Today I had the pleasure of having Lauren Burstein visit my classroom. The visit was a pleasure for many reasons, one of the most significant being that Lauren is a former student of mine from Frisch. Lauren, who teaches English at Torah Academy of Bergen County (TABC), and I have been in contact since last year and this past summer's RealSchool Summer Sandbox, and it was on the way back from Jedcamp in Brooklyn last Sunday that we decided she should visit my classroom to see if she was interested in gaming her English class.
I had decided to game mine very recently. About two years ago, I saw John Hunter discuss his World Peace Game in a TEDTalk, and the idea to create something similar has been percolating ever since:
John Hunter is truly remarkable
I've also been intrigued over the past year by social media posts about educational gaming and inspired as well by educators such as Sarah Blattner who are proponents of it. This year seemed like the time to make my first move, so to speak, into the world of games in the classroom.
The class I chose to game is a senior English elective at Frisch called Hot Topics. The class focuses on two main controversial issues, medical ethics and racism, and has traditionally employed different media to connect students with the issues: film, art, and various types of fictional and non-fictional works. The course's loose structure made it perfect to game.
I don't have a lot of experience playing computer games and so borrowed the set-up of the game structure more from John Hunter than from Minecraft or Angry Birds. I also decided to start small to see if the gaming methodology worked for me, and so the first thing I did was game the summer reading assignment.
The students had read about the amazing inventions and ethos of the MIT Media Lab in The Sorcerers and Their Apprentices by Frank Moss, former director of the Lab, as well as Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, which poignantly portrays the horrors of cloning. The two books lent themselves to being gamed, focused as they were on either the possibilities or the limits of technology.
In this version of Monopoly, students replaced Broadway with the MIT Media Lab and advanced players with innovations from the Media Lab, portrayed in Community Chest cards. In the Community Chest card shown above, one of the Media Lab's ethos -- failing fast to learn fast -- has players move back three spaces but receive $50!
Students came up with games based on Chutes and Ladders, Monopoly, Trivial Pursuit, and Uno and also invented their own games. I particularly liked one student's response to what he learned from having created his game: "I saw that there were moral consequences to people's actions." That conclusion is obviously the aim of reading a book such as Never Let Me Go, but it was much more important to me that the student realized that himself instead of being fed the line by me. Students also told me they learned a lot about the books from each other, when they planned the games and discussed quotations from the books that they'd use. They also said they had to learn how to combine the perspectives of different people in their group. Social-structed learning appeals to me greatly and is a natural outcome of kids' playing games -- or in this case, making them -- together.
To reflect on the assignment, I had students create videos about the learning experience. Here's one that includes a narrative frame, which is something important in an English class!
Once the students finished the videos, they posted on linoit.com any failure they learned from over the course of the assignment. You can see their posts here: Fail Fast to Learn Fast linoit board (Thanks to my sister Smadar Goldstein of JETS, for introducing me to linoit walls).
All in all, I felt satisfied that rich learning had taken place during the game-making unit, and I saw how much fun the kids had and how deeply engaged they were by the activity. They also told me how much they enjoyed a class where they weren't sitting down the whole time and where they had autonomy and control. As a result of all these positive outcomes, I felt ready to tackle a more complicated gaming activity, the making of a Simulated City.
The summer reading game was structured as a project-based learning (PBL) unit. I designed the assignment, set up rubrics for the game, made sure students presented to an audience, and assigned reflective pieces. For the Simulated City, I'm opting to create an inquiry-based learning (IBL) classroom. Much of the learning and project outcomes will be driven by the students, with my role being to deepen learning, guide it to more sophisticated places than the students might take it on their own, and base project outcomes on what I think the students will be most interested in.
On the first day of the city's creation, the students and I discussed what sectors of a city they'd be interested in forming and came up with the following seven areas:
Business
Eco-friendly Fashion
Governance and Politics
Sports
Technology
Urban Design
Waste Management
Our Urban Design team
Waste Management goes green in our city!
Students didn't have to be told to dream big; after reading The Sorcerers and Their Apprentices this past summer and because of their own interests, they were already thinking of blue sky technologies!
