Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Welcome to the Thinking About Chinuch Blog

Welcome to my latest project - the Thinking About Chinuch blog. As a formal and informal educator for the past 15 years (probably more, actually), I have developed and semi-developed all sorts of ideas and thoughts about all different aspects of education - both Jewish education specifically as well as general education issues. The purpose of this blog will be to air out some of my thoughts, most specifically as they apply to a Jewish (generally Orthodox) educational context.


In addition, I will occasionally write about various technologies that I am using (or have seen others use) in limudei kodesh classrooms. While there are a wealth of edtech blogs out there, often limudei kodesh teachers do not see how it all applies to them. While I do not have enough edtech to fill an entire blog (but check out Tzvi Pittinsky's TechRav for more of that), I should have enough to keep things interesting in between my rants.



A few notes as we begin.


1) I am keeping the comments section open, as my goal is to spur discussion and debate. However, I am requesting and insisting that comments remain civil and constructive, and I am requesting as well that people use their real names. I have long detested people who flame others on blog comment sections under the comfort of "anonymous," and I will have very minimal tolerance for such behavior on this blog. As I tell my students - this country is a democracy, but this classroom - and this blog - is a dictatorship.


2) All hashkafot are welcome here, but all must adhere to that principle. I believe strongly that איזהו חכם - הלומד מכל אדם and thus I find admirable traits in hashkafot and schools systems both to my right as well as to my left. If your approach is "my way or the highway", then I invite you to look for the get-off ramp.


3) Not every idea that I express here actually represents my firmly-held opinion. I try to keep an open mind about as many things as possible, and thus I am willing to at least toy with certain ideas and notions that people are often nervous about raising. My goal is to challenge people's thinking (including my own), and the only way to really do that is to start by stepping out of the box once in a while.


Looking forward to a fun experiment. The first post will go up within a day - give people a chance to alert others to the existence of this blog.

1 comment:

yoni ross said...

Nothing to add, just wanted to be the first comment on your new blog.

Good Luck!