Goals and Roles of Education

The school year is approaching so I need to get my head back into the teacher space. If you are in the field of education, then this post might be interesting. If you are not, then you are defining "the field of education" too narrowly and you should read this whether or not it is interesting. Either way, I win, and that's what is important here.

One of my many neuroses is a need to organize ideas into groupings. I also like to be places early and I finish any book I start even if it is horrible. But the main thing is I break ideas down into categories. For some things, this is a well known practice. People often talk about the reasons for the use of jails (in no particular order):

1. Punishment -- you do the crime, you lose the privilege of living with others, or voting, or whatever
2. Deterrence -- others want to avoid this penalty
3. Rehabilitation -- learn to be a better person while in jail
4. Removal -- we have to protect others by removing you

There might be more but you get my point. We can decide if the system "works" only by measuring the end result against the expectations created by our initial goal. If someone isn't rehabilitated but we are safer while he is in jail, then if our goal was #4, then success. If it was #3, then failure.

When it comes to education (as I and others have said) there are also many possible goals. The easiest way to break them down might be

1. To be
2. To do
3. To know

and each of those can be attached to a particular approach to curricular design and instruction: rules-based (civics, how can the student be a more involved member of the society), skills-based (vocational, the goal of teaching is to make sure the student can apply actual skills), classics-based (academia for academia's sake; amassing knowledge is the primary goal of education). Proponents of each can also defend their positions by saying that each one creates the gateway to the others. If I am a more involved person, I can gain skills through being social, and gain knowledge by respecting the canon out there. If I am well-read, then skills can be more easily acquired and I will contribute to society that way. If I have the ability to do something, I will become invested in the world and will want to learn more about it as I succeed. Or something like that.

Now, I know that all three of these approaches are valid and necessary, but when too much stress is put on any one of them, the educational system becomes stilted. For too long, most schools were about knowledge, expecting other things to come out of that. Students who couldn't hack it (in the old way of thinking) were consigned to vocational structured education. And certain more parochial approaches focused on the being and the self. In response, schools have tried to switch things up with more schools including vocational training for all students or using projects to have students apply knowledge and implement it as a skill, or even downplay the knowledge acquisition. Some schools have introduced character building as an essential element of curriculum. Now, this isn't inherently bad because, as with most things, the truth lies somewhere in the middle. A good school has to incorporate all of these aspects, trusting the classroom instructor's sense of when each needs to be primary. Unfortunately, we are letting the pendulum swing too freely, and shifting so completely from one exclusive mix to the other extreme that we aren't really solving the underlying need, for an holistic view of student development, needing all these goals all the time. In the same way that we can't focus only on higher order thinking skills and forget about the foundational nature of the lower order ones, we can't ignore the need for frontal teaching when we flip the classroom. Good teaching is student centered even as it keeps the teacher driving content, pace and approach. Good teaching gives students freedom but guides them towards what the expert knows will be most beneficial to them in the long run. You can't just "know" without knowing why. You can't learn to do without understanding when not to do. There is no "being" which isn't grounded in understanding. Nature isn't the only one who abhors a vacuum -- it doesn't work in education either. But it takes a practiced hand to know when each aspect of an educational goal needs stress.

So a student is graduated from the system. Did the system succeed or fail with that student? What was the goal? Does he know more than when he started? Does he care to learn more on his own because he values learning? Can he do any of that learning on his own, or can he apply what he has learned to other contexts? And this measure of success might change student by student (and even for a single student it might shift over time). Looking at short term measures (local summative assessments, external high-stakes testing, admission to the next step of the educational ladder) is a fool's way of deciding if things worked and we know this, but we hang our hats on these metrics anyway.

I don't have the answers -- that's why you are reading this for free on a blog. But I do know that the first step is asking the right questions and clarifying terms and goals so that we can free oursleves up to brainstorming some solutions.

