Spotlight on CLAL

Welcome to Spotlight on CLAL. Here you will find stories about what is happening at CLAL and about the work that CLAL is doing across North America. Sometimes we will focus on a program, or a special event, or upon a CLAL faculty member's work and interests. Bookmark this page if you want to get to know us better.

To access the Spotlight on CLAL Archives, click here.



CLAL Convenes Experts To Examine The Future Of Education And Cultural Transmission

 

By Judy Epstein, Director of Public Affairs 

·        Will access to new information technologies alter our relationship to traditional scholarly, scientific and spiritual authorities?

·        Will new media blur the boundaries between education and commercial entertainment?

·        How will older educational and cultural institutions have to think differently in order to remain relevant in the next decades? 

"The Future of Education and Cultural Transmission," a CLAL seminar to be held on March 18-19 in New York City, will bring together leading thinkers on education, culture, Judaic studies, and online learning to consider these issues and their implications for the future.  The event is sponsored by the Jewish Public Forum at CLAL, a think tank that generates fresh ideas about how ethnic and religious identities and communities are changing in the face of broad societal and technological shifts. 

"Globalization, new media technologies, and the commercialization of education are profoundly altering the way we transmit knowledge and culture,” said Dr. Shari Cohen, Director of the Jewish Public Forum. “This will affect every area of life – schools, businesses, religious institutions, and the arts.  What will be the impact on the intergenerational flow of knowledge? How will future generations forge their communities and relationships to history and tradition?  As Jews and as Americans, we have to start asking these questions in order to think more clearly and creatively about building institutions, preserving traditions, and breaking down old boundaries.”    

On March 19, three panel sessions will be held on the changing role of the arts, the future of high-tech education, and new ideas about tradition and collective memory.  Panelists will each give a short presentation; these will be followed by group debate.  Seminar participants will also contribute essays for a collection to be published by CLAL. The collection will be disseminated widely to religious leaders, philanthropists, academics, community leaders, and other opinion-makers. 

The program is part of the Jewish Public Forum's multidimensional project called “Playing the Jewish Futures," which explores the challenges, choices and possibilities that might face Jews and other ethnic and religious communities in the decades ahead.  Participants represent fields as wide-ranging as history, music, technology, international aid work, the fine arts, education, and the rabbinate. 

"The future is often a source of anxiety to the Jewish community, and to other religious and ethnic communities," said Rabbi Brad Hirschfield, Vice President of CLAL. "Leaders worry that their institutions are disappearing and that the erosion of old forms of identity and social cohesion threatens the social fabric." 

He continued, "But at a moment when more information is available to more people than at any other time in human history, we must reconsider what we mean by transmission and by education in general.  We have to explore what kinds of skills and tools people will need to turn that information into useful knowledge and meaningful knowledge." 

"The Future of Education and Cultural Transmission" is the second in a series of seminars.  In January, the Jewish Public Forum held the first seminar, "The Future of Family and Tribe." Later in the spring, the third seminar, "The Future of Social Change," will take place. The project is funded through the generous support of the Eleanor M. and Herbert D. Katz Family Foundation.

 

    



To access the Spotlight on CLAL Archives, click here.
To receive the Spotlight on CLAL column by email on a regular basis, complete the box below:
topica
 Receive CLAL Spotlight! 
       


Copyright c. 2001, CLAL - The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.