In my mind, a living classroom is a classroom that is striving to have hands on and unbiased teaching methods. A hands on class is a class that is not always just sitting in class and taking notes, but seeing things for ourselves and being able to participate in real activities that apply to what we are learning. A non-biased class means basically that while learning, certain ideas are not forced on you, If ideas/ opinions are pushed (meaning the goal of a class is for you to have the same ideas as your teacher) you don’t get to exercise coming up with  your own ideas. I feel the ability to think on your own is a very important skill to develop. Now of course classes like math, Spanish or science have a limited ability to be unbiased because they are fact based, but for classes like history (what I am taking here), it does work and works very well, if allowed to.

My day to day schedule starts at 8am with Jewish history which lasts 4.5 hours until 12:30. Lunch follows that, then math and Spanish for an hour each. I then do my independent work for American history and science I’m taking back at home. The most eye catching part of my schedule is the four and a half hour class but, my teacher has a “living classroom”. He tries to take us on as many trips as he can to places that we are learning about, for example: Tel Gezer, Mt Gilboa, 2nd Temple and soon, Masada. I won’t get into what each trip was about because that would be a lot of reading, but my point is that when we learn about something, we go there and see and experience it for ourselves. I believe that this teaching style does not only create a more interesting class environment but makes learning more meaningful and retainable for most if not all students.

I believe that my teacher (for the Jewish history) knows how important a non-biased class is, he teaches in a non-biased style, I think that he wants his students to take part in the “cycle” of creating opinions (Learning→ Creating Ideas and Opinions→ Debating→ Learning). This cycle is very important for students to take part in, even just in their minds without writing anything down. I believe it strengthens the idea making process in our brains which is important to develop.