Ms. Dog say Bork Bork

I'd like to tell you about the dogs. I probably have already mentioned them but I want to make sure that all the johnny-come-latelies can get up to speed. So, our dog-story so far: I have a dog. Have, while he is mine (h/t Bill S.) an angry little doggo named Sparky. He is called by many names -- Sparkles, Sparkster, Spark-o, Sparks, Thor (by my brother, but that makes sense because he calls his daughter Natasha), but his name is Sparky. He is the last angry dog until the next angry dog. He is a prolific writer (2 books, with 2 or 3 in the works, and a blog) and a dog of unquestioned brilliance and cute-osity. He has a friend named Princess. She is is nice, if you like bundles of slobbery tongues, and has the brains of a swarm of drunk pebbles. They spend a lot of time together (but the relationship is purely gin-tonic). They were over this afternoon, and the rain started coming down.

Let's talk weather. Sparky is OK with weather. If it rains, it snows or glooms, Sparky just sits there, knowing that as long as he can maintain his bladder, he will be staying inside, away from the elements and molecules that make up weather. Princess is a little different. She is afraid of stuff. She is fast as a dingo, vicious as a dingo and dumb as a dingo, but she is really afraid of thunder. At the first dip in barometric pressure she starts to shake like a milkshake held by a Parkinson's patient. Not my best image, but you get what I'm saying. She shakes. Her human puts a special thunder shirt on her (not one supporting a professional team...one with weights built in that is supposed to give her the reassuring pressure which tells her that if the thunder comes, she will now be too slow to escape it so she might as well just siddown and die) and she runs up the stairs where, she figures, thunder won't think to look for her.

The thunder started and Princess ran. I decided that inclement weather was the best time to start making a chicken omelet. Like there's a bad time to start making a chicken omelet -- amirite? Boo-ya.

As an inducement to stop being stupid, I told the dogs that I would be handling uneaten chicken, their favorite kind. As I began prepping, Sparky wandered in and I rewarded him with pieces of leftover fowl. I continued cooking, using up my store of secret ingredients: oil and a pan. As I shredded chicken, I called out, "Hey Princess, I have chicken."

Now this is where things get difficult for me.

She did not appear. I called again, "Princess! Chicken." Sparky looked at me as if to remind me that he was RIGHT THERE and why was I not giving him chicken instead of inviting his sworn enemy when it comes to chicken eating. I gave him a piece so that he would stop staring at me, then I raised my voice, "Dammit Princess, I have chicken! What are you waiting for?" Nothing. So I started muttering.

Please know, muttering and I have a long and colorful history. I mutter all the time. I'm the grand mutter of muttering. I started muttering to myself how this dumb dog wasn't coming down to get chicken while I'm here cooking my chicken fingers to the boneless. I realized that, at that moment, I had gotten angry at a dog because said dog (and I did, indeed, say "dog") did not come down when I called her name and explained why she should come down. Again. I got angry at a dog, a dog whom I have already characterized as not as intelligent as another dog, for not understanding my logic which I so cogently explained in words. I believe that this bespeaks some very strange transformation in my mental processes, and not a good one.

Princess ultimately showed up, lured by the smell of cooking chicken and the cessation of thunder and my wrath abated. My senseless, stupid wrath aimed at a dog who did not live up to my human expectations. I'm not sure what to make of this, or what lesson to glean. Alls I know is that of the two of us, me and Princess, one of us gets to wear a cool thunder shirt and the other has to do the cooking.

Hello, girls

I know what I am planning to do and I know that I will fail.

I want to write a heartwarming piece of drivel aimed at my niece who will be getting married next week. But every time I start to write, I come up with things that are so mired in the feelings I want to present to my own children that I end up with something which masquerades as an uncle's good wishes to a niece but is in truth, a dad's mush to his kids. So instead of fighting, I concede to the powers of the muse who pushes me into this and I embrace it.

Riks -- and I call you that for the same reason that I call your older sister Shasha -- because it is still the name that I am most comfortable with, so deal with it...my own kids wish I called them something akin to their actual names. Riks, you have always been a bundle of joy. You have always amazed me with skills and talents that make me want to kill you and eat your brain so I could have that talent. I saw that on TV so it must be true. Your smile is infectious, but in a good way and you are, as we in academia like to to say, a good egg. I want to tell you about what your life should be by explaining to you one of my major fears.

