Not all fields of knowledge break up into neat units of 28 classroom hours. Some are more, some are less. As a result, teachers either stretch a topic unnecessarily, or else they find that they don't have enough time to present the material properly.

The solution is clear. Teachers should teach a topic, and the teacher should be responsible for guaranteeing that all of her students learn that topic. This system should replace the artificial mitat Sdom of a set number of hours.

The 56-hour course is a case in point. For our purposes in this article, it doesn't matter whether your college offers 56-hour, 28-hour, 42-hour or 48-hour courses, or whether each is 45, 50, or 60 minutes.

All classes and all disciplines are different. Material that is covered in one course will take a different amount of time in an otherwise apparently comparable course.

The course content should not be determined by the number of contact hours, but by its relative importance, complexity, and time required to absorb the material. If students need to learn only 20 hours to complete the syllabus, then there is no reason to fill the rest of the time. On the other hand, if it takes 63 hours to absorb or explain important material, then there is no justification to rush through the allocated time for the course or to lose students who would have been able to succeed if they had been given sufficient time.

Clearly the concept of the 56-hour mitat sdom course is a failure.

The Torah tells about Lot, who belonged to a town that was famous for inviting guests. However, they used a one-size-fits-all bed - a Mitat Sdom. Those who were too short had the dubious pleasure of being stretched to fit the bed. Those who were too tall (or long) had their extraneous limb shortened in order to fit the bed.

Is today's education system a Sdom Bed?

What, then, is the solution?