Learn the 13 Principles of the Rambam in under 5 minutes

The Problem - we are all ignorant

How many times have you read a Jewish periodical that bemoans how little our students know  about the fundamentals of our faith? These articles will extol the virtues of kiruv programs that teach these ideals to our students in a workshop or two. They quote students who were astounded. "How come I never learned this before?," the students ask.

This problem has been on my mind for quite some time. When I started to teach 3rd grade, I decided to try teaching the basics of our faith on a 9 year old level. I began devoting 5-10 minutes each day using one tefillah as a spring board to explain our beliefs.

Right before I was about to teach Yigdal, which outlines the 13 Principles of Faith of the Rambam, a new article in the HaModia caught my eye. In it, the author challenged Orthodox Jews to name the 13 Principles of the Rambam. The 13 Principles of the Rambam is a list of philosophical truths  that all Orthodox Jews share.  The author questioned how many of Orthodox Jews can name all 13 by heart. If it were so important, he posited, we would know all all of them yet most of us don't.

Finding a solution so we can all learn

I finally had enough. Instead of assigning nefarious motives to  schools and adults for neglecting these very important ideas, it was time to recognize the problem.

Who can memorize 13 of anything? Had the Rambam decided that there were 7 principles of faith, we would have been fine. We can all memorize phone numbers after all.

But 13??? We don't have a fighting chance. Unfortunately for us, the Rambam actually had 13 ideas that we all agree to as Orthodox Jews. It would be hard to cut out 6 just to make it easier to remember.

So, once I realized that the problem is not the lack of desire, but the limits of our memory, I set out to solve the problem.  

Chunking 

A few principles of cognitive psychology came to mind. 

First is the concept of chunking.  It is very hard to remember a list longer than 7. If I divide the long list into smaller groups, it becomes much easier to remember. 

Remembering a list of 13 is almost impossible. However, 3 groups of 4 is doable. Luckily the Rambam's 13 principles has been chunked into 3 broad categories by people far greater than I. Teaching these chunks was step 1 in the universal awareness of the 13 Principles of the Rambam.

Symbols 

Second - who learns with words anymore?

Take a look at the following pictures. How many of them do you recognize? Can you explain what each one means and where you might see it?

 

We could have probably have  conversations  about each of these simple pictures for quite some time. The reason is that these pictures have meaning to us and are stored differently in our mind than words are. The images arouse both emotional and intellectual responses and trigger huge amounts of information stored in our mind.

The authors of  the book "Classroom Instruction that Works" 2nd edition, devote a a full chapter to the importance of imagery in promoting memory and understanding. "Psychologists believe that information is stored in memory in two ways: as words (linguistic) and as images (nonlinguistic) (p 63). 

Simple pictures make us remember things in a different way than words do. Images not only help us remember concrete things, but also help deepen our understanding of abstract ideas. Just as important, the images help us problem solve and analyze complex issues.

I decided that in addition to chunking, I would make a simple icon, a symbol,  for each of the 13 Principles. This graphic needed to be as simple as possible so it could be  stored in our memory as a single word image and retrieved easily. 

Test yourself

Before I show you the results of my work, try it out for yourself. Here is a list of the 13 Principles of Faith in order. Study them for a 1 1/2 minutes and then see how many you can recall with your eyes closed.

1.  G-d exists 

2.  He is One 

3.  He has no body 

4. He is eternal 

5. All prayers go to Him and not to an intermediary.

6. G-d speaks to man through prophecy. 

7. Moshe was the father of all prophets

8. Moshe gave a True Torah at Har Sinai
9. the Torah will never be changed.

10. G-d knows all

11. G-d rewards the good and punishes the bad
12. Moshiach will come
13. There will be the resurrection of the dead

 So what was your score? ______/13 

Chunking

Now lets see how many you can remember after we chunk the information.

Study each list for thirty seconds, and try to test your memory after you study each section for 30 seconds. Then at the end, test how many you can remember in total.

G-d

1.  G-d exists 

2.  He is One 

3.  He has no body 

4. He is eternal 

5. All prayers go to Him and not to an intermediary.

The Torah of Moshe

6. G-d speaks to man through prophecy. 

7. Moshe was the father of all prophets

8. Moshe gave a True Torah at Har Sinai
9. the Torah will never be changed.

Reward and Punishment

10. G-d knows all 11. G-d rewards the good and punishes the bad

12. Moshiach will come
13. There will be the resurrection of the dead

 So what was your score this time? ______/13 

Symbols

Now lets see how images help us remember. Again study each list for 30 seconds, this time with its accompanying picture. After studying each section, test yourself on that section. At the end, test yourself on all of them.

Section 1: G-d 

1.  G-d exists

2.  He is One

3.  He has no body

4. He is eternal

5. All prayers go to Him and not to an intermediary.

Section 2: The Torah of Moshe

6. G-d speaks to man through prophecy.

7. Moshe was the father of all prophets

8. Moshe gave a True Torah at Har Sinai

9. the Torah will never be changed.










Section 3: Reward and Punishment

10. G-d knows all

11. G-d rewards the good and punishes the bad

12. Moshiach will come

13. There will be the resurrection of the dead

 So what was your score this time? ______/13 

Did the chunking make a difference?

Did you feel like it was easier to learn it with the pictures? 

I tried these graphics out with my students and with adults and the learning was more enjoyable and memorable than a long 40 minute lesson would have been.

Putting it all together - The Final Poster

I didn't want to just make three separate posters, because all thirteen principles are part of our singular belief. So I put all 13 back together into one big poster.  I hope this poster that represents our faith and our beliefs helps everyone  learn what it means to be an Orthodox Jew.