I have always worried that my children were sad. I still worry that. What I wish for people is happiness and I try to bring that to them. When my kids were little(r) I used to wake them up with a song. Not one that I sang, God forbid, remember, I wanted to bring them happiness. I would get a song like Morning has Broken or Morning from Peer Gynt or something like that and slowly increase the volume. I would give them a kiss and help them stretch a big stretch to start the day with a smile. I wanted them to know that they are waking up into a world in which someone appreciates them for just being who they are. I wanted them to wake up with a smile because in this nasty and brutish world they should know that they are loved. I wanted them to know that someone was thinking of them when they were asleep and will continue to keep them in mind while they are awake not because of anything in particular but just because. That's what love is. The love of a dad for a kid, and the love of a spouse for a spouse -- unconditional and irrevocable. Like a good wine.

I'm not sure it is like a good wine, but I have always wanted to say that. "Like a good wine." There. Scratched that itch but good.

And we're back.

So Rik, I want you to have a happiness that is so grounded in an unconditional love that you can't shake it. I want you to wake up and know that there are people, and one very special person, who choose to be around you because you are their first and last thought. And many in between. I want you to grab hold of a love not because it replaces another but because it is, on its own, worth grabbing. Wake up to a song, go through your day with a smile and end each evening knowing that you matter to someone more than anything else matters. I hope I didn't fail with my kids. I think back to the mornings when I was a bit more sour than sweet, and they were a bit more human than ideal. I regret the moments I missed bringing them joy and I want you to be more aware so you miss fewer opportunities.

I want you, and my own kids, to feel a safety net, a network, even if only of one person but more likely, of many, that will always be there for you. Put someone else first and be put first. My blessing to you is that I hope you have a joy inside you that you can and want to share and that you have found someone to share it with, someone who wants to share right back with you.

And if you don't want to listen to Cat Stevens, I'll understand, but that song really can make you choke up...which is a problem when you are driving.

You're wrong, but more importantly, you're bad

I received a message from a former student this morning. He is one of the few who actually spends his time thinking about stuff and working through deep concepts so I was flattered that he included me in the loop of thought. He mentioned that he is disheartened by the state of the modern world in certain ways. He wrote, "I hate how judgmental society and especially the Modern Orthodox Jewish community is". That got me thinking, a dangerous eventuality but what's done is done and so I'm thinking. Kaboom. So here is a bit of brain pie from your Crazy Uncle Dan for you to chew over. And over.

I'll start by opining about being judgmental. We all do it. We size up situations and see what fits and what doesn't into the box which is the society we have set for ourselves. "Look at that guy" we say, "he just changed lanes with(out) his blinker...that's horrible." We have judged him. "How about that joker...(not) wearing pants at such a fancy restaurant...what is he thinking?" Judging, again. As we belong to a variety of overlapping communities, cultures and societies, our schema for judging runs a range. From parenting, to diet, to fashion, to sports to religion -- we look at what others do and decide if their expression of self is acceptable in our little world.

We judge because we are insulating ourselves and defining the parameters of comfort in our bubble. We create an in and an out group so we know who belongs and who doesn't. It keeps us safe and helps us decide whom to invite over for dinner and a nice game of Pictionary. It isn't a bad thing all the time but it has fallen out of favor because of where it can lead -- not Pictionary, judging. Should we profile people? Do I cross the street to stay away from some people, or do I pay more attention to certain age groups when they enter my store because my experience has taught me that certain genders or ages are more likely to engage in unsavory activities? Do I have to wait for actions before I can judge even if, by the time the actions take place, the damage could be done? How about people who espouse beliefs -- can I judge them on the whole by their expressed positions in one area? Do I have to accept everyone all the time or am I allowed to say "anyone who hates little dogs is dead to me"? Must I be tolerant or even accepting of all the divergent opinions? One common answer is "this doesn't mean you can judge the person" but maybe I can! If someone's position is pro-rape, I think I'm pretty safe in judging on the whole and not saying "he's just a fine person with a singular point that we disagree on."

