Teachers from all levels of Jewish education, from junior high through post college teaching, often have a hard time finding the time to adequately prepare. It is tempting to use secondary works that prepare the shiur for us, without attribution. When I was younger, chumash teachers often used Nechama Leibowitzs material and just assumed that none of their students would know better. In recent times, there has been a proliferation of sources that teachers can use. Beyond the classic achronim who line up sugyot, theres the VBM, yutorah etc. While I believe that these resources can be valuable as a supplement, I think lifting entire, or close to entire, shiurim from these resources is troubling on several levels.
1] I think that we ought to be teaching our students how to find things themselves. Our goal is not to make ourselves look impressive; it is to take our students to the next level. If we think that these resources are valuable, we should be showing our students how to use them.
2] If all our class consists of is verbatim repeating what is in a VBM shiur or the harrei kedem, etc., then why do our students need us, why cant they just read the article themselves?
3] If we are so busy that we are unable to prepare without relying so heavily on these resources, perhaps we have lost sight of what our priorities ought to be. Didnt we all go into chinuch in order to give quality shiurim? If it is the case that we dont have the time, shouldnt we at least admit where we get it from, instead of giving the misleading impression that we did all the heavy lifting ourselves?
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/05/2012 02:45PM by mlb.
