The Chamizer Method in Education

What started as a media hit that excited radio listeners, television watchers, and newspaper readers in Israel was copied in the 1990s into the realm of education in Israel and became an innovative, daring, and effective learning method that has been implemented till today in more than one-half of the schools in Israel. The daily riddle on the radio that every day motivated hundreds of thousands of listeners to move in the direction of databases, libraries, research groups, the construction of original tools, and observations with the goal of finding solutions created a diverse range of answers and creative solutions and led to the idea to copy the dynamic to the fields of the educational system and learning for children.

Main Ideas of the Chamizer Method

The Chamizer method creates a unique learning/educational process that combines elements such as teamwork, focus, challenge, competitiveness, steadily increasing interest, enjoyment, and self-motivation, with ‘adventurous enthusiasm’

and curiosity. This is an open method, in which creative imagination and associative impetus have a main part in the direction of the process.

Method of the Weekly Task

The method is based on the use of a series of weekly tasks, each of which is a ‘weekly surprise’ that transforms the class into an adventurous and enthused task group that creates adventure-oriented dynamics. The products of the groups are collected, examined, and evaluated at an online performance center.

How Does It Work?

The weekly task is conveyed to the competing groups (classes) using the Internet Performance Center. The topics of the activity focus on the learning materials, values, needs of society (problems and illnesses), the acquisition of multidisciplinary knowledge, etc. – scholastic and educational interests.

Points that Anchor the Approach and Method

• The riddle approach and its development to a perception and learning method.

• The question and the riddle at the center of the learning, not the response or the solution.

• Absolute legitimization of the imagination and creation resources.

• Use of media instruments from outside of the system of the student, today and tomorrow.

• The fear of knowing versus the curiosity of touching.

• Use of the fact that every child is ‘naturally gifted’ with associative imagination.

• The riddle, the challenge, and the reward as a proven motivation technique.

• The advantage of unmediated processes.

• The development of research and learning methods as an outcome in the process of coping with the decoding of puzzles.

• The modern teacher – the center for the inculcation of instruments for security and ethical values and not necessarily the authority of knowledge.

• The riddle of associative imagination has an infinite number of solutions – as does everything in life.

• Legitimate use of all that is ‘cool’ and ‘in’ in the media and fashion.

• The method raises new elites in the classic group (the class) since the ‘flashes’ and anchors that are essential to the debate and are required in the decoding process of imagination riddles can come from minds that till now had not been considered important or had not been taken into consideration.

A group that raises many possibilities of solution, all of which are legitimate, creates learning around a far broader scope of information and knowledge than in the classic realm of the lesson.

In other word, when each one comes to the group with his own solution, the group learns even if the original riddle has not been

solved (“… so what if we made a mistake and engaged in Bialik while the solution engaged in Alterman?”)

Principles of the Method 1. The Founding Idea.

Augustine, the noted Christian philosopher and man of religion, writes in his book Confessions, “What is time? If I am not asked, I know; if I want to explain, I do not know”. Indeed, until a person has not explained a topic to another person, he does not know truly that he has understood and assimilated it. In learning in general and in mathematics in particular, the way to success requires understanding and practice. The method of the beyt midrash / cheder² supplies these. When the students teach one another, they need profound understanding. When they learn from one another, they will understand better, since the topic is explained to them in their words, by their friend, who also has difficulties in the same topics. And when they explain to them – they will again assimilate and understand. When a person explains material, he becomes involved in the learning and teaching process and thus responsible for its success.

Moreover, the experience of success, the recognition that

“wow, I am smart, I know, I can!” spurs the student on to solve more exercises, to attain the utmost achievements, since he can.

Accordingly, the achievement required in the class, by the students, is not to ‘pass’ but to excel, since the main gift that the method gives to students is confidence in their ability and this ability they want to express. This confidence is an impetus to the continuation of learning and even sometimes changes the student’s entire conduct.

There are many examples of this phenomenon. A student with an average of 40 received a 100 in mathematics and then in computers and in English. A hated student who suffers from past traumas and was accustomed to be absent and to always fail received a 100 as well. A student whose parents left the country chose to remain with friends and received a 100. A shy and marginal student became the center of the class (and received a 100).

2 The Beyt Midrash or Cheder method is the traditional method of Jewish religious schooling. This method is characterized by in-depth learning in small groups.