The Teacher as Network Weaver

The other day, during my morning-drive-to-work ritual, I was listening to NPR’s “The Take Away”.  The topic was: “College Students Either Studying as Hard as Ever, or Not Hard Enough.” It was based on a series of studies that seem to have found that college students today study 40% less than their counterparts in 1961.  As I listened, I couldn’t help but remember what studying for me was like in the mid-1970s.  If I was researching a paper, I had to go to the library, find the appropriate abstract that contained a resource that I MIGHT be able to use;  write down on a note card the inscrutable code that pointed the way to the journal or book in the cavernous “stacks”; take the elevator (or stairs, more likely) to the appropriate floor and search for my prize.  Once I found the volume or tome, I had to find a copy machine, make sure I had enough quarters, and photocopy the article or portion of the book.  Only then could I start taking notes and highlighting text.  This was “studying”.  It has nothing to do with the way we research or teach our students today, in the 21^st century. What studying was 50 years ago is not what it is today. What took hours in the last century now takes minutes. That changes everything.

 

We can define how students learn using concepts like literacies or fluencies (I wrote about his here) or categorize them using the “4 C’s model of learning”: Collaboration, Creativity, Communication, Critical Thinking -  but however we do it, we understand that kids learn differently.  The act of “studying” has changed.   This means that we need to adapt the way we teach to the new reality, establishing  different sets of expectations.  It isn’t news that the role of the teacher is undergoing a paradigm shift.  We, as educators need to wrap our crowdsourcing minds around this and reimagine how teaching is evolving.

 

Two of the “4C’s” intrigue me:  Collaboration and Communication. In the past, learning may have been something like solitary confinement:  We did our work (“studied”) alone and presented our product (the assignment) to our teacher. Rarely did we share our work with our peers or our parents. Today, studying is public. It’s a group event. It’s not based just on how I do my “job”, but how we as a group relate to one another so that we can achieve a goal. Project Based Learning is the newest iteration of this idea.  When we study and teach, we do this in relation to one another and to the content.  We are creating a learning network that is all encompassing.  So maybe, the role of educator is being transformed into that of a “network weaver’.

 

A teacher no longer simply provides content, standing in front of the classroom.  The educator helps the students develop the skills they need, to explore content on their own, developing their own understandings,  using the means that work best for them.  A teacher is a curator of knowledge,  pointing the way.  Today’s teacher helps students learn how to wade through all the resources available to them, developing the skill to discern what is valuable and what is trash. Howard Rheingold calls this “Crap Detection”.  But more than that, as Deborah Fishman wrote here:   “…successful network-weavers don’t only curate information, contacts, and other resources. They also seek ways to apply the lessons learned from one part of the network to other parts of the network.” In the classroom this means that the teacher helps the network or networks of students learn how to collaborate creatively, how to communicate effectively. Rather than working in isolation, students are working together, and learning from one another. The teacher navigates between these individuals and groups, guiding them, weaving these disparate strands that are the students into a fabric that is made up of communal knowledge.

 

One of my favorite quotes from Abraham Joshua Heschel is this: “What we need more than anything else is not textbooks but text people”. Learning is based on relationships. It’s up to the teacher to weave those networks so that learning creates new possibilities in the lives of  students.

Disruptive Innovation and Creative Destruction

“In the days of my youth” (how many of you can correctly identify the origin of that lyric?) I embraced the idea of revolution and radical societal change as the only way to make the world a better place. That belief was expressed in my politics, both in the States and in Israel.  As I’ve “matured” I have found myself questioning what the long-term impact of revolutionary change could really be.  But then I look at my smartphone screen, my twitter feed and the facebook groups where I lurk, and I realize that when it comes to the interface between technology and Judaism, the train has already left the station.  It is not enough to just wonder where the revolution that will shape tomorrow’s Judaism will lead us; it’s the question of how we adapt to, and, by necessity, guide that process that we need to answer .  My experience with a hashtag can explain.

This past Monday night, through the medium of twitter, I experienced the latest edition of ELI Talks, the Jewish iteration of the famed TED talks.  Like that model, ELI Talks is meant to bring Jewish learning to all and sundry via bite-sized streaming video:  (here: http://elitalks.org/).  As of now (Morning morning, 05/16), the most recent presentations have yet to be posted.  What follows are my impressions from the #elitalks stream.

