Comment

Comment by Aaron Ross on November 13, 2012 at 3:13pm

I would take the question to a different level. Instead of each school determining what they orientation to learning Gemara should be (Halacha, brisker lomdus, reading skills), perhaps they should first be honest with themselves and ask why they feel that is their orientation. Are they doing lomdus because they are a bunch of Gush guys who feel nostalgic for their days in Rav Lichtenstein's shiur? Do they do Halacha l'maaseh type masechtot because they want to ultimately raise the students' level of shemirat hamitzvot? Do they take a values approach so that they can schmooze about "life" with their young charges? Are they trying to produce from Jews or solid Gemara learners or both? Have they given serious thought to these questions? Once a cool can determine its purpose for its Gemara curriculum, then the rest should fall into place.

Comment by Michael Bitton on October 18, 2012 at 2:28pm

Its funny how you mentioned, " people often say that the number one goal in Judaic studies is to have kids "love learning" or become "life-long learners". Last year when we spoke about creating and attaining goals many Rabbis mistook that notion to mean, that we are turning Gemara into just another academic subject. (It actually became a very heated debate) We should always be emanating a sense of love for learning but that doesn't mean we cant create goals to help students achieve success in learning at the same time.

 

An in regards to your last statement, I'm in!

Comment by Josh Grajower on October 18, 2012 at 11:29am

Rafi,

I agree 100% with your sentiment. I happen to think this is a major issue in all of our Judaic subjects, not just Gemara. Gemara just gets the most "face time" because students and parents seem to complain about it the most.

I feel we (which can be a larger community initiative or within each school) need to really fine tune our goals for Gemara. How we teach any subject should be a reflection of what exactly we want to accomplish. I find people often say that the number one goal in Judaic studies is to have kids "love learning" or become "life-long learners". While I think we all agree that should be the vision of our students when they graduate, I find it to be way too vague to be goals for our classrooms. 

To be more practical, if we truly believe that students should be able to read Gemara when they graduate, and that is a primary goal, we need to spend more time in our classrooms with students - each and every one (!) - reading a Gemara and having reading tests. That is just one example, however I think the main source of frustration that I personally feel as a teacher, is the lack of clarity on the goals of our subjects.

I don't think I've said anything you haven't, but I feel very strongly about this (and I know you do too). Either an individual school, or a group of educators, needs to put in the time and effort to develop clear, attainable and measurable goals and needs to show how it will be put into practice. If it is done well, I really believe others will follow.

Comment by Michael Bitton on October 14, 2012 at 9:48pm

I think your spot in with the last comment "Too many students feel that they are just going through pages of Gemara and are not sure why." I graduated high school a mere (!) ten years ago, and I clearly remember feeling extremely disenchanted during Gemara class.  It wasn't until my second year in Israel that I began to take a liking toward Gemara. As a current educator, I wanted to make sure that mistake would not repeat itself, and I therefore set out to make very clear goals in my classroom. The school as a whole has realized this problem and they have taken great strides in order to reform the curriculum  and make sure there is a progression of skills being learnt from 9th through 12th grade. The first two years are spent, learning and understanding the structure of the Gemara, as well as how Rashi and Tosafot work. The last two years are focused on independent study. I teach tenth grade and my students arwe fullly aware of whats going on. I made it clear to them what my goals are, and that if we work together we will all succeed. We are two month into the school year and things are amazing.