Bava Batra 21: Teachers of Children, Competition in Business

What can be objected to in a courtyard?  Although a father is commanded to teach his own child, children of sixteen and seventeen were brought together to learn.  The rabbis realized that it was not effective to teach a child who was old enough to leave if he did not wish to learn.  Yehoshua ben Gamla suggested that children be taught in groups from age six, seven if they had any cognitive challenges.  He is credited by the rabbis for preserving Torah education.

We learn about classroom size.  Teachers were to lead groups of twenty-five students.  The rabbis disagree about whether a teacher should be provided in a community of fewer students. Once the group reached forty in number, an assistant could be added for support, paid for by the community.  Children cannot be brought from one town to another so that they can attend a particular classroom, and every town should have a teacher.  However, a child can be moved from one school to another within the same town even if that journey crosses a river - though a narrow bridge across a river is too dangerous to be used in the journey.

About the teacher himself: if a new, more learned teacher became available, he should be hired and the first teacher may refine his skills while unemployed.  The rabbis argue and decide that a teacher who is precise about fewer subjects is preferable to one who is knowledgeable but imprecise about many things.

It is noted that teachers were not permitted to strike their students with ordinary tools used for corporal punishment like a whip or a stick.  Instead they were only permitted to use a cloth strap across the knuckles.  Strikes were not meant to hurt the student but to draw their attention to redirection.  

A baraita challenges this, recalling that people in shared courtyards need not house doctors, bloodletters, weavers, and teachers of children.  Two arguments are suggested: the first is that this refers to teachers of Gentiles.  The second is that this refers not to teachers, but to soferim, scribes.  Because writing is not a mitzvah while teaching children is commanded, teaching children in a shared courtyard is permitted.  

The rabbis share a story about an error in Joab's childhood education which leads to horrible consequences later in his life.  We learn that teachers of children, butchers, tree planters, bloodletters and town scribes are held to the highest standards regarding accuracy in their professions.  

Competition is encouraged by the rabbis but discouraged by Rabbi Yehuda.  Rabbi Yehuda believes that storekeepers are not permitted to give seeds and nuts to children to encourage their patronage.  The rabbis discuss one who sets up a mill to grind grain immediately next to another person doing the same, and one who traps fish beside another fisherman.  Another baraita contradicts these statements as it teaches that one can establish a shop next to another shop and a bathhouse next to another bathhouse because each can do business in his own space.  

A different baraita teaches that it is possible for neighbours who share an alleyway to forbid tailors, tanners, teachers of children, or any sort of craftsperson from setting up business in that alleyway.  The rabbis argue about competing rights: the right to earn a livelihood, the right to practice one's trade without direct competition, and others.  Ezra the Scribe is mentioned in this context.  He encouraged towns to hire two teachers who would provoke each other to work at their highest capacities.