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Schools: A Case Study in Change for Shuls

Oct 23, 2009
Strategies for Change

I was recently at a favorite coffee shop in Minneapolis.  When I went to pay the bill, there was a post-it note attached to a bowl which had some pennies in it.  The note read, “If you fear change, leave it here.” Given the rapid pace of change in our lives today, I sometimes wish I had a bowl into which I could place my fears about change! But whatever anxieties I have are irrelevant, because it seems that even the most storied institutions we’ve taken for granted are experiencing change.

In fact, I’ve been reading about the next area of great change — higher education– because it has an indirect bearing on synagogues. The halls of the Academy share much in common with the walls of the synagogue.  The Academy has values and traditions.  It also has its own rituals and rewards.  It’s filled with books and learning and prides itself on research and teaching that advances knowledge and changes civilization for the better. Like synagogues, its work takes place in the community and even after graduation (think bar and bat mitzvah and confirmation,) it gives people a chance to continue that relationship through an alumni association. On the financial side, its biggest expenses are capital and staff requirements.

But all of that is starting to change. (I am not making a value judgment about these changes but simply reporting about them.) Many traditional bricks and mortar colleges already offer online classrooms.  Online learning has finally reached the point where it can be delivered with quality. But a traditional university education is very costly compared with earning an online degree.  For better and for worse, as online universities achieve critical mass, students are likely to migrate from the “bricks and mortar” to the “bytes and clicks” environment.

The “better” part of this equation is that higher education will be accessible to more people, while the “worse” part is that an online education cannot account for all of the learning that takes place outside of a classroom.

There may be an even more radical change in the making. It’s not hard to envision a day when students will demand to study with the best professors in their field, whether or not they teach at the university in which they are enrolled.  In other words, they will demand the right to truly customize their education and mix and match courses from a variety of institutions.

We watched the economics of the marketplace force similar changes with other enduring institutions like newspapers, libraries and entertainment.  Now, higher education is the new frontier (and, to my personal dismay, there is a dramatic increase in the number of high school students who will graduate with online degrees, too.)

I’d like to hear your reaction to this post. What other similarities do you see between higher education and institutional religion as found in the synagogue?  What do you think we might be able to learn about the synagogue life from the changes in the Academy?

Thanks and I look forward to hearing from you.

Rabbi Hayim Herring

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5 Comments
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4 Comments

  1. Daniel Alter  •  Oct 23, 2009 @1:01 pm

    As someone who is involved in both a Shul and a school, this has been an interesting topic for us. We are actually piloting an online social studies class for our eighth grade students this year.
    While the online phenomenon is one more important piece of the puzzle, we probably need to be careful not to become over reliant. When it comes to religion, many people are still looking for that personal touch.

  2. Jordan Goodman  •  Oct 24, 2009 @11:44 am

    Shalom All,

    Check out the chapter entiltled “Google U: Opening Education” pages 210-217 in
    “What Would Google Do” by Jeff Jarvis for an expansion of Rabbi Hayim’s post above. In fact the whole last third of the book covers the topic “If Google ruled the world.” Open, free and transparent is upon us and there’s no turning back the clock.

    Shavu’a Tov,
    Biv’racha,
    Jordan

  3. Rabbi Jim Egolf  •  Oct 26, 2009 @6:50 am

    While I believe that what you are saying will come to pass, it begs some other issues. Yes, there could come a day when students would demand to study with the best professors whether they teach at their college or not. However, is that the sum total of the experience? What is the “E” (E=Experience) of cherry picking the ‘best’ or perceived best and does this augment or destroy community (which is just as important as the education in some instances)?

    I went to Temple University undergrad. In choosing Temple, I wanted to be in Philadelphia since there was a large Jewish community and I had decided that I wanted to be a rabbi by the time I set out for college. While the education was good, there was something that was even more important for me which was Philadelphia. I grew up in a small southern town as the only Jewish family and with 30,000 residents in the whole county, it was tiny. The experience of living in Philadelphia as a student made me better understand the world. I can pretty much say that I was the second of my high school class to leave the country (the first being my childhood best friend who won a trip to Bulgaria). While this is assumed in the Jewish community today, my “E” of college and studying in Jerusalem was more important than the actual professors. No teacher could have taught me what a visit to Hebron (fall of 1987) did. Regardless of the insight of the teacher, I don’t think anyone could have taught me how to run the Broad Street orange line and catch the express. The pursuit of the ‘best’ professors may have detracted from my overall educational experience.

    I have served four synagogues in my career. As a rabbi I have caught myself cherry picking the ‘best ofs’ from time to time. I had a nicer office in one place, better friends in another, a better salary here, easier schedule there, but that does not matter because where I am now is what needs my attention as I work to build my current community regardless of its state. Congregants have also done the same. At times I have had to compete with the ‘best of’ regarding congregants whether it be the best sermons, bulletin articles, pastoral care, kids service, or neatness of office (the last one I will never win!). None of this, though, can replace the entire community and the experience we work to forge with our congregants.

    I enjoyed my time at Temple, but the football team lost every year and we were a favorite to play for homecoming. I could watch the University of Alabama play, root for them, and even win championships, but the education and experience I would have received there would have been a weak second to the one I got.

    There are dangers to being hyper focused on getting ‘the best’ for it too removes the human experience of dealing with life and congregation when they are not the crème de la crème. Perhaps this is the way the world will go, but we need to ask ourselves if the humanizing institutions called synagogues should chase this idol of perfection to our detriment and possibly our end.

  4. Rabbi Hayim Herring  •  Nov 4, 2009 @4:57 pm

    Daniel and Jim–couldn’t have said it better. Just to clarify, I’m calling attention to a trend and am very ambivalent about it. The ideal that I would see is an option for online learning as a part of college experience in a bricks and mortar university. That way, students could learn from one another and professors from around the world and still experience the richness of college education, which is so much broader than the classroom experience. I would say that the same is true of religious experiences, too.

    To be continued….Hayim

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