Learning Bible the way you learn Shakespeare

In a conversation with Israeli teachers of Bible in Israel they said their biggest problem is with understanding language. Huh? It's Hebrew, isn't it? But the relationship between Modern Hebrew and Biblical Hebrew is much like the relationship between Modern English and Shakespearian English.

Here's a teacher who has come up with a way to help students learn Shakespeare that seems very adaptable to learning Bible - in Hebrew or in English.

And how about prayer - what about reframing the essence of the prayers we teach in language that resonates with our students.

Could your students restate Biblical stories in "tweets"?

Could the create prayers as text messages?

Read the article at this link about teaching Shakespeare in the 21st Century and think about the implications for your Jewish studies classroom.

New and Improved?

I read an article in Education Week entitled "Solutions are the Problem in Education". It reminds me of another article - "Innovation, Motherhood and Apple Pie" which discusses a similar issue. Is it better just because it's new? Do we need to allow time for change to develop before we replace it with yet another new program?

In the past few years Jewish education has changed in big, important ways. We are looking at the ideas of general education reform and attempting to apply them to the context of religious educational programs. Some of the reforms have energized our programs, some have not. Some have had valuable effects on learning, others may not have.

And some innovations need time to take hold in practice - they require time, sustained effort, and ongoing support if they are going to improve the outcomes we are seeking.

To use the framework of backward design, here is a suggested outline to help you start thinking about improving learning in our classes/schools/informal settings:

Big Idea:

We need to structure the learning in our educational settings to maximize the outcomes that we believe are important

Essential Questions:

What are the really important learning outcomes?

Are we choosing activities that support these outcomes?

How do we know?

Here is a link to the Ed Week article.

Here is a link to Innovation, Motherhood and Apple Pie.

What are our students learning and why?

In general studies and in public schools we struggle to assess what our students actually learn. We convene committees to decide what they should learn, and why. In Jewish educational settings, what are the life skills we want our learners to have? Are we really teaching toward these skills?

The article at the link here discusses this question in terms of general education. What are the issues for our learners?

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2009/07/20/37oakes.h28.html?tkn=RRLF8OmkCO9%2BxzTyIQbkB9mhn96vnHkS6ICF&print=1

What it is, What it is not

Teachers in Jewish educational settings face many challenges. One of the most important is: How does what our students are learning relate to their lives outside the walls of the classroom? Do we and our students see our lives through the lens of Jewish wisdom? Does it ever occur to us, or to them, that what we are learning together for one, or two, or even six or more hours a week has any impact on how we make decisions about things that really matter? Things in our "real lives"?

The vision of these posts is to relate the two domains in which we and our students co-exist.

In linking ideas and events in the general culture with those grounded in Jewish thought we can give our students the foundation for understanding that their Jewish identity and values do in fact relate in powerful ways to the lives they live outside our direct influence.

Summer is a wonderful opportunity to think about teaching and learning without the pressure of planning lessons or worrying about classroom behaviors.

What happened this year?

What did my students learn this year that is IMPORTANT? WHY is it IMPORTANT?

What did my students learn that they will remember forever?

How do I know they learned what I think they learned?

What were some of the most successful classroom experiences we had this year?

What were some of the disasters?

Think about the questions, and come up with some answers that make sense to you. It's a great start for the upcoming year,

“Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school.” Albert Einstein