Who's Telling the Story?

A new movie - Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs - opened Friday. Most of the reviews I read were written by adults.

What did the adults see? a "satiric picture of gluttony" a "cautionary tale about portion control", the message that "intelligence can be attractive". These quotations are from one review in Newsday, and may very well describe the intent of the authors of the book and the movie on which it is based.

What did the kids see? "It also has a message: Don't give up - always try your best and follow your heart". This by a 10-year-0ld reviewer, in Kidsday, written by and for kids, also in Newsday.

Did these reviewers see the same movie? They sure did. But they saw it with different eyes.

I read this review and realized once again that what we are 'teaching' is not necessarily the same as what they are 'learning'. If the essential question being answered was, "What did you learn from the movie? or 'What do you think the author wants you to know" then clearly the viewers, adults and children, had reached different enduring understandings.

What is the message for educators? Be sure your assessment (in this case the review can be considered a kind of assessment) is designed to illustrate the meaning our learners have uncovered from the learning activity.

As I've said before, the perspective of the reader/viewer/learner has a huge effect on the way in which anything is read/seen/learned.

Thoughts on the New Year

David Brooks writes in the NY Times today about a perceived change in culture in the United States in the years since the end of World War II. His article, High Five Nation describes a cultural shift from a default position of humility to one of self-congratulation and pride. He even quotes Bing Crosby at the end of the war,

• “All anybody can do is thank God it’s over,” Bing Crosby ... said. “Today our deep down feeling is one of humility,” he added.

Brooks goes on to quote an article written by correspondent Ernie Pyle:

• “We won this war because our men are brave and because of many things — because of Russia, England and China and the passage of time and the gift of nature’s material. We did not win it because destiny created us better than all other peoples. I hope that in victory we are more grateful than we are proud.”

(by the way, I'm not sure his evaluation is totally fair - a friend today commented that the celebrations in Times Square of the Allied victory were hardly understated - and yet..) There is an element of his argument that rings true to me as a Jewish educator.

At this time of year, as we approach Rosh HaShanah, much of the liturgy we participate in and that we are preparing our students to participate in revolves around our belief that ultimately it is God who is responsible and to whom we are responsible, not only ourselves.

When we survive a life-threatening incident we thank God for sparing us.

When we hear of a death the traditional response is "Baruch Dayan Emet", 'Blessed is the Righteous Judge', which again confirms our belief that life and death are in God's hands.

It is God who decides who lives and who dies.

There is, I think, an essential humility in this belief that David Brooks would admire.

In the year coming, I wish you all a productive and fulfilling partnership with God in achieving all you wish for.

Rosh HaShanah Torah Reading: Akedat Yitzhak

This coming Shabbat is the first day of Rosh HaShanah, and the Torah reading is the section of B'reisheet concerning the binding of Isaac.

Here are a few suggestions for reading and viewing that can inform our conversation on Tuesday morning:

First read chapters 21 and 22 of B'reisheet here or in your Humash. [note: in traditional synagogues both chapters are read - 21 on the first day and 22 on the second day. In Reform synagogues that celebrate only one day chapter 22 is read. In Reform synagogues that celebrate two days the story of creation is usually read on the second day]

• What is the content of chapter 21?
• What is the content of chapter 22?

For a detailed article about the Akedah - the Binding of Isaac, you may want to read Jewish Virtual Library's long and well-researched description of the story from early Biblical origins, through successive Jewish thinkers, and including the meaning of the Akedah in modern Israeli society.

A shorter version which includes much of the above appears at My Jewish Learning, in an article by Rabbi Dr. Louis Jacobs. You may find it easier reading, and you will still get most of the ideas that are in the JVL version, though not in as much detail.

One of the issues often discussed by Jewish educators is the issue of the suitability of this story for children. An excerpt from an article about this appears here. Although just an excerpt, it can easily serve as a jumping-off point for our conversation.

Tablet Magazine, a wonderful online resource for interesting and often controversial articles and Jewish news, has posted a podcast (you can listen here) of an interview with a Christian author who has written about the akedah from the perspective of its influence on Judaism, Christianity and Islam, particularly in the attitudes of each of these religions toward martyrdom. The podcast is long, nearly 20 minutes, but if you have the patience to listen to the whole thing I think you will find it adds to our understanding of the impact of this story.