As our curriculum takes shape, it's become clear that we need:
1) Project Goals for each week; students post their daily progress in Google Docs they've created for the class
2) A class blog where we can make the process of our work visible to the larger world
3) Presentation dates when each group can report on its research and then make proposals for the city that classmates will vote on
In order to connect the Sim City with the syllabus I'd prepared, I also asked the students to choose an ethical dilemma for their group. For example, Urban Design is debating whether the city should have housing projects, while Sports is researching performance-enhancing drugs so the class can decide if they want to allow them. Eco-Friendly Fashion is investigating sweatshop use and how to create eco-friendly and affordable clothing, while Governance is going to present legislation on abortion and gun control that the class will vote on.
The pros and cons of performance-enhancing drugs are presented in two books Rami is holding (and now reading!), Enhancing Evolution and The Case against Perfection
What I loved about Lauren's visit today was that it made the students' work more authentic -- as having outside visitors tends to do. It forced the students to articulate more clearly what they've been working on and where they are headed in their research. I heard Lauren ask probing questions and push the kids to think more deeply about their topics. I could have done the same, but when it's your teacher bugging you, you might roll your eyes. The students took Lauren's thoughts and questions seriously.
Knowing Lauren was going to come also forced me to think more carefully about the expectations I have for the groups and how I see the quarter developing. While an inquiry-based learning classroom unfolds in a more free-form manner than a PBL one, I'm finding it can still have a careful design and a clear timetable and basic frame. Creating those elements has been fun.
Lauren discusses with Waste Management their ideas and research
Governance and Politics share with Lauren what they've been up to
One of the most gratifying parts of Lauren's visit was her noticing that the students seem truly engaged in their work and passionate about it. I hope so. The aim of the gaming assignment isn't only to have fun -- though joyful learning is something I always think about cultivating. It's also to have fun while being deeply immersed in work that is satisfying and challenging and that speaks to a student's passions and interests.
One student in the Sports team actually wants to be a sports agent, so his research on how to become one is obviously relevant to him
Lauren is welcome back anytime, and in the meantime, my students and I will continue our classwork play.
Additonal Resources
Traditional descriptions of "gaming the classroom" discuss ways of introducing video games into learning. Check out these articles on educational gamification:
From Personal Identity to Cultural and Religious Identity
From December 6-14, Frisch ran Greek Week for the freshmen, a time when Frisch Cougars learn to draw the line between Judaism and secular culture. At the launch of Freshman Greek Week, I tied what we were about to do to the freshmen integrated theme for the year: Identity. A couple of weeks earlier, at the launch of the freshman integrated theme, each freshman had written a word that described him- or herself, and I compiled those words onto a board on linoit.com (thank you to my sister, educator Smadar Goldstein for the introduction to linoit.com):
The freshmen had also each chosen a poem that revealed something about their identities and posted their responses to the poem on our school wiki. I showed the grade some of their classmates' interesting and thoughtful responses, such as these two:
Response 1:
Now if you listen closely I'll tell you what I know Storm clouds are gathering The wind is gonna blow The race of man is suffering And I can hear the moan, 'Cause nobody, But nobody Can make it out here alone.
By nature I'm a worrier. I worry about peace in Israel, homelessness, the enviroment, and health issues. I realize that all of these problems can't be solved by me alone. The issues are difficult ones and can only be addressed by governments, communities, and individuals, all working together. After the most recent natural disaster, hurricane Sandy, many people were left without homes, heat, or power. My family and I spent a day in Far Rockaway distributing hot dogs and hamburgers to many people in need. At that moment I realized how fortunate I was that I belonged to a famiy and a community that was able to give back to groups of families in desperate need. It was a life altering experience.
Response 2:
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth
As I begin my high school career, I now realize that I must choose an identity or "path" to guide me through not only high school but life. I know that I need to find a good path, one that can help me achieve goals, and help me become the person I want to be. Alternatively, the path I hope to avoid is the one that will take me in the wrong direction towards mediocrity and failure. Throughout the next four years I will be creating a path for myself, and I know how important it is to choose the right friends, achieve good grades in classes, be a good person, and the importance of respecting others. This poem clearly stresses this point, and how necessary it is for each person to choose their path and identity wisely.
Cosmology Myths
I then pointed out that part of their quest to understand who they were as individuals, both as people in the Western world and as Jews, included a look at where they had come from. In history, which is an integrated class of World and Jewish history, the freshmen were, during Chanukah time, studying the ancient Greeks and the effect that Hellenism had on Jewish life.
