Mishnah Avot 4:1

בֶּן זוֹמָא אוֹמֵר: אֵיזֶהוּ חָכָם, הַלּוֹמֵד מִכָּל אָדָם, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר (תְּהִלִּים קיט) מִכָּל מְלַמְּדַי הִשְׂכַּלְתִּי כִּי עֵדְוֹתֶיךָ שִׂיחָה לִּי

Ben Zoma said: Who is wise? One who learns from every man, as it is said: “From all who taught me have I gained understanding” (Psalms 119:99)

It is in the spirit of this mishnah that I present the following thoughts. There are important takeaways from Miriam Anzovin’s videos that Jewish studies teachers can integrate into their teaching, assessments, and classrooms.

Let me be clear: This is not a promotion for Miriam Anzovin, notwithstanding that I am a fan. There are numerous and very valid reasons why Anzovin’s videos should not be imported wholesale into Jewish studies classrooms. Anzovin’s videos are coming from a certain vantage point and are geared towards an adult audience. She uses profanity liberally, and is intentionally irreverent to the point where some in the more traditional communities consider her heretical. I understand why she evokes strong negative reactions; there are times when her videos make even me uncomfortable. Anzovin also uses cultural references from television and film that are not necessarily appropriate for middle and high schoolers, and she makes her politics very clear. Another reason some object to her videos is that they seem to oversimply and thereby demean Talmud study. Anzovin believes that Talmud should not be elitist and exclusionary; on the contrary, perhaps her central mission is to promulgate Talmud and Talmud study so that more people appreciate its brilliance and relevance.

Problems and objections notwithstanding, Anzovin and her videos are highly entertaining and memorable. More importantly, they not only reach those who are familiar with Talmud, they also reach audiences that were previously unaware of, uninterested in, or even turned off from Jewish learning. For that alone, we as Jewish educators have what to learn from her. What follows is an analysis of a methodology that has proven to be highly successful, and one from which new (and even not-so-new) teachers can gain valuable tools.

1. Appearance matters. Anzovin has a signature “look” and it grabs one’s attention. So much so, that she has made make-up tutorials which incorporate Talmudic ideas. As Jewish studies teachers, we are seen as role models and examples, whether we want to be or not. This is especially relevant in middle and high school, when students are actively questioning and shaping their identities. Therefore, we walk a fine line between dressing and behaving modestly, professionally, and looking put-together. We want to dress in a way that brings dignity and respect to our profession as Jewish studies teachers as well as to the Torah that we teach. On the other hand, שֶׁקֶר הַחֵן וְהֶבֶל הַיֹּפִי (charm is false and beauty is empty vanity)—we don’t want our appearance to be either a distraction or off-putting, and we don’t want to draw too much attention to our appearance when it comes to students.

There used to be a tag-line for a dandruff shampoo: You never get a second chance to make a first impression. I was—and still am—amazed by what a senior once told me: she remembered exactly what I was wearing on the first day of her freshman year. From the first moment we walk into the classrooms, our students are looking at us for 40, 50, even 90 minutes at a time. How we appear—our faces, hair, clothing, shoes—is important to our effectiveness as Jewish studies teachers, and we do need to be mindful of it. We don’t need to obsess or unduly stress about it; we just need to have an awareness that, like it or not, our students do notice our appearance.

2. Greet your audience every day. Anzovin opens every post, both video and written, with “Shalom, friends.” It’s a simple thing, but powerful. It makes you feel welcomed, seen, and appreciated. It puts a smile on your face. It may sound simplistic, even “elementary school-ish,” and it certainly isn’t always easy. Yet starting a lesson with “hello,” “hi,” “boker tov/good morning,” or “shalom,” and even meeting and greeting students when they enter a room, can be very impactful. It not only makes students feel welcomed, seen, and valued, it builds a bond between you and them, encouraging engagement from the moment they enter the room. These greetings set a tone and draw students in, even forestalling their tendency to hide, because it’s harder to hide from someone who wants you there, and wants to work with you in a cooperative way. The welcoming process also models the middah of Avraham and Sarah—the “open tent,” encouraging everyone and anyone to enter. “Shalom, friends” or any other sincere greeting that you choose and use routinely, encourages community-building, collaboration, and mutual respect. This may be subliminal, but the effects over time are unmistakable.

