Towards a Curriculum that Focuses on the Student and Not Political Correctness
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Sep 8 (3 days ago)
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Shalom Rabbi _________,
Years ago a friend had a son who was becoming Bar Mitzvah. The boy was not going to read the Torah at the Minyan where he would receive an Aliyah on his Bar Mitzvah. I told my friend I would teach his son to Lain for his Bar Mitzvah. From that beginning, I went on to teach a number of students to Lain.
For too many students, I had to teach them how to get their Hebrew reading up to par as I taught them the Trope. These were students who had spent years in Jewish pre-schools and schools. I wondered: what in the world was going on in those schools? Isn't one of the most basic goals of a school to teach students to read Hebrew properly? How could the schools justify charging on the order of $100,000 from the parents and/or the community to educate a child until age thirteen, and fail at their obligation to educate?! And I'm not even addressing here obligations a school has to teach Hebrew reading comprehension and Hebrew writing skills.
Then I was given an opportunity to be a kind of school myself. A friend had twins who were then six years old. The twins were going to be homeschooled. Could I be the Limudai Kodesh teacher for them? he asked. I agreed to try.
I was pleased that I taught these students to read, write and understand Hebrew at a high level over a period of three years. But I felt, though, that I failed. The parents of the twins eventually investigated what was being taught in the school that many of my students' friends attended. The parents of the wanted me to teach THAT curriculum. Just so their children could be the SAME. Because it must be that my curriculum was second rate, since by definition the other curriculum was superior, by dint of it being what the other students in the neighborhood were learning and because their school was headed by an educator respected by many.
I realized that to teach Torah to a student takes more than teacher-student interaction. The community and family have to be on-board also.
If a student goes to Shul and realizes that some people are breezing through the Davening and Laining, mispronouncing and garbling the words, then the student may not want to put in the work necessary to Daven and Lain correctly. None of his teachers is making him do what I am requiring of him, he reasons. I'm trying to make him strange and open him to ridicule by forcing him to read slowly and distinctly, he quite rightly thinks. He begins resisting me to the point where I sometimes quit.
To be sure, some students at local schools and at schools in other cities are terrific at reading Hebrew. And some parents of my students did support my approach. My feeling, though, is that there is much room to elevate the level of learning at many schools.
So you are doing a great thing to start a school based on the seemingly revolutionary idea that a school should encourage a student to learn at his highest potential.
You mentioned that you had researched the Montessori method. I taught at a Jewish Montessori school. As you are aware, there are no classes and grades at Montessori. So kids of all ages interact during the day like family. One of the most incredible things I witnessed was that at the beginning of a school year a girl about eleven and a girl about eight hugged each other like long-lost sisters. They had missed being apart over the summer.
The school gave me great flexibility. A friend who is a Chazon is always emphasizing the importance of the Nusach Ha'Tefila. So I made a recording of me Davening the Shemoneh Esreh with the proper tune. One day I came into the school building and heard the Davening being lead with the right Nusach. It took me a moment to realize that it was my voice coming out of a CD player!
At Montessori, the kids are considered stakeholders in their own education. I set up a system for the kids to control the decorum during Davening. I assigned one kid to be the policeman to give out "tickets" to those who might talk or otherwise be out of order during Davening. Those with tickets had to go to court after Davening, so there were students who sat on the Bais Din, and there were lawyers and prosecutors.
One student about six years old took the whole judging thing lightly. Till he lost his case and was told that his behavior would be reported to the staff. Suddenly, he realized the gravity of the situation. "I didn't know it was real," he said solemnly. Was it Rebbi who said he learned the most from his students? From this kid I learned how to take Rosh Hoshana more seriously.
Another time, I got fed up with a group of students misbehaving. I put the whole group in a room and told them to decide amongst themselves which one would get in trouble. After a while they came out of the room, and it was this same six year old that was fingered by the group. The rest of the Tzibbur, though, banded together to save this young student. The kids who had not misbehaved were furious that the group of misbehavers had picked the most vulnerable kid in the group, and the least culpable.
Unwittingly, I had set up a scenario similar to a TV show that many of the kids watched called "Survivor", I think. On the show, each week one person was voted off an island till the last one, the eponymous "survivor" of the show, wins. That is why the behaving kids considered it so cruel that their young classmate had been "voted off".
Thus, the behaving kids set up a kind of vigilante justice to save an innocent.
All this is to illustrate how I think it is important to involve students in the running of their school and in making choices about what they learn. "Chanoch Es Ha'na'ar Ol Pi Darko".
Another subject close to my heart is handwriting. (I said when we spoke on the phone that I would overwhelm you with info!) As you may be aware, handwriting in general, and cursive handwriting in particular, have been virtually eliminated from the curricula of many schools.