I proceeded with my slideshow, which compared Greek and Biblical cosmology stories. Here is what the Greeks believe:
•Zeus defeats his father Cronos, Time, who is king of the Titan race of gods
•The Titans represented natural disasters
•Zeus tames natural disasters and is
leader of the gods
•Zeus rules the sky; his brothers Poseidon
and Hades rule the sea and underworld
Once we took a look at the Greek story, I played this Disney favorite, which shows what a good job the Magic Kingdom did in conveying the Greek cosmology myth:
We then compared the Greek story to the Biblical one, which has a distinctly different feel because:
•God is “eyehashereyeh”:
He was, is and will be: timeless
•God creates the world ALONE
•God creates the world through words, not
struggle
•God rules the world ALONE
The Influence of Hellenistic Culture
The Torah does have key distinctions between its cosmology story and the Greeks', but as we know that doesn't mean the Jews were free from the influence of the very tempting Hellenized world. Here is a wall painting in a synagogue from the third century CE, in what is now Syria but was called Dura-Europos and was a place where Romans, Jews and pagans lived and influenced each other. The Jews were influenced by the art of Roman wall painting, which they copied by painting scenes from Tanakh all over the walls of their synagogue:
The Egyptians chase the Israelites through the Red Sea,
only to have it collapse on them when Moses follows God's instructions
The freshmen and I debated the inclusion of the hands at the top of the painting. Most were calm about the fact that the work showed God's hands; they reasoned that the anthropomorphism was simply a visual representation of the Biblical text. In fact, they argued that had the work NOT included God's hands, people might think it had been MOSES who had performed the miracle of the parting of the sea, something the Torah text explicitly does NOT want people to think!
However, the class was not as sanguine about this work:
The synagogue at Hammath-Tiberias.
When you visit it, treat yourself after to a meal at Deck's.
You won't be sorry!
This work is a floor mosaic from the late third or early fourth century CE, when Tiberias was the seat of the Sanhedrin. The mosaic at the top of the picture makes the ruin recognizable as a Jewish place: an ark is in the middle of the mosaic, and the ark is flanked by two menorot, which are in turn flanked by a lulav and etrog and a shofar and censer. Below the mosaic of the ark is a zodiac, a common enough occurrence in a synagogue from Late Antiquity; however, this mosaic depicts Helios the sun god in its center. Most of the students agreed the Jews of this synagogue had crossed a line, had ventured into the territory of idolatry and had not been true to Jewish values.
We then discussed how easy it is to cross a line into forbidden areas of secular culture. A good text to use to discuss this further is Rabbi Michael Broyde's letter about Modern Orthodoxy, which states that we are allowed to enjoy aspects of secular culture and use them to become closer to God, but we can only use those parts of secular culture that are not antithetical to Torah values:
My next session during Freshman Greek Week was about Greek and Torah heroes. In short, the Greeks in their stories often succumb to fatalism and therefore heroes fall tragically, but Judaism does not have the same fatalistic view of the world, no matter what Qohelet says [for a discussion on that, see Greeks, Qohelet and Genesis].
Here's the slideshow in which I compare Greek and Torah heroes who are on the DL with foot/leg injuries:
This year I decided to experiment with the wrap-up presentation and use juniors and seniors to speak to the freshmen about where the freshmen would draw the line between their Judaism and secular culture. After planning the wrap-up session with a fellow teacher, I prepped a group of juniors and seniors, mostly students from RealSchool's Religious Identity team, and then sent my religious SWAT agents to do their work. They were fantastic.
The juniors and seniors, about ten of them, took groups of about 13 freshmen each. Each freshman received a flashcard on which he/she wrote five things he/she considered inviolable about Judaism, five things the freshmen felt truly and profoundly defined them as Jews. They were then asked to imagine a scenario in which those five or at least one might be threatened. Lively discussions ensued.
A group of freshmen and the senior moderating their session
write their five inviolables of Judaism on a flashcard
Students discuss what's essential to their Judaism
As my colleague and I had hoped, the freshmen felt much more comfortable talking about their religious conflicts and plans for spiritual growth with their peers as opposed to with their teachers. The session left me convinced that using upperclassmen to "teach" the underclassmen was a good idea, and when I asked the juniors and seniors what they thought, they said they loved the opportunity to speak with the freshmen and find ways to challenge them to grow as Jews. I think the exercise also forced the upperclassmen to think more deeply about their own Judaism, though the group was one that was already inclined to do so.
