Previous section was Motivation

It’s also useful to set certain ground rules in your classes. I have discussed these ground rules in the beginning of the year together with my list of expectations and the assignment of individual projects and the explanation of how much each aspect of the course including the tests and class participation is worth. It’s good to have this stipulated in advance. In recent years I have found that the students have developed a new difficulty or a new problem which I did not see in the past, and that problem is chutzpah. Students used to be respectful to teachers and to each other. That respect has diminished or disappeared in recent years. I set as my own goal in my class to make sure that my students know the importance of not acting with chutzpah. Look up chutzpah in your dictionary. It will probably say something like insolence and that’s probably a reasonably good definition for the problematic concept and I find it very troublesome. In my class I try to place an emphasis or a stress on being sure that students do not behave with insolence or with chutzpah. This is very often a new concept for them because they do not get this training in any other location. You might pick another side aspect of your classes in your classes. I also try to include as much Jewish teaching as possible. So I try to use Jewish teaching in my teaching. What does that mean? Well basically the idea derives from an international discussion forum called Jewish Teaching.

Next section deals with Jewish Teaching.