This article in Jewcy Magazine - Son Sacrifice: Humility and the Significance of the Akedah is a good presentation of the difference between the way Americans look at this story and the way Israelis see it.

Finally, as a sort of comic relief, watch this video. I'm really curious as to your reaction.

I'd like you to think about the following questions for our conversation tomorrow. As always, I welcome your comments directly on the blog as well as in person.

• In your opinion, why do you think the rabbis chose these two chapters to be read on Rosh HaShanah?
• In those synagogues in which Rosh HaShanah is celebrated for one day, why do you think chapter 22 was selected?
• What do you think about teaching this story to children? Does the age of the children affect how you will tell the story? Or if you will tell it at all?
• Telling this story in Israel is very different from telling it in our context. Why? Do you think the way it is understood in Israel should be shared with our students here? What can our students learn about Israel and Israeli culture from this conversation? What can Israelis learn about American Jews from this conversation?
• If you think about teaching these two chapters year after year, before every Rosh HaShanah, how do you think the teaching and learning might change from year to year?
• Remembering that our guiding principle is that the Big Ideas in what we learn are those elements we want our students to remember after they have forgotten everything else, what do you believe is (or are) the Big Idea(s) of this Torah reading?

If My Idea of Jewish Education Was Working, Really Working

Over the past few days I read two articles about the same subject - an effort being made to encourage the use of the Korean alphabet to write languages other than Korean. The case in point is an island in Indonesia whose inhabitants have an oral language but no written one. There is a teacher there who is writing the sounds of the language using the Korean phonetic system.

One article appeared in the Wall Street Journal and the other in the New York Times.

You may be wondering what this has to do with Jewish education, so let me clarify what I meant by the title of this post.

If my idea of Jewish education was working, really working, then the Jewishly well-educated reader of either of these articles would immediately think of Eliezer Ben Yehudah, the person who practically single-handedly led the revival of the Hebrew language in modern times.

Or perhaps the reader might think of Yiddish, the language of the Eastern European Jewish community which borrowed vocabulary from the countries in which it was spoken but was always written using Hebrew letters.

Or of Ladino, the lingua franca of the Sephardic Jews, which again borrowed much of its vocabulary from the language of the non-Jewish majority, in this case Spanish, and was also customarily written in Hebrew letters.

And in reading the version in the NY Times, the reader would also notice the information that during Japanese occupation of Korea the use of Korean was forbidden, and think - naturally - about the Romans and how they forbid study of Torah and of Hebrew, and how the language was so important as a carrier of culture that we continued to study in secret.

So what's the big idea behind this post?

We fail if the knowledge our students acquire remains sequestered behind the walls of the religious school or synagogue building.

Our success is manifest when our students use the lens of their Jewish learning to better understand the wider world in which they live, and apply the wisdom of our tradition to all their vision.

We Use All the Blueberries

Do educators and MBA's live in different universes? Here's my response.

An MBA was speaking to a group of teachers. She was explaining how she created an expectation of excellence in a bakery she was advising. The specialty of this bakery was blueberry pies. She carefully described how she streamlined the company, eliminated errors in production, improved quality control, dealt with complaints, etc.

When she invited questions from the audience of educators, one teacher raised his hand and asked, "What do you do with the blueberries that aren't perfect?"

The lecturer answered, with a casual smile, "Oh, we discard them. That's the only way to be sure the pies are perfect."

The teacher smiled as well. "You see, that's the difference between what you do and what we do. We have to use all the blueberries."

I don't remember where or when I heard this story. But it has stayed with me because it highlights a major difference between education and business. We in education use 'all the blueberries'.

We are responsible the learning of those students who are a pleasure in class, and also those who challenge us at every opportunity.

And sometimes we're disappointed with the pies. And sometimes we're proud of them. We keep on 'baking', though, and try to adjust to the different 'ingredients' and 'oven temperatures' and 'humidity' and on and on and on with all the other variables that exist in the classroom but not necessarily on the assembly line.

And in Jewish education especially, where our mission is to empower every student to feel valued and respected within the Jewish community, we need to take special notice of the blueberries that aren't 'perfect.'

