Classroom Considerations
Today in Halacha (Jewish Law) class, Rabbi Berger presented to us an apparent contradiction between two Talmudic sources:
Shabbat 97b recorded that a person who intends to throw something within the public domain on Shabbat four cubit (the minimal prohibition), but he overthrows and throws it eight cubits, he is patur (exempt). What can be understood from this exemption is that we are not liable for violating laws in ways that we did not intend to violate them. Shabbat 73b records that if a person meant to throw only two cubits (which would be biblically allowed), and he overthrew to four, in that instance, there is a disagreement whether he would be patur (exempt) or chayav (obligated). Now, Rabbi Berger recognized that the second case could not be a case where he was going to be stoned for throwing four cubits, since it was only a biblical prohibition done by accident. However, the possibility that you might be obligated to bring a sin-offering for overthrowing into four and not into two, but completely exempt from everything for overthrowing eight instead of four doesn't make much logical sense. All Rabbi Berger could come up with was that the two Gemaras are in contradiction with one another. I suggested, instead, that the first Gemara could be addressing the possibility of being stoned exclusively, and the second Gemara could be discussing only the potential requirement to bring a sin offering. Rabbi Berger thought about this for a minute, and he approved of the suggestion, saying that this is a definite possible reading.
The details of this legal discussion are secondary to this post. What I wanted to comment on was the aftermath of these events. The other women in the shiur (class) cheered, and I got the two other students in my row to give me five in the middle of class. I felt so great about the experience. I was so pumped, I called out, "Creativity rocks!" and that also elicited a hysterical response. Now, this class that we're in can get a bit rowdy, but I've never seen it quite like this before.
Thinking back, my idea wasn't so brilliant, and wasn't necessarily correct. But the energy that the idea created in the classroom was fantastic, and it made me feel so much more motivated to understand the material better in the future.
It might be that I'm exceptional, and that I like attention, and I thrive on experiences like these, while other people would hate them, and that is precisely why most people do not even make efforts to come up with their own ideas in classrooms, let alone express them to a teacher. But, if I'm anything like other people, I think that encouraging class participation-- particularly when it involves the students' own thoughts and creativity, is beneficial to the classroom in so many ways. Firstly, any variety in a classroom will keep people interested. It is the monotony of lecture that puts people to sleep most effectively.
Not only does interaction in the classroom improve the students' participation and enthusiasm in the material, but it also builds self confidence, if done properly. Also, when a student participates in a process of discovery within the material, the material becomes her own, and that acquisition is priceless.
Rav Shmuel Klitzner, a wonderful Tanakh (Bible) teacher from Midreshet Lindenbaum, incredible scholar and tremendous human being, has just published his second book, "Wrestling Jacob: Deception, Identity, and Freudian Slips in Genesis," published by Urim Publications (His first book was a children's book called The Lost Children of Tarshish, which I'm sure many of you read in your childhood). Rav Klitzner's book includes much of what he taught us in his Parshanut class, and he told me that he included something that I once mentioned in class in a footnote. That's what I'm talking about. Real appreciation of your student's ideas.
I think this tendency also demonstrates an openness to other people's ideas and minds outside of your own. This is a wonderful model for students to see in their teachers. I think that this is a potential opportunity to help form more open, thoughtful people who are personally invested in their learning and make it a real part of their lives.
posted by Ellie @ 10:25 PM
8 Comments:
you go! we're always rooting for you, as well as for creativity. many prominent rabbinic personalities, current and past, are/were inherently creative individuals, and this serves as a great influence on the torah they disseminate. someone must have encouraged them once. (naturally, before they were able to use creativity as their tool of choice, they did accomplish mastery...)
rowdy? GPATS? is that true?
I agree that prominent rabbinic personalities champion creativity, but what I'm suggesting is that creativity not be limited to the upper class of Jewish intellectual life.
I think that our institutions, as most institutions of learning, tend towards learning that requires students at best to understand material with comprehension, and at worst, to memorize and retrieve information that they can then forget the day after an exam.
I'm not saying that this process isn't valuable. All I'm saying is that it's not enough! I can't see students becoming invested in material that is completely stagnant-- that can't go anywhere, with their minds.
It's entirely possible-- I would say, likely-- that I think this is true because my mind was never good at the memorization, but rather preferred using creativity. But I think that that fact might be a feature of the benefits of creativity that I mentioned in the post, not the other way around. But now we're stuck with a chicken and an egg, and the question will have to wait until Elijah comes.
maybe we can work things to let you keep your answer instead of saving it for eliyahu. perhaps if you give it to someone else.
anyway, your comment is a challenge to the chinuch system at large, and the better mechanchim are (hopefully)implementing the methods you mention/employ. our generation was encouraged to learn by memorization, but perhaps things are changing. however, creativity cannot used without a basis of information, otherwise anything goes (as manifested in the postmodern world in which we dwell)- and it frequently does. there is also an age before which abstract concepts cannot be (properly) comprehended, and during those years, the information we supply to these minds is crucial, as it creates the bases for their futures, educationally and otherwise.
the previous comment was actually meant in the face of the opposing stream- that which places tradition - only - on a pedestal, and a moratorium on creativity, with the argument that no one maintains a license to be creative nowadays. such societies are rather repressed, don't you think?