There seems to be two justifications for discarding the teaching of handwriting. One is that the "experts" have decided that students do just fine by writing using digital devices. I disagree. That "expert" opinion is arrived at in a way analogous to shooting at a wall and then drawing a bullseye around where the arrow struck. It is true that students are communicating, composing papers, taking notes, etc. with digital devices alone. And I certainly agree that a device like an iPad that can display whole books with great detail and clarity are a boon to the classroom. My concern stems from the second supposed justification for relegating pens and pencils to the realm of inkwells and chalkboards.
The second justification originates from successful students who say they have poor handwriting. These students complain that their handwriting is illegible and thus useless. They disparage handwriting in general, saying that, at best, handwriting is slow in comparison to typing.
But I say that it is precisely the kernel of their disdain that is the seed from which the value of handwriting sprouts. Focus, attention, and discipline are skills that are honed through practiced, rhythmic, slower, neat handwriting. I encounter students with jumbled thoughts, incoherent speech, and who struggle to articulate even one clear sentence and to write one idea out in paragraph form.
I have a suspicion that their failure to communicate clearly is related to the frantic and disjointed way that video game playing, texting on phones, and writing on word processors can inadvertently encourage. Of course, again, game playing, texting and word processing can be great boons to education when used in a methodical fashion. However, I think handwriting is the catalyst for learning to write and speak in a way that combines logic and feeling.
There was a day and age in the past when relatively little was written and most communication was oral. It seems to me, though, that people then thought through more of what they said before they said it. The pace of life is different without cars and computers and the Internet.
I believe that proper journaling techniques using handwriting can similarly throttle down the manic rush of life and facilitate children being able to discuss subjects intelligently and respectfully.
Finally (yes, there is more, but the end is in sight) it should be noted that not every student will do well with even the best formulated curriculum that emphasizes accurate and precise reading, reading comprehension, and writing. Some of the most famous and successful people were poor fits for their schools. In contrast to that, there have been many who flourished in academia who floundered in "real" life. (Of the latter category, my experience indicates it often has to do with character traits that remained undeveloped and that undermined relationships with bosses and co-workers and led to career stagnation.)
Thus, a school has to accommodate students who will become salesmen, entertainers (actors, musicians, comedians, showmen, etc), businessmen, laborers, tradesmen, artists, artisans, craftsmen, chefs, political leaders, etc. all who succeed with specialized skills not taught in many schools, or with skills that can't really be taught at all, but must be acquired through apprenticeship, like negotiating, or through careful contemplation. Some thought must go into figuring out a way to balance giving "poor" students some formal education against the need for them to feel confident in their ability to succeed.
Moreover, thought must go into ensuring that academically inclined students have both a good Ta'am -- sharp thinking -- and a good Ta'am -- a pleasant personality so that they are M'arev Im Ha'brios. The Chafetz Chaim would say that he makes books, but that (even greater) the Alter of Slobodka makes men.
Thank you for allowing me to present my thesis on education. I hope you will find success with your own educational endeavor.
Peace,
Joe Orlow
Years ago a friend had a son who was becoming Bar Mitzvah. The boy was not going to read the Torah at the Minyan where he would receive an Aliyah on his Bar Mitzvah. I told my friend I would teach his son to Lain for his Bar Mitzvah. From that beginning, I went on to teach a number of students to Lain.
For too many students, I had to teach them how to get their Hebrew reading up to par as I taught them the Trope. These were students who had spent years in Jewish pre-schools and schools. I wondered: what in the world was going on in those schools? Isn't one of the most basic goals of a school to teach students to read Hebrew properly? How could the schools justify charging on the order of $100,000 from the parents and/or the community to educate a child until age thirteen, and fail at their obligation to educate?! And I'm not even addressing here obligations a school has to teach Hebrew reading comprehension and Hebrew writing skills.
Then I was given an opportunity to be a kind of school myself. A friend had twins who were then six years old. The twins were going to be homeschooled. Could I be the Limudai Kodesh teacher for them? he asked. I agreed to try.
I was pleased that I taught these students to read, write and understand Hebrew at a high level over a period of three years. But I felt, though, that I failed. The parents of the twins eventually investigated what was being taught in the school that many of my students' friends attended. The parents of the wanted me to teach THAT curriculum. Just so their children could be the SAME. Because it must be that my curriculum was second rate, since by definition the other curriculum was superior, by dint of it being what the other students in the neighborhood were learning and because their school was headed by an educator respected by many.
I realized that to teach Torah to a student takes more than teacher-student interaction. The community and family have to be on-board also.
If a student goes to Shul and realizes that some people are breezing through the Davening and Laining, mispronouncing and garbling the words, then the student may not want to put in the work necessary to Daven and Lain correctly. None of his teachers is making him do what I am requiring of him, he reasons. I'm trying to make him strange and open him to ridicule by forcing him to read slowly and distinctly, he quite rightly thinks. He begins resisting me to the point where I sometimes quit.
