<HTML>I've been a lurker on this list since it started, and I must say that I
was taken aback by the scorn by which some early postings seemed to refer
to the way my students learn.
I am one of those teachers who teaches selected sugyot. I've chosen
sugyot which carefully spiral through technical terminology, advance
through a variety of distinct, but related Halakhic concepts (humra, hidur
mitzvah, syag laTorah). The sugyot are accompanied by halakhot selected
from the Shulhan Arukh which the students study as homework. The units
also include challenge assignments.
I have found that if you are teaching a diverse group of kids, not
everyone is going to have the level of abstract thinking ability to really
enter into the Talmud. By creating units which blend these different
genres of Rabbinic literature (gemara and codes), I have found that all of
the students could gain some proficiency with the material in the unit.
Yes, my students are the ones who can't always answer which masekhet they
are studying because we bounce around looking at parallel texts and not
just working through a single pereq. But in the limited amount of time
which I get at my school, I think I have achieved some good results.
I think we have to seriously consider going beyond Talmud to the broader
range of Rabbinic literature. Some students, both boys and girls, are
more attracted to midrash, some are capable of studying halakhah as a text
(at a higher level than simply learning dinim) even when gemara might be
too challenging.
In any case, that's what I do in seventh grade.
In eighth grade, my students use the computer databases (Judaic Classics
Library, Bar Ilan Responsa Database), and a fairly broad library of
Rabbinics to do research and then produce their own commentaries to
classical texts. Since the students are working on their own projects,
they don't get the same kind of thorough study of a topic that they would
get if they were in a teacher-centered classroom. But the point is that
they are in a totally student-centered classroom, they are motivated, and
they are capable of pushing their skills to new levels. I encourage you
to take a look at our website:
[
www.uscj.org]
and see what these kids can do. I don't apologize for the fact that they
make mistakes, or that they are not as halakhic as I would like. I don't
flinch over issues like "hizaharu b'divreikhem" because everyone knows
that these texts were put together by kids who just want to create a
conversation. That's the point. I want my students to enter into a
conversation with our vast tradition and with the broad community of
Torah-studying Jews out there who also want to talk about Torah.
I do apologize that not all of the links (especially the links to leave
comments for the authors) are active, but I would be glad to forward any
comments that you have to them.
Jeffrey Spitzer
Director of the Rabbinics Lab
Solomon Schechter Day School of Greater Boston</HTML>
