5b+21st+ce.+Chinukh

Re-envisioning Collaborative Learning in Jewish Education using Web 2.0 (Jeff Kuperman)

The book of משלי (Proverbs) teaches – חנוך לנער על פי דרכו - Educate the child according to his/her own way. In his commentary on the Torah, Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch posed the question "How is it that Jacob became a righteous person while his brother Esau became a wicked person? Were they not both educated in the same way by the same father?" Hirsch concluded that this is precisely //why// Esau turned out bad. Isaac did not give Esau the education that //he// needed. What worked for Jacob failed miserably for Esau. The same education system that could turn out a //tzaddik// could also turn out a //rasha// by the very same pedagogic methods. (Hirsch 1963) Jewish education has been a cookie-cutter enterprise for too long. And as it has become more universal, it has gotten worse. In my grandfather's day and place (pre-Revolutionary Ukraine) heder got the majority of boys to the point of being literate enough to pray and perhaps follow the Torah reading. For most boys (including my grandfather) formal education ended around age 8 or 9. The few who were encouraged to continue received the next phase of their education in a very different environment - often privately tutored by a local rabbi or scholar until they were old enough to go on to yeshiva. This one-on-one relationship forged deep bonds between teacher and pupil, and helped foster each pupil’s particular talents. Recent theories such as [|Multiple Intelligences] have helped us realize that all of our students have talents, many of which are not being tapped by standard classroom pedagogy. (I loved Ken Robinson’s story about Gillian Lynne, the fidgety girl who became a choreographer.)(Robinson, 2006)

Web 2.0 can give us some tools to help students to both work together and alone at their own pace. Collaboration can take place in the classroom, but there are only a limited number of minutes available for class. Often the factor that kills group work is the inability of students to find common meeting time outside of class to work. Web 2.0 in its many forms allows students to work together without actually being together or necessarily working at the same time. A student can contribute to a class wiki or googledoc and the work can be seen and edited or added to by another student later on. Setting up class wikis or blogs allow the students to collaborate even outside of school, or during free time when they have access to computer. Most importantly, group work and cooperative learning exercises give students a chance to demonstrate their particular talents and to shine. Each student has a certain task, and each one can gravitate to the area where s/he has the most to contribute to the group.

References Hirsch, Samson Raphael. (1963) The Pentateuch: Vol. I - Genesis. Commentary on v. 27, p. 425 Robinson, K. (2006) Ken Robinson Says Schools Kill Creativity. TED. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html (Anecdote at 15:00)