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A thought regarding Selevan's suggestion to begin a Toshba curriculum with
"the structure of Toshba and the mesora" and recommends the Rambam's intro
to the yad. Many teacher's are very organized and as such think that the
logical way to begin a topic is with an extensive introduction. We
forget, though, that introductions are dry and boring. Instead, we should
try to grab the student's attention with an exciting and engaging sugya
from the curriculum itself, saving the intro for after the first shiur,
and if one wants, a 5 minute intro can be given before one begins the
shiur. I picked this idea up from Rav Lichtenstein. In his first shiur
klali of a zman he gives a shiur relating to some of the fundamentals of
the perek, and at the end takes time to describe the topics to be covered
in the perek and the rishonim that will be needed etc. Granted that Rav
Aharon isn't teaching in a high school, however, I think that the approach
can and should be applied to HS as well.
a shanna tova to all,
Menachem Linzer
Ramaz Upper School</HTML>
