A lot of what we are doing this summer focuses on 21st Century skills. At the core of this new endeavour is the ability to take risks. In that spirit I share this post with you.
One of my issues has been what to write for this blog post. I am a big believer that as an educational leader my role is not to just give you updates and a status report but to share with you some real substance about education. If I would share with you those ideas I wasn't sure if this school blog was the proper place to share with you my personal ideas on education, which may be a bit radical. The end result was exactly what I wrote about previously is that I chose to do nothing and did not keep up with this blog.
In the spirit of learning and risk taking I want to share with you two other blogs that I have, where I express more of my personal philosophie about education, leadership and life. I would also encourage you to follow me on twitter @akevy613. Perhaps if there is enough of an interest we could have a MHAFYOS twitter account.
I will still update this blog about events going on in school but encourage you to subscribe to the other blogs so that we can learn together.
My hope is that together we can learn and grow.
Please join me on my journey of learning at agreenblatt.blogspot.com ( Principal's Post) and akevygreenblatt.edublog.org ( Beyond the Classroom Walls)
Enjoy the rest of the summer
Akevy
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Questions: A Foundation for Education and Faith
Below are quotes from an article written by Lord Rabbi Johnathan Sacks Chief Rabbi of the British Common Wealth about the importance of questions and how asking questions is really something that builds faith.
http://chiefrabbi.org/UploadedFiles/Articals/mattot5771.pdfhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
Isidore Rabi, winner of a Nobel Prize for physics, was once asked why he became a scientist. He replied:
"My mother made me a scientist without ever knowing it. Every other child would come back from
school and be asked, 'What did you learn today?' But my mother used to say, 'Izzy, did you ask a good
question today?' That made the difference. Asking good questions made me into a scientist."
As Wilson Mizner once put it: "I respect faith. But doubt is what gets you an education." To me, this is a caricature of faith, not faith itself. What is the asking of a question if not itself a profound expression of
faith in the intelligibility of the universe and the meaningfulness of human life? To ask is to believe that
somewhere there is an answer. The fact that throughout history people have devoted their lives to extending the frontiers of knowledge is a moving demonstration of the restlessness of the human spirit
and its constant desire to transcend, to climb. Far from faith excluding questions, questions testify to faith- that the world is not random, the universe is not impervious to our understanding, life is not chance. Critical intelligence is the gift G-d gave humanity. To use it in the cause of human dignity and insight is one of the great ways of serving G-d. When faith suppresses questions, it dies.
When it accepts superficial answers, it withers. Faith is not opposed to doubt. What it is opposed to is the shallow certainty that what we understand is all there is.
What struck me was the connection between education and faith. That we know how important it is for students to ask questions and that the skill of asking questions and being inquisitive is often more important than the answer. However we tend to at times in religious classes shy away or be afraid of certain questions. I think what Rabbi Saks is telling us that as in education we need to encourage our students to ask questions and that it is OK to have doubts.
My other takeaway from the article as an educator was the last line: “What it is opposed to is the shallow certainty that what we understand is all there is.” As educators we need to understand we don't always know the answer but that it is OK, because after all it is all about the learning and learning doesn’t only have to be from teach to student but it can be and perhaps should be the Teacher together with the students learning
Finally in my previous post I spoke about the balance between 21st Century learning and how it fits in a Judaic classroom. Here is another entry point that perhaps in the past certain teacher may have be prone to shy away from ,and that is incorporating more inquiry based or problem based learning but as Rabbi Saks shows us asking those questions actually straightens our faith and asking questions and inquiring is something we should embrace and encourage and not shy away from.
http://chiefrabbi.org/UploadedFiles/Articals/mattot5771.pdfhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
Isidore Rabi, winner of a Nobel Prize for physics, was once asked why he became a scientist. He replied:
"My mother made me a scientist without ever knowing it. Every other child would come back from
school and be asked, 'What did you learn today?' But my mother used to say, 'Izzy, did you ask a good
question today?' That made the difference. Asking good questions made me into a scientist."
As Wilson Mizner once put it: "I respect faith. But doubt is what gets you an education." To me, this is a caricature of faith, not faith itself. What is the asking of a question if not itself a profound expression of
faith in the intelligibility of the universe and the meaningfulness of human life? To ask is to believe that
somewhere there is an answer. The fact that throughout history people have devoted their lives to extending the frontiers of knowledge is a moving demonstration of the restlessness of the human spirit
and its constant desire to transcend, to climb. Far from faith excluding questions, questions testify to faith- that the world is not random, the universe is not impervious to our understanding, life is not chance. Critical intelligence is the gift G-d gave humanity. To use it in the cause of human dignity and insight is one of the great ways of serving G-d. When faith suppresses questions, it dies.