3. Make your work process transparent. Anzovin’s audience knows her process because she tells them. We know that she starts by listening to a 45-minute Daf Yomi shiur, then reviews the daf again with a hevruta. She writes a script, and can spend up to a whole day (8-10 hours) creating one video that is often less than 3 minutes. She does all the hair and makeup, the filming, the special effects, the editing. Even if they don’t always think about it, Anzovin’s viewers know how much time, thought, effort, and energy go into one video.

Our students often assume we’ve been teachers forever, that we know everything, that we never have to think and prepare, and that we don’t have anything else going on in our lives except for teaching them and grading their assignments. Part of this is the normal self-absorption of adolescents, but a larger part is ignorance. Unless their parents are educators (and even then), our students really don’t know the time, thought, and energy involved before they (or we) walk into the classroom. It can be a very powerful object lesson to either ask them how long they think that preparing one lesson, or even grading one exam, takes us. My students learned that it took me two hours to prepare a 40 minute lesson, that writing an exam could take two hours, and that grading one student’s exam could easily take 10-15 minutes.

Another way to make our processes more transparent is to have the students try out what it means to prepare a lesson, even a short one. We can and perhaps should provide them with guidelines, but we can actually let them make their own. If we ask them to document their process—time spent, how they felt along the way, the challenges, and the lessons learned—they can develop skills as well as a deeper appreciation for the work of teaching that we do.

This kind of transparency doesn’t have to be a big deal and it doesn’t have to be presented more than once or twice to a group of students over the course of a year. Also, word will spread among the students, which is not a bad thing. In my experience, perhaps the most valuable outcome of transparency is that it supports the sanctity of Jewish education by allowing our students to see and understand what goes into it.

4. Quality products take time. This is an invaluable lesson for students, and connects to the transparency of what is actually involved in being a good teacher. If you want something good, and certainly great, it takes time and repetition. Anzovin talks about how she does multiple takes to get 5 seconds right. She talks about writing a script. We live in a world that moves super fast, and our attention spans are shorter than when many of us were students ourselves. Even as adults, we tend to forget what goes into the products we consume—time, thought, trial-and-error, practice, energy, even tedium. These investments apply to almost every discipline: sports, arts, performance, science, writing, entrepreneurship. Simply put: anything that is “worth it” takes time, thought, and effort. Even if something is over in minutes or seconds—a sprint, a downhill ski run, a commercial, a TikTok, an audition, or a split-second, life-saving decision—in the background there is a boatload of time, thought, and effort.

When students are doing something that they enjoy and/or value, this commitment is self-evident. When it comes to Jewish studies, however, it seems that the awareness of what’s needed to “get good at it,” and the willingness to put that time and effort into it, is lacking. Many students don’t want to or don’t know how to—or even know that they need to—work at all on the skills necessary to become really good at Tanakh and Talmud. There are many explanations to account for this disconnect.

Here are a few:
(a) There are a lot of skills needed to “get good at” Tanakh and Talmud, from reading and vocabulary in two foreign languages to higher order thinking skills.
(b) There are far fewer external motivators: there are no standardized tests and some colleges don’t consider Jewish studies grades.
(c) Sometimes there is an absence of parental support.

Therefore, it is even more important for teachers to make clear to students the need for time and effort in mastering Jewish studies content and skills, and to outline and model how those skills are acquired. We also need to provide time in class for students to practice their skill building, and incentivize their practicing outside of class. Finally, we need to give time and space to discuss the “why” of Jewish studies, and for our students to come to understand why they are so important, even invaluable—that they deserve the time, energy, and effort that it takes to really “get good” at them.