Ellie I used to feel very similar to you in terms of the value of feeling creative in the classroom and during chevrusas. And I still love the experience. But the more immersed in graduate school I become, the more I have been seeing "she'ein chadash tachat hashemesh," or more specifically, that to come up with a truly new idea demands loads and loads of careful research and study, and creativity, as we feel it when we are learning gemarah, is often somewhat of an illusion. Now that doesn't mean we shouldn't do it anyway-but I do find something problematic about championing the value of creativity even if it does not involve the legwork involved to ensure that we are actually saying something that is even true. This is something I think about alot actually, as I evaluate whether I actually have anything new to contribute to the scholarly world, even though I fiercely love the process of feeling creative. I'm not sure what the solution is.
But Sarah, if there's really nothing new under the sun, then no one would ever be creating anything, ever. We need to understand that verse better, I think.
However, that is sort of besides the point, as I promote creativity more for personal and motivational reasons than I do for scholarly ones. Granted, I don't promise every student who talks in a classroom a PhD, I do think that their classroom experience will be greatly enhanced.
yeah but my question is whether we should be actively promoting a classroom environment that is fundamentally at odds with the actual process of acquiring knowledge. i totally hear your points though, im really not sure what i would do as a teacher
The debate between Mmes. Sarah and Ellie echoes the debate between the rabbis of old regarding which rabbinic personality was preferable: Sinai (the scholar with a great breadth of knowledge) or the Oker Ha'rim (the brilliantly creative scholar). See Berakhot 64a
I cannot agree with Sarah that "to come up with a truly new idea demands loads and loads of careful research and study." Anyone who has taught in an elementary school can attest to the fact that young children often make intriguing observations. The fresh perspective that a young mind provides, at times, has as much to offer as the seasoned scholar. This is not limited to the liberal arts (i.e. literature, Torah, etc...) but is true in the sciences as well. It is an oft-cited observation that most great discoveries in math and physics have been made before the age of 30. This seems to indicate that creativity more so than a vast breadth of knowledge is the key to intellectual progress.
On the other hand I very much identify with Sarah's concern that much of what passes for creativity these days is just unvarnished ignorance. One needn't step too far into a beit midrash to observe people asking questions and proposing solutions that would easily be answered by a proper reading of the text in front of them. Creativity is fun, as Ellie observed, often much funner than reading correctly / carefully, or investigating the secondary sources. Our mad desire to make learning Torah fun, so that everyone will want to do it (a questionable proposition that our esteemed blogger could perhaps post on) , has compelled us to place creativity (which us fun) well before any sort of scholarly standards (which is tedious and dull). Where does this leave aspiring teachers, Talmudists, and scholars? Unclear. Can we say that a spoonful of creativity helps the scholarship go down?
i agree with sarah-an educator has the responsibility to train students on the path of truth and accuracy...and not set them up on a false path of warm and envigorating sensations. intellectual creativity is the effort to put pieces together in order to form something meaningful and derive meaning from the construct. the meaning derived must be based on correct facts or it is hogwash and nothing more than idol-worship, fluff in the truest sense of the word. Yet, at the same time, research is endless and we will never arrive at conclusive fact about any subject we are studying. this is due to the fact that there is an inherent "otherness" to everything outside of oneself; if i want to understand muabi living in a small village on the other side of a river in africa i can employ various methodologies to arrive at an understanding but i will never really Know Muabi because he is outside of my local reality. I will forever be digesting and interpreting his existence through my own. similarly, i will never completely understand the culture of 18th century scientists bc i was not one. at best, we can try, and research more, and put together a portrait and understanding of what the subject at hand is all about and derive meaning from that understanding. yet we will never arrive at 100% accurate meaning. in this sense, perhaps the effort is to constantly construct meaning out of whatever facts and experiences that are at our disposal. if this is true, than creativity at any point can only be positive. Yet i still cannot shake from myself the calling for accuracy and hardwork, the responsibility for these factors, in one's pursuit of meaning that is truthful,a modifying term which seems redundant, for is there indeed any other sort? unless all creative thought, no matter how simple, is the expression of essential inner truths that only gain more aticulate and erudite expression with more research on the part of the student/scholar but whose truthful essence is the same all the while...?
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