PRESENTATION

Here is the problem, I was taught to appreciate ideas for their essence, not for the way they are presented. Most of my teachers were not brilliant communicators, there confidence came from the force of their ideas not from the drama of their presentation. They expected their students to be intellectually mature, to see beyond the weakness of the package and to appreciate the wisdom for its true value.

I understand why they disregarded the presentation aspect of teaching. Presentation can be misleading. A beautiful delivery does not insure the merit of the argument.

Now in my own capacity as teacher I find myself following the same path, focusing on the content of the subject, giving no taught to the style of the delivery.

I have to change. for the ideas that impress me most are the ones that were presented in a moving way intellectually or emotionally.

To illustrate this point look at the end of one of Rabbi Yehuda Halevies poems, the message would be dull and dry without his brilliant choice and arrangement of words.

“… Easily, I could leave behind
This Spain and all her luxuries
As easy to leave as dear the sight
Of the temple’s rubble would be to me.”