The wrap-up went so well that I not only would ask the upperclassmen to be part of future religious discussions, but I also want them involved in presenting sessions in secular subjects during Frisch's integrated days of learning. I love the idea of peer teaching and think it will become an important part of my student-centered initiatives.
Notes for the Wrap-Up Session
If you want more detailed information about the wrap-up session, here is the email I sent the juniors and seniors in order to prepare them for the discussion. They told me they did use the information:
Hi,
Thanks for moderating the Greek Week wrap up tomorrow.
Here is the outline of the session.
I'll introduce and reiterate the need to draw lines in our lives, to let in from secular culture what is aligned with Torah values and to reject what is not.
We'll then divide the kids into ten groups. Once in the group, hand out the flashcards and tell the kids to write down 5 things they consider inviolable in their practice of Judaism. In other words, what means the most to them about their Judaism; what acts or values do they consider indispensable to their practice as Jews? Ask them also to consider a scenario where that practice or value might come under attack. Example: their friends are texting on Shabbat about where to meet up, so the only way to know where everyone is hanging out is to text friends. (You can think of other examples as well.)
When everyone is done writing and brainstorming, first get myriad examples of acts and values that are the inviolables for each person. Then have kids share examples of what might threaten the inviolables.
If your group isn't forthcoming and the discussion seems to be lagging, use the Rambam about the obligation to die "al kiddush Hashem" rather than violate the "big three," the "yehareg v'al ya'avor": murder, illicit relations and idolatry. Here is a summary from the Chabad of Oxford (yes, as in the University) about the Igeret Hashmad, the Letter of Apostasy in which Rambam defends Spanish Jewry for not converting to Islam:
Two central dilemmas Igeret HaShmad addresses are as follows: should one give up ones life when faced with forced conversion to Islam? The question has immense implications. By sacrificing their life, they allow their children to become orphans who will almost definitely be abandoned to Islam. Conversely, by submitting to Islam in public, the Jewish identity of the children can be retained for generations to come.
Another question is whether a person can be considered a hypocrite in Judaism. If the person converts to Islam but continues to observe some commandments and pray the Hebrew liturgy of the Siddur, is this hypocrisy?
Maimonides, as in the Mishne Torah[5], explains the Jewish law related to abandonment of Jewish practise under duress[6]:
A person who is forced to commit one of the three cardinal sins - idolatry, adultery, and murder - in any circumstances should rather die than capitulate. This applies whether the threat was to transgress in private or in public, during a time of oppression or freedom, and whether the threat is for personal motive or in spite of Jewish belief.
If the sin, however, is other than the three mentioned above, there is a difference as to whether the oppressor is out for personal benefit, or acting out of spite towards Judaism. This is one of the reasons why Esther was permitted under duress to marry the Persian king, Achashverosh[7], against Jewish law, since the motive of the king was for personal benefit, rather than out of spite[8].
If the oppressor has religious motives, there is a difference whether it is a time of persecution or peace. If the circumstances took place during a period of peace for the Jews, one is only permitted to transgress if it is done in private.
In addition to the laws of keeping the Jewish faith when threatened by death in certain circumstances, Maimonides discusses the need for a Jewish person to live to a high moral standard. A person who behaves in an anti - social manner causes a desecration of G-d’s name. If a person is held in high esteem, they are expected to live up to an even higher moral standard[9]. It is more problematic when someone abandons Judaism when not under duress, but for reasons of indulgence.
On the other hand when a person behaves in a manner that is of a high moral standard, this sanctifies G-d’s name: A person who is genuine, altruistic, commands respect, has a good reputation and is disciplined, sanctifies G-d’s name. These qualities, according to Maimonides, sanctify
G-d’s name more than religious practice.
When a Jew is indeed killed for being unwavering to the Jewish faith, it is the highest virtue in Judaism, as was merited by Rabbi Akiva and his colleagues, who were killed by the Romans[10]. Even one who is not actually killed but was prepared to die and was miraculously saved, is also called a Martyr. The four Jewish advisors to Nebuchadnezzar, Chananya, Mishael, Azarya and Daniel experienced this. They were thrown in the lion’s den for not prostrating themselves before Nebuchadnezzar’s idol, and miraculously survived[11].