When it accepts superficial answers, it withers. Faith is not opposed to doubt. What it is opposed to is the shallow certainty that what we understand is all there is.
What struck me was the connection between education and faith. That we know how important it is for students to ask questions and that the skill of asking questions and being inquisitive is often more important than the answer. However we tend to at times in religious classes shy away or be afraid of certain questions. I think what Rabbi Saks is telling us that as in education we need to encourage our students to ask questions and that it is OK to have doubts.
My other takeaway from the article as an educator was the last line: “What it is opposed to is the shallow certainty that what we understand is all there is.” As educators we need to understand we don't always know the answer but that it is OK, because after all it is all about the learning and learning doesn’t only have to be from teach to student but it can be and perhaps should be the Teacher together with the students learning
Finally in my previous post I spoke about the balance between 21st Century learning and how it fits in a Judaic classroom. Here is another entry point that perhaps in the past certain teacher may have be prone to shy away from ,and that is incorporating more inquiry based or problem based learning but as Rabbi Saks shows us asking those questions actually straightens our faith and asking questions and inquiring is something we should embrace and encourage and not shy away from.
Friday, July 22, 2011
Finding a Balance
In June, during our Administrators Retreat, we spent a lot of time talking about 21st Century Learning. The bottom line is that today students are exposed to a lot more information and technological advances and the skills that are currently needed are not the same as in the past. If you don’t believe me I suggest reading “A Whole New Mind” by Daniel Pink. Today our students need to be creative (not necessarily artistic), need to collaborate, and need to be able to problem solve. Learning needs to be more inquiry based and more student driven than teacher driven.
The question is how does this fit into a Judaic Studies classroom where the focus has always been on very basic skills of reading and translating. How can students get more involved if they are missing basic skills? Therefore, we need to strike a balance and to be honest, I am not 100% sure what that balance entails. We have begun the process of integrating technology and updated learning strategies into our classrooms and we plan to progress further each year as newer possibilities are open to us. As we continue to incorporate these components into our Judaic studies program, we must avoid the natural reaction to rebuff change because the end result will be detrimental to our students.
How do we deal with this issue of the future vs. our sacred traditions of the past? While in New York I bought a book by Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi of the British Commonwealth. The title of the book is “Jonathan Sacks from Optimism to Hope; A collection of BBC Thoughts of the Day.” In one of the essays he writes the following: “Ours is a very future-oriented religion. We’re not afraid of new technologies precisely because they allow us to fulfill, in ways undreamt by our ancestors…and to become, in that lovely Jewish phrase, ‘G-D’s partners in the work of creation’. …The biggest mistake we could possibly make in the 21st Century is to believe that by embracing the future means jettisoning the past. .. Those most at home in the wisdom of the past can best face the future without fear.”
It is clear that we can’t nor should we do away with the past nor does it mean that we can ignore the future and new technologies. My hope is that this year we find that balance and we can instill not only the wisdom of the past into our students but embrace the future as well.
Enjoy the rest of the summer
Rabbi Akevy Greenblatt
The question is how does this fit into a Judaic Studies classroom where the focus has always been on very basic skills of reading and translating. How can students get more involved if they are missing basic skills? Therefore, we need to strike a balance and to be honest, I am not 100% sure what that balance entails. We have begun the process of integrating technology and updated learning strategies into our classrooms and we plan to progress further each year as newer possibilities are open to us. As we continue to incorporate these components into our Judaic studies program, we must avoid the natural reaction to rebuff change because the end result will be detrimental to our students.
How do we deal with this issue of the future vs. our sacred traditions of the past? While in New York I bought a book by Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi of the British Commonwealth. The title of the book is “Jonathan Sacks from Optimism to Hope; A collection of BBC Thoughts of the Day.” In one of the essays he writes the following: “Ours is a very future-oriented religion. We’re not afraid of new technologies precisely because they allow us to fulfill, in ways undreamt by our ancestors…and to become, in that lovely Jewish phrase, ‘G-D’s partners in the work of creation’. …The biggest mistake we could possibly make in the 21st Century is to believe that by embracing the future means jettisoning the past. .. Those most at home in the wisdom of the past can best face the future without fear.”
It is clear that we can’t nor should we do away with the past nor does it mean that we can ignore the future and new technologies. My hope is that this year we find that balance and we can instill not only the wisdom of the past into our students but embrace the future as well.
Enjoy the rest of the summer
Rabbi Akevy Greenblatt
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