Between tradition and modernity

This article claims that many elements of the new pedagogy were already tried and proposed in Jewish tradition, by the sages who lived in Israel and Babylonia from 2nd BC-6th AD centuries. This paper discusses the pedagogy of the sages and shows how they preceded their times, for instance on issues such as the teacher’s status and role, centering on the student, teaching critical thinking, peer teaching, cooperative learning, intellectual integrity, equality, apprenticeship, personal attention, the academic climate, and even the “flipped classroom”. This article shall inspect several modern approaches customary at present, with a view of the traditional past.