As I followed the live tweets, I read the following, courtesy of @miriamjayne, “We’re on the brink of a disruptive revolution in Judaism today! Yes, bring it!”  This was in the context of Daniel Libenson’s remarks about how Judaism in the 21^st century is in the midst of a process that he called (according to those tweeting) “a period of disruptive innovation”. @Darimonline tweeted: “Innovation happens from outside in, not inside out” and originates in the periphery.  What this means, I gathered from subsequent tweets, is that the process of change that is defining Judaism today (and therefore, tomorrow) is rooted not in existing institutions and structures, but are born through models of experimentation and risk taking, rooted in the periphery, on the “outside”, and will shape “the core”, the essence of what Jewish life will become. As @jlearn20 tweeted, it is time for us to “Teach how to be disrupters; rethink what is Jewish leadership”.

So I decided to learn a bit more about this idea of “Disruptive Innovation”. The term was coined by Clayton M. Christenson in 1997 and describes

“an innovation that helps create a new market and value network, and eventually goes on to disrupt an existing market and value network.”

 (http://www.interaction-design.org/encyclopedia/disruptive_innovation.html)

 It sounds pretty straightforward.  When something new is created, something else is ultimately rendered obsolete, and replaced. In today’s world, that could describe the relationship between, say, iPods and cassettes, or VCRs, DVDs and DVRs, or maybe even print vs. digital media. In the Jewish world, (according to what was tweeted at #elitalks), Libenson framed this type of disruption in the context of the rise of Rabbinic Judaism, which grew during the 2^nd Temple period, ultimately reshaping Judaism.  So given all this, I need to ask:  What are we, today, disrupting?

What do we want to see the day after tomorrow?  What is our dream of a Judaism that will thrive in the next generation and beyond? If Jewish leadership is to incorporate the idea of conscious and deliberate disruption, then I think we need to learn to shepherd this process.  Disruption results in change.  Change can be (and in my mind, is usually) good.  But sometimes we need to be aware of the price paid.  Taking this idea to the extreme, for instance, the disruptive innovation that out of which grew Talmud, was rooted in the very physical destruction of a major part of the Jewish community in the year 70. 

Disruptive innovation goes hand in hand with “Creative Destruction”:  an idea from economic thought (http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/CreativeDestruction.html), from which we learn that new ideas, systems and models destroy, as they build upon, older ones. What we as Jewish educators, engagers and futurists need to learn to do is to manage this process of innovation, disruption and destruction - minimizing collateral damage.

The paradigms of 20^th century Jewish life are giving way to fresh and at times radical ideas that are reshaping how we engage with Jewish life, as individuals and as a community. As we redefine what it means to be a part this renewed Jewish existence, let’s not forget to look in the rear view mirror, to remind us of our origins. Strength, and yes, weakness, can be found there to guide us. While the synagogue model of old, for instance, may no longer speak to us, we may be able to refashion so that it will provide an environment full of meaning.  Let’s remember the baby in the bathwater.

In Kohellet we read that there is nothing new under the sun:  It rises and it sets.  Change is the ONLY constant. As we reinvent our world, we should be mindful that disruption and destruction not only are the by-products of innovation; they provide the raw material and foundations upon which we will build. Let’s not forget the scaffolding.  

Dancing into the Future: Teens and Israel

Spending  a weekend with teens who are excited to learn about engaging with Israel is an exhilarating, and for me at least, almost a spiritual experience. I’ve just returned from The iCenter’s MZ Teen iConnect with Israel conference. Eighty teens from all over North America explored how they could make Israel more a part of their lives, brainstorming strategies to involve their peers, families and communities more deeply in the Israel idea.

I’ve written before about the MZ Teen Internship program and how its focus was on Israel education.  The idea of following up with teens after they return from their Israel experience, keeping the spark alive, is both commonsensical and innovative.  The strategy for strengthening the intensity of their relationship is through helping them tell their own “Israel stories” - relating to their peers (and actually anyone who will listen) how their own personal experiences in Israel touched their souls. This was the starting point for the just-concluded conference.

The Israel connection was deepened by the presence of teen emissaries from Israel.  This group of Toronto based Israeli teens brought, in the words of one of the American teen participants, “Israel to us”, providing a unique and unromantically honest insight into what it means to be Israeli. This mifgash, this meeting of teen minds was transformative for both groups.  They explored what they had in common, played the game of Jewish geography (at least those who went to Jewish summer camps that had delegations of Israeli counselors took part) and reminisced about favorite spots to chill in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. They spoke the same international language:  Teenager.  This personal connection will probably be the longest lasting and most impactful.