When it comes to religion, things get even murkier -- part of judging is the attempt to further a heritage which is the defined society. Religious rules and norms ensure continuance of a community so we judge because we are perpetuating norms which got us this far. If we accept variation, we risk losing our discrete identity, but if we don't we look like ultra-traditionalists who can't face change. Some of us chafe at this restrictiveness and say that we, as a people have changed a bunch over the years so why stop now? But then the fear emerges: if we let a little change, how do we draw the line and decide that the next step is off the cliff? Back in the day (the year 1100, for example, maybe even 1101) changes we very local and moved slowly because communication was sans internet (true!). So if there was a need for a limited change, it took a while to get around and sink in. Now, things are a step faster than instant so we have changes upon changes and the slippery slope surrounds us constantly. Our reaction is to build our walls more solidly and allow even less because we have more potential for drastic shifts. Additionally, built into Orthodox Judaism is the need to judge. We have laws and responsa which establish the limits of behavior and we have to enforce and call people out when they stray. The only way we can continue as a unified group is by walking the walk, talking the talk and correcting those who don't. And while it is attractive to excuse (or at least ignore) private behavior and say that what we don't know doesn't affect what we do know, the current atmosphere is to allow the private to be public without repercussion, forcing the religious person to have an opinion and, yes, judge.

Here are two side analogies. They're free, so go with it.

Some Jewish communities are turned into a particular legal-construct as a "private domain" through the use of an eiruv (a string surrounding the entire community). In the past, because of physical limitations, the status of the integrity of the string could only be checked on a particular schedule, let's say monthly. "Monthly." Well done. If there is no reason to think that, in between checks, it has broken, we rely on what we last knew. But now, with drones and other technology, maybe we could check it more frequently and know definitively more often if it retains its proper structure. We can no longer hide behind "it was ok last week". More technology means more knowledge which means more definite opinions.

We know more and more about food production, and there are more cameras installed so we don't have to trust restaurants -- we can check up on them. And if we find out about problems that maybe were always there, now we have to act on them. For a position paper on a similar situation, read here. Before we knew, we could withhold judging. But once we know, we have to say something.

So we judge. We tell people when they are doing something which we don't approve of and we hope that our society's norms will be refined by the mass acceptance of a particular mode of behavior and the condemning of another. What we disapprove of through something approaching consensus draws our line in the sands of time. The tension between "modern society" and "modern Orthodoxy" pulls us in mutually exclusive directions as it relates to judging.

We have always judged as Jews. But we have chosen to know less and trust more. That era might be over. We know more and can trust less because we can know even more. With greater knowledge comes a greater responsibility to establish those lines or risk losing our defining shape. Do I like judging? Not especially. But is it part of who we are as humans and Jews? Yes. For good and for bad, yes.

Just a semi-thought

This isn't going to be a significant post, so feel free to skip it. I don't think this material will be on the test, but I wanted to share it with no one, and I thought, "where can I share this with no one? THE INTERNET!" So there you go. And went.

I was driving around the house in which I grew up, on the streets, mind you, not just donuts on the lawn, and looking at the street signs. I have never been good with street names and I know my way around more by sight than by name so I guess that's why I never noticed this. My parents' house is a corner property. That, I noticed. But the street names are particularly strange. If you ever read the directions for a standardized test then you will see that there is a chart of accepted abbreviations for street names. You live on Mockingbird Lane? Use Ln. You live on Supreme Court? Use Ct. Electric Avenue? Ave. Sacred Circle? Cir. You know the drill -- St, Rd, Pl and like that. But I lived on a corner which had two streets which are probably not on that list. The street address is on Parkway West. Note, this isn't like Ocean Parkway where the "Parkway" can be abbreviated. The "parkway" is the first word. Sure, you can abbreviate "West" but that isn't the type of street. In the city, there is a Pkwy South, East and West (and a Central Pkwy) but none is a traditional abrreviatable street type.

The other street is Wilson Block. That's it. Not Wilson Block Road. Just Wilson Block. I asked my mom and she said that she couldn't think of another street that is just "______ Block." Can you? Maybe, but there can't be that many. So the poor kids on that street probably also had no way of abbreviating their address when pressured for time filling out the preliminary info before the SATs started.

