From: "sasson gabbai" <sasson_gabbai@yahoo.com>
To: <szberger@gmail.com>; <lookjed@lookstein.org>
Sent: Tuesday, March 20, 2012 11:29 AM
Subject: Seth Godin's manifesto
Shalom -
I want to thank you for pointing out Seth Godin's piece about education. I have enjoyed reading through it. While much of it is focused on how school was invented to satisfy the needs of industry - which I do not believe is the case in traditional Jewish education - there is much to think about.
One thing that I wanted to share is the following:
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65. The smartest person in the room
David Weinberger writes:
As knowledge becomes networked, the smartest person in the room isn’t the person standing at the front lecturing us, and isn’t the collective wisdom of those in the room. The smartest person in the room is the room itself: the network that joins the people and ideas in the room, and connects to those outside of it. It’s not that the network is becoming a conscious super-brain. Rather, knowledge is becoming inextricable from—literally unthinkable without—the network that enables it. Our task is to learn how to build smart rooms—that is, how to build networks that make us smarter, especially since, when done badly, networks can make us distressingly stupider.
This is revolutionary, of course. The notion that each of us can assemble a network (of people, of data sources, of experiences) that will make us either smart or stupid—that’s brand new and important.
What is the typical school doing to teach our students to become good at this?
>>
This reminded me of two things.
1. The Talmud. I love the idea of all of the Rabbinic Sages - from across the generations - debating ideas and interpretations, and then a page full of commentaries helping to clarify them (this works for the Mikraot Gedolot, too).
2. The Lookjed list. Even in discussions that don't relate to me and to my work it is fascinating to see the voices of Jewish educators that rise up in support of one another.
Thanks for all of your efforts,
Sasson