As the young people reflected on the weekend, the trope I kept hearing was that the programs offered were far from the regular fare.  They weren’t spoken at.  They dialogued; they experienced; they were listened to.  What seemed really important was that these programs could be brought home to be adapted by the teens in their own backyards and communities. They learned how to translate the idea of Israel into a reality in their everyday lives.

Another aspect of the weekend spoke to the hearts and minds of the conference participants:  Learning how to advocate for Israel.  At my last experience with the MZ Teen program, in the fall, the focus was on education. This time the participants were also immersed in what can be best called, “Israel Advocacy 101”.  They explored what the term “advocacy” means, what leadership is all about, and role – played scenarios that replicated what happens on college campuses.  If nothing else, the representatives of The David Project, the Israel On Campus Coalition and Stand With Us worked with the teens to prepare them for the university environment with tools to promote Israel’s interests.  The stress this weekend seemed not necessarily on debating and confronting Israel detractors, but rather on developing skills to foster relationships and positively engage with the unsure, the unengaged, and even when possible, with those “on the other side”.     Evocative storytelling -  sharing their own heartfelt and sincere passion for Israel was contextualized as an effective tool to be used by these teens, when they find themselves on campus,  to represent and defend the idea of the Jewish state. Personally, I would have preferred to see a broader representation of different types of Israel advocacy groups, reflecting the true gamut of Zionist and Israeli democracy.  Those that were represented, in my mind, skewed to the right, but their basic message of non-confrontational advocacy (as presented at this conference, at least), was valid, refreshing and important.  Maybe at the next gathering we can hope for a wider spectrum of views. 

And finally, the teens danced.  All of them.  They did old fashioned rikudei ahm –  the Israeli folk dances  that those of us of a certain age grew up doing in youth group and camp.  It was cute.  It was refreshing.  It was fun.  It evoked that old pioneering spirit,  of the chalutziut that defined the  type of Zionism that lived in our hearts  before the days of UN resolutions condemning Zionism as racism, and intifadas, and controversies over land ownership and separation barriers and Qassam rockets and illegal settlements.  While I know we’ll never return to those days of innocence and heroism, I hope I’m not being naïve in expressing an optimism that maybe the future of our relationship with Israel can be less complicated, as these young adults become the leaders of tomorrow who will strengthen the ties between North American Jews and Israel.

One can only hope.

Bruce Springsteen, Jewish Futures, and the Myth of Authenticity

Bruce Springsteen gave the keynote address at the just ended South By Southwest (SXSW) Music Conference and Festival  in Austin.  The Boss’s remarks focused on the meaning of music  in his own musical development.  His entire talk can be found here at NPR.  As I listened I heard him say something that gave me pause - so much so that I had replay it over and over again.  About  nine and a half minutes in he said the following words about music and the creative process:

Purity of human expression and experience is not confined to guitars, to tubes, to turntables, to microchips. There is no right way, no pure way of doing it. There’s just doing it.

We live in a post authentic world and today authenticity is a house of mirrors. It’s all just what you’re bringing when the lights go down. It’s your teachers, your influences your personal history.  At the  end of the day it’s the power and purpose of your music that still matters. (Please note that this is my own transcription. As of now there is no officially released transcript.  The punctuation is my best guess - PE)

What blew me away was the phrase “post authentic world” and the idea that what we create is a reflection of our own journey.  As I listened to this I realized that Mr. Springsteen wasn’t just talking about music.

All of us who care about the past, present and future of Judaism have been exploring how best to define what it means to be Jewish in the 21^st century.  Rabbi Arnold Samlan (@JewishConnectiv), in his Jewish Connectivity blog has written about how the  concept of connectedness can replace  the traditional idea of affiliation.  Different models of Jewish learning are constantly being experimented with.  The 21^st century skills of collaboration and communal construction of knowledge and tradition are becoming part of the way Judaism is being taught and lived.  Brick and mortar is being replaced by the virtual. The very nature of being part of the Jewish community is being redefined.   We find ourselves in a new world where the idea of an “authentic Jewish life” is not only becoming  harder to define, but in fact may become non-existent, and possibly  irrelevant.