Similarly, the seven sons of Hannah refused to prostrate before the Greek ruler, Antiochus, and as a result were all put to death in front of their mother[12].
Maimonides writes, even one who is not observant but was killed for maintaining faith in Judaism merits a portion in the World to Come. This is illustrated in the story related in the Talmud, when the entireJewish population of the city of Lod was accused of killing the daughter of a Roman king; all its inhabitants were threatened with annihilation. Two brothers, Papus and Lulinus, came forward and falsely confessed to the killing in order to spare the lives of thousands of Jews. The Talmud says that this was an act of martyrdom and the brothers ascended to the loftiest level in Gan Eden where ordinary people cannot enter[13].
Returning to the subject of Spanish Jewry, Maimonides maintains that it is not incumbent upon a Jewish person to sacrifice their life not to convert to Islam. This is because conversion to Islam is purely a verbal declaration. One who does give up life, however, receives great reward and is indeed considered a martyr.
Conversely, Maimonides concludes, even one who is obligated to sacrifice life not to convert to Islam, but does not rise to the challenge of martyrdom, and abandons Judaism under duress, is not considered an apostate and does not deserve any degradation or punishment. This is similar to a woman who is bethrothed to a man and is raped by another. The woman is not held accountable although she could have given her life and been spared the act of adultery[14].
This is very different to the Talmudic discussion concerning idolaters who abandon the Jewish faith willingly. The Jews of Spain are all in the category of forced converts and are not considered responsible for their actions. They are permitted to testify in a Jewish court of law and may be a witness in a marriage or on a bill of divorce.
Maimonides proceeds to enter into a diatribe towards the rabbi. He writes that the rabbi is sinful by expressing his opinion that Jews in Spain should die for their faith. This is compounded by the irony that this rabbi is expressing this view when he himself is living a life of religious freedom and comfort.
With regard to keeping Judaism under such difficult circumstances, Maimonides says, there is no reason for concerns of hypocrisy. If when under duress, certain Jewish practises are abandoned and others retained, it should not be said that the transgression overwhelms the observance. This rule only applies in a civil court of law; however, G-d rewards a person for each individual action notwithstanding other conduct. Therefore, a person should endeavour to keep theMitzvot as much as circumstances permit and will be rewarded for what is kept. Furthermore, a person should realise that a Mitzvah is of great value when done under difficult and life threatening conditions
. Although Maimonides defends Spanish Jewry for converting to Islam under duress, he nevertheless considers Jews who remain in Spain under such circumstances to be bordering on negligent abandonment of the Jewish faith. If Jews feel they must remain in Spain, they should live covertly and stay as much as possible indoors, to avoid total assimilation. He concludes by strongly advising that Jews should flee countries that prohibit Jewish beliefs and escape, even under dangerous travel conditions, to a country where to be conspicuously Jewish is permitted. He adds that they should not be distressed for leaving behind beloved family members, nor should they feel concerned that they are forfeiting their possessions by fleeing the country, as these matters are insignificant when considering the importance of retaining ones Jewish belief.
In addition, in Perek 5 of Hilkhot Yesodei Ha-Torah, Rambam writes that in a time of "tekufat ha-shmad," religious persecution, the injunction to die rather than violate the "big three" is suspended. I've attached an interesting shiur on Kiddush Hashem by Rav Lichtenstein. (It's always good to go into something like this with MORE info rather than just enough, y'know?)
Wrap up your part of the session with the quotation from The Catcher in the Rye, said by Mr. Antolini to Holden:
"The mark of an immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of a mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one."
It's easy to make the grand gesture and say "I'll be a martyr for God" (OK, maybe it's not that easy, but it's easy to talk that talk.) It's much harder to do what Judaism asks us to do, which is to live humbly day to day, doing the small but necessary things that Judaism is comprised of.
Then get the kids back to me in the front of the auditorium, and I'll end by saying that living at the line is hard, we have to feel the tension because that means we care, we should even enjoy the tension, and we should realize we have to own our Judaism because if we compromise and keep giving parts of it away, we'll be left with nothing. Therefore, as you forge your identities, you have to make sure you really own your Judaism and own your own religious growth in the same way you own your academic and extra-curricular life.
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