool! For some reason however, the-powers-that-be determined to revert to a hybrid system: No more parking numbers. We deposit our quarters and then (are you ready for this high tech solution?) we receive a paper receipt that we must place face-up on the driver’s side dash. It seems that the technological innovators of South Florida didn’t totally get what they were doing. It’s the old 1 step – 2 step shuffle. Backwards.

Recently I’ve read about the problems facing CERN’s Large Hadron Particle Collider - a piece of super advanced science equipment that was felled after only 9 days of operation by essentially an electrical short. So far it’s taken a year to figure out how to fix it. Sometimes I think modern technology is enthusiastically embraced without fully understanding the ramifications or consequences.

I’m not suggesting anything as luddite as to slow down. We need to progress. My question is if we’re moving too fast for everyone else? This morning’s NY Times had an article about the move into digital textbooks. You can find it here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/09/education/09textbook.html?scp=4&sq=tamar%20lewin&st=cse. It’s not that it’s a bad idea. I embrace it, but the question (raised in the article) is what to do with kids who don’t have computers. Will the technology we need to utilize to move forward have an unintended side affect of creating a class of people who don’t have equal access - the educational haves and have-nots? We need to think this process through to its logical conclusion.

So how do we not repeat the mistake of the Delray Beach Ministry of Parking or CERN? How do we take control of the use of technology in our classrooms without paying a price? The particle collider costs something like $10 billion. The cost of our misusing technology or (worse) misunderstanding the ramifications of using these tools in the Jewish classroom is much higher. Yes, we’ll make mistakes and pay good money for them. This will not make our congregational funders pleased – they already have limited tolerance for trial and error anyway. But it’s the kids that concern me the most. I don’t think we want to lose an entire generation because we didn’t totally understand what we were doing.

As we travel into the yet uncharted void of the digital universe, it seems to me that we need to make sure of three things: That we are comfortable with the technology, that the teachers who will be the front line practitioners, understand how these tools work, and that the students don’t suffer from OUR growing pains. The kids will have no patience for our fumbling. On our journey, we need to tether our teachers and students with us. But the line needs to be short. We need to be able to reel them in quickly. We can’t lose them. The worst sin of an educator is irrelevance. It’s a price we can’t pay.

Jewish Identity Crisis-Victim and Oppressor?

On Wednesday some anti-Semite nut job tried to shoot up the Holocaust memorial. What I’d like us to think about is how we react to hate and how we teach our kids to respond to anti-Semitism. Facts are facts. Anti-Semites killed Jews. My dad has a number on his arm to prove it. We need to make sure that it doesn’t happen again. The question (here goes!) is: What is the price WE pay to fight anti-Semitism?

A story. As a former member if the Israel Defense Forces, I subsequently served a monthly stint every year in Miluyim (Israeli reserves). Sometimes I would find myself at a checkpoint outside of Eilat – Israel’s southern most city, and the only port city in the south. As such, it was considered a strategic asset, with special security protocols. We were commanded to “detain all those with an ‘eastern complexion.’” In Hebrew: “la’atzor kol echad im d’moot mizrachit”. So, being good soldiers, we followed orders. It got weird, as many of the guys in the unit were S’faradim (Jews of Mediterranean origins) and had dark skin, but we all knew what the order meant. You see an Arab. Pull him over. Take him off the bus.

Long-story short: An Eged bus came to our checkpoint. We got on. We checked the passengers’ I.Ds (those who looked Arab anyway). I got off the bus and saw that one of our guys had pulled off a gentleman with his wife. She was dressed in traditional Arab garb – a hijab and robe. And she was very very pregnant. He was from Jerusalem. He was okay. She was not. I think she came from Ramallah – in the West Bank. She didn’t have the proper papers. So she and her husband were not allowed to enter Eilat. I argued with my C.O. At least they gave her a chair to sit on, under the hot desert sun. They had to wait for a taxi to take them back north. I don’t think she was a terrorist.

What does fighting oppression do to us victims?