I hope that it can promote Jewish literacy in a pleasant and fun way so that we can all learn that which is  important to us.

Happy Learning!

Ani Maamin's - 13 principles of faith illustrated

The first 5 of the 13 principles of faith in graphic icon form . . . to help make them memorable for students who are used to learning visually.

#1 - G-d exists 

#2 - He is One

 #3 - He has no body 

#4 He is eternal 

#5 All prayers go to Him and not to an intermediary.

Welcome to my class!

This year, Baruch HaShem, I've been super busy teaching and learning with my class - but not updating the blog so I'd like to invite all my blog readers into my class.

I am very fortunate to have a wonderful co teacher who makes the classroom so inviting. Much of the homey atmosphere is from her hard work

Since it is December, I unfortunately don't have the welcoming door decor that greeted the students for the first few months

View from the front of the room

Side of the room Word Wall - This year yellow is שרשים, orange is Level 1 words and Green is level 2 words. We change the words based on the perek we are learning and use the cards for games and activities.

Next to the word wall, עבר reference both in common conjugation and with ו ההיפוך. 

Homey work area on the other side of the room. The vase is full of seasonal, aromatic flowers, and the tablecloth is changed based on the season.  The table has books displayed based on current themes being learned.

Entrance to the room with calendar and daily schedule, and classroom jobs. The ball is there for a quick review game when needed. 

Back of the Room - an awesome project that makes the whole room come alive - each kid does a self portrait under the expert direction of my co-teacher. Next to the self portraits is the class star chart which earned class prizes.

Our new class rug with the continents. I use it for so many lessons and kids love to work on it using clipboards to write.

Never waste a single inch of space. I write on the windows using window markers and crayons information that I want to be able ot hide during tests. This year, I have include hebrew prefixes and suffixes. 

Bulletin board for tefillah, every day I ask a reflective question that relates to a specific tefillah and put the student's answers on the back board

Our SMART board! As well as Hoveh signs, and signs when to stop for trop

Atid conjugations plus the ו ההיפוך, and a great bulletin board that includes photos of the class. The photos add a very important element to the class feeling.

I hope you enjoyed the tour! 

One page binyanim reference in color

I have been working on creating a visual reference for binyanim for the last few years. I was finally able to get it all into one page Binyanim Letter One Page Color

Make your own Picture Dictionary: online resources working together

Language is learned visually. A mother says "shoe" to a baby as she dresses him. She points to her nose and names it.

I try to provide as many visual cues for all my hebrew vocabulary lists. It takes me so much time to find the right Here is a great resource for this which requires a number of extra steps but will save you so much time having to find all the pictures yourself

Word lists

Enchanted Learning - An English Picture Dictionary

Choose a topic - 

Select all the pictures on the web page & Copy (Ctrl-C)

Make a usable format for the pictures

Open a New Microsoft Word Document and Paste 

Select all text (Ctrl-A)

Remove all hyperlinks (Ctrl-Shift-F9)

Convert table to text (paragraphs)

Prepare text to be converted into a new table: 

Replace line with tabs Find: ^l  Replace: ^t

Select all text (Ctrl-A) 

Convert text to table

Translating text into hebrew

Paste the words from Enchanted Learning into  translate.google.com

Select the translated hebrew text and paste it in a new word document

You will need to edit the text to make sure that all the words were translated correctly.

Prepare the hebrew text to be merged with the pictures

                                                  : Find: ^l^l  Replace with ^p

                                                   Find: ^p^l Replace with ^p

                                                   Find ^l Replace with " * "

Put in Nekudos 

Go to http://www.nakdan.com/Nakdan.aspx (you  will need to buy the program after a trial use)

Select approximately 10 lines from the hebrew document. 

Paste into the  area on the right.

If there is a word that has the wrong nekudos, click on the word. Additional options to choose will appear.

Click נקד הכול.

Copy all the Text with nekudos

Paste it back into the word document and select another 10 lines of text 

Keep adding nekudos until you have completed the whole document.

Get the hebrew text ready to be combine with English

Select All - Ctrl-A

Convert Text to Table (use * as the divider)

Select the two columns of text and copy

Combine hebrew, english, and pictures

Click on  the table with the english words

On the Layout Tab, select Properties

Change the table to right-to-left

Insert two columns to the left of the pictures

Select the columns

Paste your words

You can now use your new dictionary.

You can sort it, or put it in davka writer to do further editing.

It sounds complicated, but once you get the hang of it - it's a breeze.

Mishkan pop-up model

This was a very cool Parsha lesson for any parsha having to do with the mishkan. All it takes is 3 8 x14 pieces of paper, some colored pencils, glue, and scissors.  I like projects that won't increase tuition costs.


Figure out if you want this to be a fine-motor skill building exercise. if yes, just hand out the 3 sheets and have the students cut. If not, cut out the shapes because kids with weak fine motor skills can slow things down a lot for this project.

PDF - Complete Instructions and Mishkan Model Using 3 sheets of legal size paper, a pair of scissors, and a bit of glue anyone can  create a scale model of the mishkan. The complete instructions are on  page 1 & 2 of the PDF

Step 1: Print off the first two pages double sided on legal paper & the second two pages each on its own legal paper.

Step 2: Color both sides of the pages according to the instructions. The parts that are labeled blue, red, purple, and gold are for the fabric made of 6 threads of red, 6 threads of blue, 6 threads of purple and 1 thread of gold.

Step 3: Cut out on the black lines,  and follow the directions for folding
 

Step 4: Glue 
   

Step 5: Sharpen creases and bend down the curtains.

Step 6: Add the three layers of the mishkan

To store: Put the three covering underneath the base, flatten the curtains and vessels and fold down flat