We can't discard them. We can't have a single student who says at the end of the day, "I'm just not good at this Jewish thing."

Here are a few articles that may help you reach every single blueberry in your class.

Dr. Mel Levine, author of All Kinds of Minds, has a wonderful website with excellent suggestions for identifying the strengths of your students and building on them.

All Kinds of Minds

Dr. Thomas Armstrong is a proponent of using Multiple Intelligences theory in education. This framework was proposed by Dr. Howard Gardner of Harvard University, and suggests that everyone is good at something, and we need to broaden our understanding of what constitutes intelligence. You can read more here

For those who are interested, here is a charming video entitled My Best Teacher. Please watch it and think about what elements you can uncover that inform this short piece.

Shanah Tovah, and may you enjoy all the blueberries - even the imperfect ones!

New Year, New Thinking?

Sunday's NY Times Business Section had an article about the way companies approach their work. Welcoming the New, Improving the Old describes two very different ways to get better at what we do. One approach - Six Sigma - involves precise measurement and adjustment to reach the desired results. The other - Design Thinking - promotes "outside the box" creativity, in which everything is deemed possible.

At first, when I read this article, I thought about the implications for education. After all, we all want to improve, don't we? Which of these two ideas would work for us? What combination of the two would get us where we want to be?

And yet as I read further it became obvious to me that some of the assumptions that are made in the business world just don't work in the world of education, and certainly not in the world of Jewish education.

The business world can deal in absolutes. Problems are measurable. Solutions can be neat. An item you manufacture either works or doesn't. Procedures can be put in place to resolve problems. Money is available in the hopes that the product will increase the bottom line.

Education is fundamentally different. Some outcomes are measurable but others are not. The "product", which is what I will call the learner, can be a moving target - reacting one way on Monday and another on Tuesday.

So how do we improve our outcomes in Jewish education?

First we need to decide what we want our outcomes to be. Not so easy. Content knowledge? Group identity? Behaviors? Theological perspective? All these are parts of the outcome, and no one segment is sufficient.

When we think about our challenges we need to accept the fact that perfection is not an option. Teaching is not neat. Learning is not neat. Even Jewish thought is not neat.

As we begin the school year, and the Jewish year, I urge you to be open to new ideas, to be ready to try something you never tried before, to reflect on what you are doing, and to continue to approach Jewish education with the passion it deserves.

Here are some websites that may help you think about the upcoming year:

Teachers' New Years Resolutions - written for the general New Year, but certainly applicable for Rosh HaShanah

The Art of Teaching - by a science teacher, with a wonderful lesson for all of us

Inspiring Teachers Blog - appears to be inactive, but the posts available are valuable

Teaching Resources - provides a link to a number of Educational Resources and Videos for Rosh HaShanah

BJENY has a number of lesson plans on its website

Oprah Winfrey may not have had Rosh HaShanah in mind, but I like her attitude:

"Cheers to a New Year and another chance for us to get it right."

Telling Stories, Telling the Truth

As the school year begins for most of us, we will be asked - probably over and over - "Is this story true?" Whether we are teaching Torah narrative, Jewish history, or Midrash, we will need to understand the meaning behind the question before we can give an appropriate answer.

What does "true" mean? I believe there are multiple ways to understand this word.

• True can mean historically accurate, verifiable through scientific examination.
• True can mean fundamentally valid, with an intrinsic importance to understanding the world.
• True can mean 'what I believe' - the story from the perspective of the group to which I belong.
• True can mean 'what I want the listener to believe' - part of the narrative that defines my identity and that I hope will shape the identity of others.

With all these meanings for a simple one-syllable word, what can the answer be to the question, "Is this story true?"

Before you answer, I believe it is important to think deeply about the motivation for the question. Does the student want to know what you believe? What you want him or her to believe? Whether the enduring idea of the story has validity?

Only when you have considered these possibilities do I believe you can answer honestly and appropriately.

In this essay by Daniel Shifrin you will read about one parent's struggle with this issue. You may or may not agree with his conclusions.

The truth is that you should be struggling with the issue as well.

Ki Tavo

It seems pretty clear on first reading of this parasha that if we follow God's commandments we will be OK, and if we don't, well, the description of the alternative doesn't seem very appealing.