5. Communication is critical. As teachers, we are communicators by definition. So much so, that we often don’t think about it; communication is instinctive to us. But we actually do need to think about how we communicate information to students, and how we can do it better so that we connect with them more efficiently and effectively. There is a lot to be gained by paying attention to the communication skills that Anzovin uses: clear articulation, cadence (not too slow or too fast), repeating some points, and referents (context and age appropriateness) are all integral to her videos.

It is also important to keep in mind that our words, and how we use them, can have tremendous impact. As teachers, we don’t often know the effect that our words have on our students, both positive and negative. Therefore, we actually do need to be prepared, if not with a written script, then with a mental one. Also, unlike a video, we are “live”; we have the advantage of being able to “read a room” and receive instant feedback. We need to use those advantages for our own and our students’ benefit.

6. Message-time ratio. For me, this was a real “aha” moment, with profound implications for (a) my own teaching and (b) assessments.

(a) As Jewish studies teachers, time is often not on our side. There never seems to be enough time to cover the content and to allow students to work on their skills. There seems to be even less time for students to go off on interesting tangents or allow them to investigate and pursue what actually interests and excites them, to have discussions and debates. What I learned from Anzovin’s videos is that planning is critical to creating more time, as is blended or flipped learning. The amount of information Anzovin crams into 2-3 minutes is awe-inspiring. Her videos, as mentioned above, are the product of a lot of time spent learning and planning how to deliver the information. The time spent in planning lessons pays off in the time saved during delivery, whether frontal or flipped. Furthermore, a flipped model—whereby students watch teacher-created videos before they come to class—supports differentiation and engagement. The freed-up class time can be used in ways that serve learning—skills practice, discussions, deeper dives into tangential areas, and/or areas of interest for students.

(b) Anzovin’s videos are a true demonstration of an authentic summative assessment. As someone who learns the daf (and has learned Gemara for decades) the fact that she (1) hits almost all the highlights of a given daf, (2) extracts key elements/lessons from it, (3) does it in a way that is memorable (and entertaining) is what inspires me most.

Assigning this kind of assessment has numerous merits:

– students have to review and master information before they begin creating a video

– the video has to reflect both lower-order and higher-order thinking

– the format is real-world— it is relatable and practices useful skills

– these videos are far shorter, and thus easier to grade, than traditional paper-and-pen exams.

7. Meaning-making is key. It’s in the medium, the method, and the message. As Jewish studies teachers, we are often suspicious of, if not hostile to, what’s “new.” This is particularly the case when what’s “new” in Western culture is perceived to be inimical to Jewish and Torah values. Our traditions are very old, and we have every right to be wary of embracing “the latest thing” only because it’s current. On the other hand, our students are often the ones quickly adopting the latest technology and trends. In my experience, I have found that a key to engaging our students and to widening the access to meaning-making between the ancient texts, eternal values, and their lives is to use the most current technology wherever possible and appropriate.

As mentioned above, Anzovin is creating content for a “mature” audience. Notwithstanding this, she demonstrates how social media can promote active engagement in Torah learning and Jewish continuity. By using social media (e.g. TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram) Anzovin connects with her audience and meets them “where they are.” By keeping it short, she meets them at their attention span (for better or for worse). By using cultural referents, she makes an ancient, elitist, cumbersome text into something meaningful and relevant. Tana’im and Amora’im are depicted as people, thereby making them more relatable and more interesting. As Jewish studies teachers, we cannot take the irreverent tone that is Anzovin’s trademark, but we can adopt and adapt an approach that works because it opens more doors, and encourages us to learn from these Sages.
 

Anzovin has mastered this medium and exemplifies mastery learning. But far more important, she uses her method and her medium to convey a crucial message: Talmud, Torah learning, and Judaism are vibrant and vital, as well as central to our identity and our continuity. Isn’t this what Jewish education is all about?