by Rabbi Yosef Kurtz
When thinking about principles of Jewish education, one need not look further than the Torah for guiding instructions. On Passover we recite a number of times “When your child asks you….you should tell them….”. From these words of the Torah, many sages and contemporary authors point to the importance of questions to the education of children. When I was in York University, I had a professor who would begin every class allowing the students to ask questions about anything they wanted. In the beginning of the semester, I felt that it was a way for the professor to waste time so that he would have to teach less material, but in time this pedagogic method stuck with me as being the most important part of my degree. When I started teaching, I decided to incorporate this into the beginning of every lesson. In an ideal world, a student in a “Jewish Law” course will ask a question about Jewish law and the classroom discussion will revolve around the curriculum. At the very least, the students will ask questions about their interests. If they are passionate about philosophy they may ask a philosophy question and if they have a passion for sports they may ask a question about the ranking of Auston Matthews amongst all time Leaf greats. While the latter may not be relevant to the curriculum it accomplishes two objectives; it teaches me about the students and what makes them excited, and it allows the students to learn about something that they are genuinely interested in. The Book of Mishlei states “A man according to his praise” which many scholars interpret as meaning that you can understand a human being by what they praise and what they get excited about. Allowing students to get excited and express their enthusiasm in the form of a question to start a class has enhanced every single course that I have taught and I hope that it is has led to a higher level of learning from the students.
Shabbat Shalom!
Yosef Kurtz is a member of the Limudei Kodesh faculty at Ulpanat Orot