So what's the point? Well, I could derive lots of lessons here but I guess the one that got me thinking is this idea that I was living on a bizarrely, unconventionally named corner. And yet I never thought twice about the names and how they are different from other street names. I was oblivious to something rare and unexpected. How many other similarly unique things surrounded me and I missed them? Did I take other crazy things for granted and not realize their true status? What else did I not see because I didn't know enough to look?

Probably lots. And that's a really significant realization.

Compliments of a student - a bit of Torah

Aside from the regular teaching I, on Thursday evenings, teach an extra class. Our school has a "mishmar" program, with mishmar being the Torah learning encouraged after school once a week. The class is unconnected to my daily work and the students can take any of a number of options so there is often no continuity. It is learning for learning's sake. When I started teaching it, I had to find an angle: what would my class be that might attract students to it. So many of the rabbis were confronting the big questions of faith and practice that I decided to specialize in the small questions -- little things that bug me or don't make sense but which should be thought about also. I pointed out to the students that there is still a lot in Judaism that needs to be discussed and uncovered and they have as much right as anyone to come up with novel understandings or explanations. Over the years, I have come with a bunch of little things that don't make sense or that need discussion and we have had a fun time arguing over the trivia that populates out days. Today, something really wonderful happened. I came to the mishmar session ready with a problem which I thought would keep us busy as we worked the problem through, back and forth, arguing and challenging so that even if we ended up with no satisfying answer, we could say that we moved the conversation forward.

I was troubled by how we describe the upcoming holiday of Shavu'ot, the feast of weeks. It is one of the three pilgrimage festivals and is an intense celebration of the Torah and our being defined as a Jewish nation. In our liturgy, when we mention the day, we refer to it as "z'man matan torateinu" -- the time of the giving of our Torah. What troubled me is that in certain complementary stories, the medrash, the holiday is called "Yom Kabbalat hatorah" the day of the receiving of the Torah. This phrasing makes more sense to me. We should be focusing on our receiving the law, not God's giving! I can give anyone anything but if he doesn't take it then my giving is for nothing. Additionally, we make a big deal about how the people, at the foot of Mount Sinai, all said "na'aseh v'nishma" -- we will do then we will hear (an explanation). We pledged ourselves as adherents of the law. We received it as a people and we should be celebrating that. And yet, aside from 30 mentions in these secondary texts, the holiday seems to focus on the giving (I am skipping the possible answer that we didn't really receive the Torah at Sinai, but did so after the Purim story, and the Kotzker rebbe's idea that we actually are still receiving it every day so we don't focus on one day of receiving). I reminded students that the focus in the prayer-references to the other pilgrimage days is on the people, not God (Sukkot, the feast of booths, is "z'man simchateinu" the time of OUR joy, and Pesach/Passover is the "z'man cheiruteinu" the time of OUR freedom). So if the precedent is to frame things in light of US, why refer to the day by invoking God's action?

Then along came Zoe R. She raised her hand and reminded me that the phrase for Shavu'ot prayers is 2 words; yes, the first is "matan" the giving, but the second is "Torateinu" OUR Torah. Maybe, she suggested, the Torah was always and already ours but it hadn't been "released" to us. We had been waiting for it to be our turn to take what was destined for us from the Beginning and on this day, Hashem gave us this gift (matanah). Imagine if you grow up knowing that one day, the fancy piece of jewelry will be yours. It is out of reach even while it already has your name on it. The day that the other decides you are ready for it and hands it to you becomes a momentous occasion. You need not decide to "receive" it -- you decided that ages ago! The day of Shavu'ot is the time of matan Torateinu. OUR Torah was placed in our care so we could become what we were fated to be. This explanation accounted for 2 words, for the consistency of focus and wording among all the festivals and for the stress we place on this perspective. It comports with the Jewish notion that the Torah was written for the Jews. In other words, it is a wonderfully straightforward, efficient and comprehensive answer which I have not seen before! It was new and it was excellent. I told Zoe I'd write it up but will only do so in her name and with her blessing.

