Spotlight on CLAL
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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.
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