The Ethics of Wizardry
$25.00
When a book or a movie grasps the imagination of a generation, finding a firm place within our culture, we would do well to explore its content. To become an enduring legacy, the material must speak to the basic values of our community and resonate with that which we hold most dear.
In exploring its content we should find that which represents the best we have to offer, scenes which explore the philosophical foundations of our culture. As educators, if we can “think outside the box,” we can find texts that address these issues within our tradition. Using the movies as triggers (or gateways) to study the texts of our tradition, the Harry Potter series canbe used to teach Jewish values.
That is the point of this curriculum and of all the Ikkar Publishing video curricula. They are a way to reach teenage and adult learners who are reluctant to learn, bored with learning, afraid that they can’t approach the text in the traditional manner. They help the teacher/rabbi/youth group leader/facilitator reach the learner and teach him or her “al pi darcho”: in the manner that is best suited to reach them. Our sages argued over the permissibility of translating the Chumash (Bible) into the vernacular, but we have seen in our generation an explosion of multimedia approaches to spreading Jewish knowledge to Jewish learners using all modalities. And if learning can be fun, so much the better!
Although this is a “Harry Potter curriculum” its point is not to teach Harry Potter. We are using that as a vehicle for Jewish values and concepts and that is your focus as the teacher. Each lesson refers you to Jewish texts and topics that are the real focus of the lesson, and Potter is merely a way to attract the learner, disguise the lesson and have some fun at the same time. So we will be using science fiction/fantasy (as we have in previous Ikkar curricula) to examine Jewish concepts like Pidyon Shvuyim (freeing the slaves) & Lashon Harah (Wounding Words).
