The Challenges and Opportunities for the Next Generation of Jewish Education – Part 2
(Excerpted from Yossi Prager’s address to the 2011 graduates of the Azrieli School for Jewish Education)
Children’s immersion in technology raises a host of challenges and opportunities. Most of the discussion about technology and social media focuses on the dangers – the fall of the boundaries that Orthodoxy tries to maintain, the ease of access to pornography, the culture of exhibitionism and more. These are all real challenges. For the classroom, technology poses a challenge or question of a different kind: should the classroom incorporate the smartphone or make sure that it stays in the lobby?
In thinking about the role of technology in the classroom, I want to suggest that the underlying question is whether you view students as consumers or producers. If they are consumers of content, then the only question is how will they most effectively consume the content you provide. No doubt, technology has a role, perhaps limited, to play on this.
But think for a minute about your students as producers, of content, of innovation, of ways of thinking that will move us all forward. In this case, integrating their school challenges with their way of conducting the rest of their lives is the only way to challenge them.
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In Parshat Bhaalotcha it says “Aseh l’cha shtei chatzotzrot kesef” – make two silver trumpets for assembling the people and blowing on holidays.
Menachot 28 explains that all of the keilim that Moshe made for the mishkan were kosher for his generation and future generations, except for the trumpets, which were only kosher for his generation.
Why? R’ Kraus: While the content of the Torah is eternal and unchanging, the vehicles for delivery of the message, the frame of the message and the way it is broadcasted, need to change for each generation. Hence, the trumpets, which symbolize the medium rather than the content, must be refashioned later.
You, as teachers, bear the responsibility and opportunity to frame Judaism for the next generation. And no one is better equipped to do it.
Mazal Tov!