Most of the educators who responded to Yitzchok Levine's original post have argued that day schools are doing a fair job of reaching their goals given the various challenges that they face; my friend and neighbor Michael Berkowitz reiterated his call for a return to basics and traditional teaching methods.
I would like to point to a recently published online "manifesto" by Seth Godin. Entitled "Stop Stealing Dreams" it is a critique of the current state of American schools and a call to reinvent them. While it is not directed at Jewish day schools, it is worth reading and thinking about.
Here is one excerpt:
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We isolate students instead of connecting them.
Virtually every academic activity in school is done solo. Homework. Exams. Writing. The lectures might take place in a crowded room, but they too are primarily one-way.
How is this focus on the isolated individual going to match up with what actually happens in every field of endeavor? No competent doctor says, “I don’t know what to do, I’ll figure it out myself.” No academic researcher or steelworker or pilot works in complete isolation.
Group projects are the exception in school, but they should be the norm.
Figuring out how to leverage the power of the group—whether it is students in the same room or a quick connection to a graphic designer across the sea in Wales—is at the heart of how we are productive today.
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While this kind of activity does not happen as often as it should in "traditional classrooms," I did not find it all that radical, as it reminds me of batei midrash where I studied for significant parts of my schooling.
The full text appears here -
[
www.sethgodin.com]
Shalom
Rabbi Shalom Z. Berger, Ed.D.
The Lookstein Center for Jewish Education
Bar-Ilan University
[
www.lookstein.org]
