The Torah Aura Teaching Robot

by Joel Lurie Grishaver

Torah Aura has been experimenting with the latest models in teaching robots that we hope to soon bring to the market. These robots will make it possible to run Jewish schools completely without teachers. It will soon be possible for the educator to completely eliminate the teacher from the process of Jewish education. Let us look forward to that day.

We have come in contact with more and more principals who plan every lesson for every teacher. We are seeing more and more curriculum (especially from the movements) that attempt to either eliminate the teacher from the equation or completely script the teacher and discourage improvisation. We have heard from many principals with whom we have met that they feel personally responsible for all situations that arise between the school and families, teaching us that teachers should not be involved in these situations—and we will guarantee that the Torah Aura Teaching Robot will contribute nothing to these relationships.

Once, we used to believe that teaching was an art. We imagined that the great teacher spun a web linking his or her skills, the class or given students, and the content. We believed that each lesson was a construction, a dialogue created between the lesson plan and the place where the class was at. We even knew (or thought we knew) that the best lessons were the ones where teacher left the beaten track and went exploring with their class. In the future we need have little fear of that happening.

Most recently “assessment” has become the latest educational buzz word. Today’s New York Times stated that “No Child Left Behind” has made American education worse. The rate of progress that had been achieved under the Clinton administration where class sizes were limited and a greater emphasis was placed on preschool preparation has been lost through standardize testing that were designed to limit and control the teacher’s role in the classroom process. Of course, there is little we can learn from that.

Torah Aura used to believe that the best Jewish education came from empowering teachers, from expanding their skill set, and widening their vision. We used to see our job as creating a platform, a stage, on which teachers could perform their magic and their art. We saw relationships and classroom community as being more important than any curricular frame we could provide. But, now we know that teachers are hard to find, teacher education is limited, and the amount of information that needs to be conveyed more compressed because of parental demands.

We used to be told that a textbook is not a curriculum. That a teacher should only think of a textbook as a resource. Now we are learning that a year’s worth of lesson plans and completely scripted lessons is the way to go. To make all of that possible, to make sure that the role of the teacher is either further limited or completely eliminated, we will continue our research into teaching robots. We look forward to serving you better.

Amazing Places

by Laurie Bellet

Whenever I go into a public school classroom, there are a couple of areas that always amaze me. One is the class library and the other is the place where teachers store their “stuff.”

Classroom libraries are areas of incredible diversity and opportunities. Teachers accumulate books through the years by all manner of means. They frequent second hand book stores and library sales. They browse bookseller websites, take advantage of in store and discounts and they openly encourage parent donations to honor birthdays and special events. Go into any classroom and you will see books arranged by topic, author season and size. Then, there is a magical time of day when the teacher invites the children to ‘take out your silent reading book.’ The classroom transforms from a hectic business to a true ‘beit midrash.’

Yet, in many Jewish classrooms there is little or no classroom library. The synagogue library is a rich and essential resource. It doesn’t, however, serve the same function as beautiful, timely, books in the classroom. Certainly there are many reasons for this but I am inclined to wonder whether or not these challenges are insurmountable. Many of our classrooms serve multiple populations but, isn’t a well tended bookshelf an honorable addition to any room whether it be used for children, meetings or Mah Jong?