Update: first hiccup and first expert visit

Sorry this is a long post, two issues together.

First, thank you to everyone who commented here and in personal communications about my first hiccup. I went with the advice from the Boca Boys and gave them more research time. Rabbi Perl’s suggestion seems to be by the PBL books, but I just can’t see the students returning after Sukkos and being excited about finishing a project they almost finished before break. Yehuda’s anecdotal pushed me over the cliff, and I taught Yad Rama and the differences between his opinion and Ran’s as a frontal lesson. I know, I am sad about it too, it’s only three weeks into school and I taught a frontal lesson, I am sorry I let y’all down.  On the bright side we are on to Zarcha HaShemesh.

Second, we had our first expert visit today. Part of PBL is to expose the students to experts in the field who can give expertise the educator doesn’t have, and demonstrate real life applications of the issues being taught. I reached out to an attorney in our community, Josh Kahane, and asked him if he had any attorneys in his office who would be willing to help us. He sent me to Robert Hutton, a criminal attorney at Glankler Brown, who was happy to help. We traveled to their offices and Mr. Hutton presented to the students on the different types of homicide and the justification of self defense in the common law, penal code, and TN law. It was a wonderful trip. We met in their main conference room, which impressed the students, and the aforementioned Josh Kahane brought some kosher snacks. Mr. Hutton’s presentation was wonderfully interactive. The students asked a lot of questions, and presented Mr. Hutton with hypothetical cases to test the boundaries of law he set out. Mr. Hutton was very candid about what the law says and about what he feels are deficiencies and overreaches of the TN code. This will no doubt help the students when they draft their own codes. I hope Mr. Hutton will help grade my students’ codes, but I’ll get to that in a later post. If you can find one as knowledgeable and generous with their time as Robert Hutton, I strongly recommend trips to visit experts.