Is this as simple as it seems? Do what God commands, God will reward you. Violate God's commands, God will punish you.

So... good things will only happen to good people, and bad things to those who deserve to be punished. Right?

We all know that this is not always the case. And not only us - our Rabbis and teachers have known this for a very long time. The problem is so obvious that it has a name: theodicy. You can read an explanation of theodicy and Judaism's response in this selection from Sacred Fragments, by Neil Gillman

Are there other ways to understand this parasha? Let's look at a few:

Different translation of what happens if you follow the commandments, from Hillel.org, a site for college students

Is there another way to understand the curses? from It's the Joy, not the Oy, at Kolel

What is there in this parasha that relates to the current conversation about food -

• what is a "locovore"?
• what is "sustainable farming"?
• and what does this have to do with the parasha?

Go to www.canfeinesharim.org to learn more about meaningful relationships we can develop with those who produce our food. Read here about the relationship between bikurim and the Jewish communal society.

As you read through the text of the parasha - 26:1 - 29:8 of the book of Devarim,

• what are the Big Ideas you want your students to remember after they have forgotten all the details?
• What are the Essential Questions you want them to ask themselves? Those are the questions that, if they can answer them, will be evidence that they have understood these Big Ideas?

This parasha is always read during the month of Elul. Can you relate what you have read in the text with this time in the calendar?

Please feel free to send your comments, questions, reactions so we can have a rich conversation on-line, if not in person.

See you next week.

A Jewish Perspective on a Famous Catholic

Senator Ted Kennedy died last week, and was buried on Saturday at Arlington National Cemetery near the graves of two of his older brothers - President John F. Kennedy and Senator Robert Kennedy. The entire nation mourns his death.

The story of the Kennedy family is a story of power and privilege, of positive impact and of serious imperfection. Because we live in a world today in which there are few secrets for people in the public eye, we know about JFK's infidelities, about RFK's children and their problems, and some with longer memories are aware that the family's fortune began in bootlegging liquor during Prohibition and includes support for Hitler and his policies in Europe during World War II.

And in spite of this knowledge and history, Senator Edward Kennedy is widely considered one of the best and most effective senators - one who has brought immeasurable good to the country and to its people. He has sponsored and help pass numerous measures to help the less fortunate in America.

The question is - how did he get from Point A (Chappaquiddick, Palm Beach) to Point B (champion of health care, "lion of the Senate") in his lifetime?

Marc Ambinder writes for The Atlantic. His article at the link here describes Ted Kennedy's life in very Jewish terms. I think it is interesting to read about this famous Catholic political power from the point of view of what Ambinder shows are very Jewish actions.

"Mark Lilla, in The Stillborn God, describes two forms of rebirth: a "Jewish" redemption where one's works and deeds promote a redeemable soul -- one that awaits the Messiah -- and a Protestant "Christian" redemption, where the expiation of one's sins are entirely the province of God, and not necessarily intelligible or accessible in our earthly lives. ... it is sufficient to say that redemption for Jews is an active, continuing process, one where doing good will hasten the coming of the Messiah.

In America, mostly Christian, we're most fond of spiritual redemption, but successfully redeemed politicians have tended towards the Jewish model -- work, work, work, work, even if, as Kennedy certainly did, they identified as a Catholic or a Christian." Marc Ambinder, The Jewish Redemption of Ted Kennedy, The Atlantic, August 28, 2009

For the Classroom:

Big Ideas:

• No one is perfect
• Actions are important in teshuvah
• Teshuvah is a process with multiple steps

Essential Questions:

• What are the steps necessary for teshuvah?
• What evidence is there that Kennedy understood the process of teshuvah?
• Is it possible for someone who causes another person's death to do teshuvah ?

Activities for Learning:

• Read about teshuvah at the links here: at Aish.com, in Everyperson's Guide to Judaism, at Jewish Justice
• Go the the August 25th blogpost for more resources on teshuvah and more suggestions for student activities.

More on Revenge after the Shoah

Last night I saw a preview of a new play by Daniel Goldfarb - "The Retributionists". The story is loosely based on history - you can read the background at this article in the Jewish Week.

Truth behind the story of "The Retributionists".