Our next generation of Torah scholars can think, formulate and create understanding. For this, I smile.

As I see it

I hate discussing anything akin to politics and I hate using this blog to put forward my view of significant world events, but I'm going to anyway.

Just putting this all out there so I can keep it straight.

First off, Israel pulled out of Gaza. There is no Israeli force in Gaza, but Gaza is its own political and geographical unit which has, much like many entities, borders separating it from surrounding nations. Gaza has a border with Israel and Egypt. Trucks and people go in and out, but only if they pass through borders -- not “check points” but borders, because we are talking about entering and exiting another sovereign nation. Forget about the trucks with aid that Israel sends in unilaterally. Forget about the Arab decision not to send goods in to Israel for sale so as not to do business with Israel. Forget about the tunnels that have been dug starting from the Gaza side as an attempt to cross the border. Just focus on the fact that there is a border.

Recently, and especially on Fridays, Arabs in the Gaza strip have been protesting at the border. They mass there because they, it seems, don’t want there to be a border. They want the right to enter Israel whenever they want. But the thing is, this is a border. I can’t saunter into another country whenever I want. That’s what borders do. These protests have been less than peaceful with video evidence showing gun fire, burning tires and attempts to snip the wires of the border in order (and this has been stated for the record) for Arabs to infiltrate and kill Jews. [note – all of these things I reference can be found online in articles, videos and other sources. If you wish to read up on it, here is one article -- pay attention to the time line]

On a most recent Friday, during a “peaceful” protest, Arabs shot and injured two Israeli soldiers who were on the Israeli side of the border. This is called an act of war, firing on the soldiers of another nation. This is not “peaceful.” The Arabs are unhappy – their autonomous political entity is struggling and they have decided that the best option is to shoot at Israeli soldiers who are standing in another country. This border, they see, is a way to keep them OUT. But borders serve a variety of purposes – keeping those who belong IN and those who are of another nation OUT. No one has the innate right to come IN whenever he sees fit. Nations exist and often, they have borders and the right to determine who crosses them.

Israel retaliates because, you know, most countries frown on having their soldiers shot. Now, if you think that this retaliation is uncalled for, just imagine that the soldier shot was your son or daughter or was protecting your house from your neighbors on the other side of the street who want to wander in and raid your fridge and have stated that after drinking the milk, they want to kill your children. The soldiers were just standing there. Not shooting anyone. Just making sure that the border remains the border and people stay on their sides of the border. If borders bother you then ask yourself why they exist ANYWHERE and whether the proper approach to them in ALL cases is to shoot people on the other side. Do you endorse that happening anywhere else?

The response to the Israeli response is to indiscriminately fire over 700 rockets into Israel. These devices comprise a double war crime – they are fired towards civilian targets from the cover of non-military sites (yes, all claims can be documented…did you see the picture of the rocket firing mechanism in the minaret?) Seven hundred rockets that claim to be a response to Israel but which ignore that two soldiers were shot on Friday. This is not a “cycle” – it has a definite beginning. Each round does. Once it gets started then, sure, you can claim that it is a cycle, but it doesn’t come into being ex nihilo.

So, to sum up, there is no occupation of Gaza. Israel and Egypt maintain their borders with Gaza. There are no Israeli settlements there and, unless one claims that all of Israel shouldn’t exist, the cities on the Israel side of the border are not settlements. There is no cycle of violence – there is a repeated attempt to breach a fence and cross a border illegally (with stated nefarious aims) and there is violence demonstrated against a sovereign nation. This is not about the political corruption scandals in Israel, the high cost of housing or anything else. This is about the choice to use violence across an international border and then having to deal with the consequences. Again, I can provide video, documentation and other substantiation for my claims. I haven’t because right now, I’m just typing stuff, but it is all out there, plus more stuff. I find it frustrating that many people (including US politicians) want to look at this with an eye towards “equivalence” and refusing to see the actual cause of the problem. This isn’t some constant back-and-forth. This is a timed and calculated escalation after a period of relative calm. If you want to defend the Arab position, you will have to start by defending the decision to shoot two soldiers across a border during a peaceful protest.