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| Is this the way to win a Nobel Prize? (Jerusalem Post) |
I came across a JTA article from last January that informed
me about an unexpected phenomenon taking place in South Korea. It is rather
well known that Asians place a high value on education. Apparently South Koreans
have discovered that studying Gemarah the way Yeshivos do is the key to achieving
great success in that area.
Which has resulted in an explosion of Chavrusa type study in that country. Chavrusa study is where students
study in pairs, out loud, often in heated debate; without a teacher present. South Koreans believe
that Chavrusa study is the means by which to achieve the best educational results.
Here is how they arrived at that conclusion:
“Jews account for just 0.2 percent of the world’s population, but 23 percent of Nobel Prize winners have been Jewish,” Seoul-based student Choi Jae-young related. “And despite all the time and money we spend on education, only one Korean has ever won a Nobel award. That irks many Koreans. It makes us want to learn Jews’ secrets.”
Some South Koreans think the key to unlocking such “secrets” can be found in Jewish approaches to education.
In an effort to see ‘How we do it’ Korean Academics learned about Yeshivos and
visited some of Israel’s largest - to see what Jewish learning was all
about. One can only imagine what their reaction was to a Yeshiva full of
students studying out loud in pairs (B'Chavrusa) – to the din of everyone else in the
Beis HaMedrash (hundreds) doing the same thing.
To say they were inspired by what they saw would be an understatement. So impressed were they that they brought this idea back
to South Korea and emulated it. They believed that they found the secret to
our success. Not only did they bring back this style of education, in some
cases they even decided to study Gemarah.
This phenomenon is apparently beyond the stage of just being
a passing fad – that dies out just as quickly as it is born. It has gained
momentum and is now ‘moving from private academies into conventional public
classrooms.’
Like I said, as an Orthodox Jew who has gone through the
Yeshiva system I am flattered. But the fact that the Jewish people have
produced Nobel Prize winners via the Yeshiva system is a mistake. The plain
fact is that of the 23% of Jews that have been Nobel Prize winners - the vast
majority never went to a yeshiva; do not know much about Talmud study or about studying B'Chavrusa. Probably a lot less than Koreans do now.
This is not to say that the
Yeshiva system isn’t what it’s cracked up to be. It certainly does work successfully
as a means of education. And I agree that this method can be useful and transferred
to other disciplines. But sometimes what you see is not what you get. The wrong conclusion can often be drawn from a superficial look at something. (Something I am occasionally
guilty of myself.)
For example, if someone came down from Mars and saw that most of
the people drinking diet pop (soda - for you easterners) are overweight, they would
likely conclude that drinking diet pop makes you gain weight.
Why there are so many Jewish Nobel Prize winners – way out
of proportion to their percentage of the population - probably has nothing to
do with studying in a Yeshiva. It does however have to do with the Jewish
emphasis on education in general, which stems from our requirement to study
Torah. A subject so complex and so broad that one could spend a lifetime studying
it and still not know it all.
This is how the importance of being educated
has been perpetuated. There are unfortunately many
Jews that do not study Talmud - or any Torah at all. Having been raised in fully assimilated families. But the idea of education stayed with us all
regardless of how observant we were.
That being said, it does not really address why South Koreans did not have our successes in Nobel Prizes. It is well known that Asians too have a very strong study
ethic. Having had one well before they discovered the successful Yeshiva
method of study.
Perhaps the difference is the long history of emphasis on
education combined with the kind of historic dedication to it that only the religious
fervor behind it can produce - and project into the future. Something Asians do not have.