(excerpt below from 8/25/09 Jewish Week)

"Cohen’s book “The Avengers: A Jewish War Story” tells a revenge tale more fully, while also noting the consequences: Jewish acts of vengeance made Zionists uneasy since they knew it would hurt the cause of statehood. He focuses on partisans Abba Kovner, Ruzka Korczak and Vitna Kempner as they escape from the Vilna ghetto and form a paramilitary group that fought alongside the Lithuanian and Russian armies. After the war, several wanted to take justice into their own hands and formed a Nazi-hunting group called Nokmim, Hebrew for “the avengers.”

The group planned to poison the water supply of several German towns, but was thwarted by someone suspected of being a Zionist informant. Kovner was arrested by the British military before the plan went through, but the group’s backup plan eventually succeeded: a partisan disguised as a baker snuck into a Nazi prisoner-of-war camp where he rubbed arsenic on 3,000 loaves of bread. He then fled, anxiously awaiting the result. It remains unknown how many died, but The Associated Press reported days later, on April 26, 1946, that “nineteen hundred German prisoners of war were poisoned by arsenic in their bread early this week in a United States camp and all are ‘seriously ill.’”

You may want to examine this incident in more detail with your high school students.

One can also see this play through the lens of today's world - a world in which some people wish to right what they understand as historical wrongs through revenge against those they hold responsible, others seek to look ahead to plan positively for the future.

Big Idea:

• After the Shoah ended, those who survived had differing responses to the tragedy.
• The world continues to be a place in which some groups suffer at the hands of others.
• We face a challenge in deciding on appropriate responses to wrongdoing.

Essential Questions:

• What does Jewish wisdom tell us about response to evil?
• What does Jewish wisdom teach us about punishment of wrongdoers?
• What can we do about injustice in the world today that is aligned to Jewish thought?

Activities for Learning:

• Read about Jewish social action here
• Mazon, a group dedicated to fighting hunger in the world, has the following list of text sources on its website. Incidentally, the website also has quotations from every parashah along with suggestions for social action projects associated with each.
• www.islamtoday.com is a site you may or may not want to visit. It includes an article about a joint Jewish/Moslem effort to fight anti-semitism and Islamophobia.
• There was a symposium in 2005 entitled "Freeing the Captives; The Jewish Response to Human Trafficking. After reading the brochure, you or your students may want to contact one or more of the presenters for more information about this massive problem.
• There are many Jewish organizations devoted to fighting injustice. Teams of students may research some of them: American Jewish World Service, Jewish Funds for Justice, The Jewish Service Corps, Hazon, Tzedek, Mechon Hadar, Uri L'Tzedek.
• On1Foot is "an open-source online database of Jewish texts on social justice." It is a wonderful resource for planning learning.
• Create with your students a plan for activities in pursuit of social justice in your community. Research needs, available services, population, etc. and decide how your efforts can be most productive. Be sure to include study of texts in planning and executing your activities.

Guilt, Shame, Elul and Research

Today's NY Times Science section carried an article about the development and usefulness of guilt in children.

The title of the article is 'Guilt and Atonement on the Path to Adulthood'. When I saw the term "atonement" I thought- and how could I as a Jewish educator at this time of the year NOT think - about the upcoming Tishrei holiday season, and about the month of Elul, and I'm really beginning to think that the writers and editors of the NY Times may be studying Torah with us!!

What prompted me to write this note is the following quotation in the article:

'“The key element is the difference between shame and guilt,” Dr. Tangney says. ...

She recommends focusing not just on the bad deed, but more important, on how to make amends. “Both children and adults can be surprisingly clueless about whether and how to make things right,” Dr. Tangney said. '

Enter the Rambam, who gives us clear directions for teshuvah, for getting from wrong to right, from guilt to atonement:

1. Recognize the wrong
2. Apologize for the wrong
3. Make amends to the one you wronged
4. Promise not to repeat the wrong
5. When in a similar situation in the future, behave correctly, don't repeat the wrong.

In addition to the actual steps, the fact that the process is called in Hebrew teshuvah, or 'return', is a concrete way of separating the action from the individual. I may have done wrong, but I am capable of turning toward doing right next time.

