Yom Kippur game

Kol Nidrei is one of the most contentious, yet central prayers in Judaism.  Literally, kol nidrei means "all our vows" and roughly translated, it asks God to ignore all of our vows in the past year and in the year to come. 

You can see the problem: on its surface it is pure fuel for anti-semitism, as in "Jews break their promises".  But that isn't what it means.  On the contrary, it means that we take vows so seriously, that when we make impossible ones, we feel terrible if we can't deliver the goods.  This prayer is what allows Jewish people to be at peace with themselves and with God, and to make every effort to honor vows all the more.

I asked my students to complete the following:
1. I will make this class better by...
              obstacle 1:
              obstacle 2:
              obstacle 3:
2. I will make the world better by ...
              obstacle 1:
              obstacle 2:
              obstacle 3:

Then they played a simple board game where they had to make their way across the spaces of the board.  Every space that had a dot on it, they had to say what their obstacle was and how they planned to overcome it.  I noticed that, although on the surface it was a competitive game (who can reach the end first?), students nonetheless seemed to help each other when they got stuck for solutions.  I found that interesting.

Then they journaled what their partner learned from the game.  Jewish people are well-known for helping each other, and I wanted to get some of this spirit into our class.

From now on, they will continue to write journals from their partner's point of view by asking them what they accomplished that day and how they felt about it.  They will also be responsible for checking first drafts of each other's work before having me check it.

To me, it seems like a good idea to have students "buddy-up" in this way for several reasons.  One is simply more speaking practice in English.  Secondly, being accountable to a peer in addition to a teacher means that an extra resource is available.

Unfortunately, some students didn't seem to like the idea much.  I think I would like to try the experiment for at least a couple of weeks.  Then if there are problems, maybe we can either find a way to solve them, or try a different approach.