What does it mean to live an “authentically Jewish life”?  A.B. Yehoshua, that Israeli literary giant and anti-diaspora curmudgeon, declared that Diaspora Jews “are partial Jews” because they don’t live in Israel.  “In no way are we the same thing - we are total and they are partial; we are Israeli and also Jewish.” he pontificated recently.  Does this mean that an Israeli Jew, going to the beach on Yom Kippur, is more authentically Jewish than a Jew living in New York attending High Holy Day services at B’nai Jeshurun?  How about a Haredi living in Jerusalem forcing women to sit at the back of the bus or abusing a child because she is not dressed “modestly” enough?  In the days of the Second Temple, who were the “authentic” Jews, the Sadducees or the Pharisees?  Did Rabbinic Judaism claim the mantle of authenticity merely because they survived  the year 70 and made it to Yavneh to write the history? 

What is Judaism but the sum total of our people’s experience, reflected in the cultural contexts in which we find ourselves?  There is no one way of being Jewish.  We are a community/civilization that is always questioning, reflecting, arguing…and evolving.  The hyper-Zionism of A.B. Yehoshuah, or the Talibanistic dictates of the ultra-orthodox do not define what an authentic Jewish life means.  We, living our lives where we live it, do. Maybe this is the closest thing we can get to “authentic Judaism”.

As we all create  tomorrow’s Judaism, maybe we might want to think about it in light of Springsteen’s  words: It’s our teachers, our influences, our history out of which springs the muse that helps us write the symphony, the rock opera, the song, the rap, that will be the soundtrack for the Judaism of our children and their children. It’s the power and the purpose of OUR heritage that we are bringing to the world stage, today and tomorrow.

The music never stops.

Connected Coaching - Adventures in Cloud Based Learning

A little over a month ago, I started taking an online course called “Connected Coaching” offered by Powerful learning Practice- Professional Development for 21^st Century Educators.  I discovered this learning opportunity  in a tweet posted by Caren Levine (@jlearn20).  It’s making quite an impact on me because when I started the course I had no idea what I was getting myself into.  For the past 5 weeks it seems as if  I’ve been learning a new language. As I’ve passed the halfway mark in this 8  week course, I’m discovering that actually it’s not so foreign after all.

When I began I had no real idea what the words “Connected Coaching” meant. I figured that it involved learning how to teach in online settings.  That what I gleaned from the course description. I thought I would be learning Professional Development models that utilize online platforms, like Blackboard or Moodle or Elluminate.  I expected to learn how to best utilize these programs to create connections with and between teachers in a virtual professional development  environment.  And I am.  But not in the way I expected.

Connected Coaching is about Professional Development.  But it’s more about creating links between students and teachers. It’s about changing our frame of reference when it comes to the craft of teaching.  It’s about creating a context  (not necessarily cloud based, I’ve realized) that empowers learners and instructors  to experientially, collaboratively, and reflectively create create new, and build upon existing, knowledge.  One of the concepts that I discovered was “Knowledge in Practice”. As opposed to traditional learning where the instructor, in an authoritative manner, provides information to the learner,  knowledge in practice is experiential, interactive, and collaborative. The relationships between the instructor and learner are based not on a leader-follower dynamic, but on a more authentically human level.  The instructor, the “coach”, fashions a supportive and constructive climate that enables the learner to build upon innate strengths as their understanding is deepened.  It is an inspirational model, where the learner’s potential for excellence is recognized and acknowledged. I can’t help think of Vicki Halsey’s Brilliance by Design, in which she writes “Every teacher needs to find a way to reach joyfully into the soul of learners and facilitate their brilliance so that they can make their contributions”.  

Now that I think of it, this concept of Connected Coaching, of Professional Development, based not just on showing but on listening and questioning and innovating, isn’t too foreign. I’m thinking of  Joshua ben Perachyah, that second century B.C.E scholar of the Mishnah who taught: “Get yourself a teacher, find yourself a friend/companion, and judge everyone favorably”.  When we teach and learn from one another, we need to embrace it as an act of joy. Learning is transformative. When we study together, our souls change, as well as the way we interact with one another.  Study is not an isolated act.  Whether we are in a physical classroom or in some virtual space, when we learn, we are creating a community. We are touching each other. We are connecting.