This concept aligns so well with the instruction in the article for parents - not only to verbally separate the child from the misbehavior, but to do so with a concrete action that empowers the child to act to right the wrong.

Isn't it wonderful when research reaches conclusions that Jewish wisdom has come to so many years ago!!

Big Idea: Teshuvah is a process

Essential Questions:

1. What does the word teshuvah actually mean?
2. What part of the process is internal?
3. What part of the process involves actions?
4. What makes the process complete?
5. Why are there 5 steps listed above, when Maimonides lists only 4?

Activities to Promote Learning:

• Read about Maimonides' steps of teshuvah here.
• David Blumenthal writes about teshuvah here
• Write your own story of teshuvah, either fiction or non-fiction
• Create a visual display that symbolizes teshuvah. Be prepared to explain the elements of the display
• Write and perform a song or poem about teshuvah for the rest of the class.
• Collect true stories of teshuvah from the world around you.
• Private: choose an area in which you would like to do teshuvah and do it. You don't need to share this with anyone else if you don't want to.
• Compare and contrast 'teshuvah' with 'reflection'

Hoping Elul is a time for all of us to participate actively in the process of teshuvah.

And to encourage our students to do so in a meaningful and personal way.

Jewish Thoughts on Revenge

You may or may not want to see the movie "Inglourious Basterds" - I am personally not a fan of Quentin Tarantino's work, as I find the extreme violence is not to my personal taste - but I think we can not ignore the conversation that the film has motivated. You may be interested in reading the following article in the Wall Street Journal about reaction to Tarantino's newly released film.

First of all, the story told in this film is not history. That much is acknowledged by the creators and producers and emphasized in every story and review I have read.

Second: it is - as are all Tarantino's movies - filled with as much gratuitous violence as it is possible to include in a movie.

Third: when shown in preview to a group at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City it was greeted with vastly different reactions from the audience - some cheered, some walked out.

Your high school students may very well have seen this film before school begins for the year - it opened BIG its first weekend. If you choose to ignore it you will miss an opportunity to use it as a trigger to discuss some important Jewish values:

• What does Jewish wisdom say about revenge?
• What does Jewish wisdom say about guilt? about forgiveness? about compassion? about contrition? about reward and punishment?

Big Ideas:

• There is evil in the world.
• People are responsible for evil they do.
• Judaism has some clear guidelines governing reward and punishment.
• Judaism includes the concept of teshuvah - translated either as repentence or returning.
• Elul is traditionally a time of the year when Jews work at teshuvah

Essential Questions:

• What is the Jewish understanding of teshuvah?
• Is there a Jewish response to evil?
• What are some Jewish ideas on reward and punishment?
• What does Judaism say about taking revenge?

Some Resources for finding the answers to the essential questions:

• OU.org on teshuvah in Elul
• Rabbi Louis Jacobs on Reward andPunishment
• The Uniqueness of the Holocaust by Dr. Eliezer Schweid
• Some Ghetto Thoughts on Rescue and Revenge, 1942

Assessments:

• Your students will see how Jewish thinking is and is not supported by popular culture.
• Students will be able to support their opinion, with reference to sources, that teshuvah is or is not possible for those who perpetrated the Shoah
• Elul will become a time during which students will purposefully work at teshuvah in their own lives
• Students will begin to use "Jewish language" in describing the world around them.

Further Thoughts:

Your students will probably return to class having heard at least some minimal discussion about the release of the person who was convicted in Scotland of responsibility in the Lockerbie disaster. Why not take the opportunity to discuss this in the context of the information they have read concerning "Inglourious Basterds" about reward and punishment, compassion, revenge, etc.

If you are addressing any of these issues in your Jewish classroom, please share your thoughts with the rest of the readers by commenting on this post. We have much to learn from each other.

Parashat Ki Taytzay Update

I couldn't resist this - last week we read about prophecy - and how to know if a prophet is a true prophet.

Is it possible that Joe Martin (the creator of the Mister Boffo comic) is studying Torah?

August 23, 2009, Mister Boffo go to this link, then choose the August 23, 2009 date in the archives to see what made me laugh!!

Enjoy.

Parashat Ki Taytzay

First I want to say that if it weren't for this parashah there would be many fewer movies, plays or novels in the world. Why? Because this portion is filled with the kinds of statements that make good theater!