A few days ago, Brooklyn Assemblyman Dov Hikind of Brooklyn publicly declared that a memorial to the victims of Nazi genocide should only be in memory of Jews and not the other victims, such as Gays or the disabled. “To include these other groups diminishes their memory…These people are not in the same category as Jewish people with regards to the Holocaust…It is so vastly different. You cannot compare political prisoners with Jewish victims.” (http://www.nypost.com/seven/06082009/news/regionalnews/hikind__jews_only_173112.htm)
Tell that to my dad, whose barracks in Birkenau was directly across from the gypsies’ area. He remembers waking up to the shots and the screams as the Roma children were driven out to be burned. Assemblyman Hikind, where is your sense of all people being created B’tzelem Eloheem?

So what do we teach our kids? That only we Jews have a monopoly on suffering? That the world is against us and so we can do whatever we want to protect ourselves? Should we agree with Chabad Rabbi Manis Friedman, who wrote in the recent issue of Moment magazine that “The only way to fight a moral war is the Jewish way: Destroy their holy sites. Kill men, women and children (and cattle),”
(http://www.momentmag.com/Exclusive/2009/2009-06/200906-Ask_Rabbis.html)

What do we tell our kids? How do we teach them compassionate self-preservation? How do we, the victims, not turn into the oppressors?

The Fifth Child - the first question

As a lurker in the Jewish blogosphere, it’s taken me a while to get the courage to stop being a voyeur, and to start getting into the thick of things - virtually speaking. So here goes:

Ladies and Gentlemen, may I present my first foray into blogging: “The Fifth Child”.

We’re familiar with the 4 sons of Passover: the wise, the wicked, the simple and the one who doesn’t even know how to ask. These characters are meant to teach us that we must recognize the different types of learners that cross our paths. I think that many of us (including yours truly) fits into a fifth category – a combination of all of the above. Sometimes I know something and want to find out more. Sometimes I revel in questioning authority. At times I really don’t know what’s going on. And then every once in a while I don’t even know how to ask. Ergo “The Fifth Child”.

I’ll be writing about questions I have that touch upon how the modern world interfaces with the Jewish past, present and future. With answers that you can provide, together we can explore ways that will enable us to transmit what we know (or think we know) to the next generation.

I start with a couple of (my) "givens":

1) Technology, such as twitter, Second Life and iPods, is poised to be the connective tissue that links tomorrow's Jews to Judaism and the Jewish community today.

2) Learning and teaching need to be experiential. The effectiveness of what has been dubbed “formal education” has been exposed to be a myth, especially in supplementary Jewish education. We understand that learning must involve doing, experiences.

Does anyone out there have other "givens"? Anyone disagree with mine? Let's start the conversation.

I think it’s time for tachlis…what works and what doesn’t. As a Jewish educator in a congregational setting, I am fascinated by how we can engage our students with their Jewish heritage. I’m not talking about ideas that can be applied the day after tomorrow (like my friend, Adrian Durlester’s idea of divorcing supplementary schools from synagogues. Check out his blog at migdalorguysblog.blogspot.com.) I want to know what we can do this afternoon, and tomorrow. What can we do to keep our students interested? What can we do to get the parents to park their cars and to come into the building? What works? What doesn’t?

The next question, of course, is what I mean by the concept of “our Jewish heritage”? Well, that’s the 64 thousand shekel question. I maintain that it is time for us to reevaluate what we are teaching. What (if any) role does the modern State of Israel play in the lives of 21^st century American Jews? Do denominations matter? And when you get down to it…what in tarnations IS a Jew anyway? In a world made up of what Joey Kurtzman of Jewcy.com called “Frankenjews” (www.jewcy.com/dialogue/2007-06-11/joey1), what does it mean to be a Member of the Tribe? How does it impact what we teach about ourselves and about the idea of Klal Yisrael?

I’ll stop here for now. If anyone is reading this, please respond – let’s start a discussion about what are the practical steps in creating a meaningful Jewish future.