You may want to read through chapters 21:10 - 25:19 yourself. Or look at the following link to a synopsis from Teaching Torah, by Sorel Goldberg Loeb and Barbara Binder Kadden.

As you read either the text or the synopsis, try to think of the movies, plays or books you are familiar with that wouldn't exist without the ideas portrayed in this Torah portion. Make a list to share with us.

In fact, there are so many ideas, so many laws, so many seemingly unrelated items that I wanted to think of a way to organize the teaching and learning in a way that is consistent with my last post about Big Ideas.

What are the BIG IDEAS in this parashah? Remember, the Big Ideas are those concepts you want your students to remember after they have forgotten all the rest. Are some ideas more important than others in this parashah? On what do you base your decision?

Is there a theme (or are there multiple themes) into which these discrete ideas can be divided?

I think that a big principle of this Torah portion concerns power

• how it is to be used
• how it is not to be used
• what the restrictions are on those with power
• what support is available to those without power.

This week's NY Times Magazine section is all about women's issues, and devotes most of its articles to the lack of power women and girls have in most places in the world. You may want to read one or more articles and decide if any of the statements in Parashat Ki Taytzay seem to address the same issues as the articles in the magazine.

One more thing - many years ago I remember studying with Shoshana Glatzer about this parashah, and her telling about how she taught her students the following verses:

יג וְיָד תִּהְיֶה לְךָ, מִחוּץ לַמַּחֲנֶה; וְיָצָאתָ שָּׁמָּה, חוּץ.	13 You shall have a place also outside the camp, And you shall go there.
יד וְיָתֵד תִּהְיֶה לְךָ, עַל-אֲזֵנֶךָ; וְהָיָה, בְּשִׁבְתְּךָ חוּץ, וְחָפַרְתָּה בָהּ, וְשַׁבְתָּ וְכִסִּיתָ אֶת-צֵאָתֶךָ.	14 And you shall have a paddle among your weapons; and, when you sit down out there, you shall dig with it, and shall turn back and cover that which comes from you.

I'm willing to bet that very few of us learned this in Hebrew school!! So why did Shoshana choose, with all the other ideas in this parasha she could have chosen, to present this excerpt.

What do you think her Big Idea was?

I look forward to your comments in person and on the blog.

Thoughts on Teaching Big Ideas in Torah

Don Hewitt, the creator of 60 Minutes, just died.

He is quoted in an article in the LA Times as follows:

My idea was that television reality ought to be packaged as entertainingly as television entertainment," Hewitt said. "I believe that it all comes down to that ancient phrase: 'Tell me a story.' I think people are interested in stories, not issues, even though the stories may be about people coping with issues. In the Bible, the issue was evil, but the story was Noah."

What a wonderful trigger for thinking about teaching and learning Torah.

During the month of Elul we are close to the end of the Torah cycle, which means, naturally, that we are also close to the beginning. So perhaps in thinking about how we will learn Torah this year with our students we can remember to keep in mind that while the story is the "hook," the Big Ideas are the "issues".

Planning a lesson ought to begin, therefore, at the end:

I. Big Ideas/Enduring Understandings/What do I want my students to remember after they have forgotten everything else?

II. Essential Questions/What are the questions they need to challenge themselves to answer in order to reach these understandings?

III. Activities/What are the learning activities our students can participate in/create/view/organize to help them answer these essential questions? What are the resources to which I can direct them so they can be active participants in their learning?

IV. Assessment/How will I as the teacher be able to know if my students have learned the big ideas?

This lesson planning strategy is known as Understanding by Design, or, more informally, as Backward Design, and was popularized by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe. No matter what you are teaching, it suggests that you must start with the important outcomes you hope to reach. This is a different from a model that states goals and objectives as discreet bits of content knowledge. It is about learning things that are IMPORTANT.

If you want to learn more about this strategy, you can type the words "Understanding by Design" into any search engine and read about it on the web. While most of the articles refer to meeting state learning standards and other issues in general education, the ideas for planning learning are equally relevant in Jewish studies.

I would suggest that if our students are learning Torah without the sense that what they are learning is FUNDAMENTALLY IMPORTANT, then what they may know temporarily will soon be forgotten.