To be sure, some students at local schools and at schools in other cities are terrific at reading Hebrew. And some parents of my students did support my approach. My feeling, though, is that there is much room to elevate the level of learning at many schools.
So you are doing a great thing to start a school based on the seemingly revolutionary idea that a school should encourage a student to learn at his highest potential.
You mentioned that you had researched the Montessori method. I taught at a Jewish Montessori school. As you are aware, there are no classes and grades at Montessori. So kids of all ages interact during the day like family. One of the most incredible things I witnessed was that at the beginning of a school year a girl about eleven and a girl about eight hugged each other like long-lost sisters. They had missed being apart over the summer.
The school gave me great flexibility. A friend who is a Chazon is always emphasizing the importance of the Nusach Ha'Tefila. So I made a recording of me Davening the Shemoneh Esreh with the proper tune. One day I came into the school building and heard the Davening being lead with the right Nusach. It took me a moment to realize that it was my voice coming out of a CD player!
At Montessori, the kids are considered stakeholders in their own education. I set up a system for the kids to control the decorum during Davening. I assigned one kid to be the policeman to give out "tickets" to those who might talk or otherwise be out of order during Davening. Those with tickets had to go to court after Davening, so there were students who sat on the Bais Din, and there were lawyers and prosecutors.
One student about six years old took the whole judging thing lightly. Till he lost his case and was told that his behavior would be reported to the staff. Suddenly, he realized the gravity of the situation. "I didn't know it was real," he said solemnly. Was it Rebbi who said he learned the most from his students? From this kid I learned how to take Rosh Hoshana more seriously.
Another time, I got fed up with a group of students misbehaving. I put the whole group in a room and told them to decide amongst themselves which one would get in trouble. After a while they came out of the room, and it was this same six year old that was fingered by the group. The rest of the Tzibbur, though, banded together to save this young student. The kids who had not misbehaved were furious that the group of misbehavers had picked the most vulnerable kid in the group, and the least culpable.
Unwittingly, I had set up a scenario similar to a TV show that many of the kids watched called "Survivor", I think. On the show, each week one person was voted off an island till the last one, the eponymous "survivor" of the show, wins. That is why the behaving kids considered it so cruel that their young classmate had been "voted off".
Thus, the behaving kids set up a kind of vigilante justice to save an innocent.
All this is to illustrate how I think it is important to involve students in the running of their school and in making choices about what they learn. "Chanoch Es Ha'na'ar Ol Pi Darko".
Another subject close to my heart is handwriting. (I said when we spoke on the phone that I would overwhelm you with info!) As you may be aware, handwriting in general, and cursive handwriting in particular, have been virtually eliminated from the curricula of many schools.
There seems to be two justifications for discarding the teaching of handwriting. One is that the "experts" have decided that students do just fine by writing using digital devices. I disagree. That "expert" opinion is arrived at in a way analogous to shooting at a wall and then drawing a bullseye around where the arrow struck. It is true that students are communicating, composing papers, taking notes, etc. with digital devices alone. And I certainly agree that a device like an iPad that can display whole books with great detail and clarity are a boon to the classroom. My concern stems from the second supposed justification for relegating pens and pencils to the realm of inkwells and chalkboards.
The second justification originates from successful students who say they have poor handwriting. These students complain that their handwriting is illegible and thus useless. They disparage handwriting in general, saying that, at best, handwriting is slow in comparison to typing.
But I say that it is precisely the kernel of their disdain that is the seed from which the value of handwriting sprouts. Focus, attention, and discipline are skills that are honed through practiced, rhythmic, slower, neat handwriting. I encounter students with jumbled thoughts, incoherent speech, and who struggle to articulate even one clear sentence and to write one idea out in paragraph form.
I have a suspicion that their failure to communicate clearly is related to the frantic and disjointed way that video game playing, texting on phones, and writing on word processors can inadvertently encourage. Of course, again, game playing, texting and word processing can be great boons to education when used in a methodical fashion. However, I think handwriting is the catalyst for learning to write and speak in a way that combines logic and feeling.
There was a day and age in the past when relatively little was written and most communication was oral. It seems to me, though, that people then thought through more of what they said before they said it. The pace of life is different without cars and computers and the Internet.
I believe that proper journaling techniques using handwriting can similarly throttle down the manic rush of life and facilitate children being able to discuss subjects intelligently and respectfully.
Finally (yes, there is more, but the end is in sight) it should be noted that not every student will do well with even the best formulated curriculum that emphasizes accurate and precise reading, reading comprehension, and writing. Some of the most famous and successful people were poor fits for their schools. In contrast to that, there have been many who flourished in academia who floundered in "real" life. (Of the latter category, my experience indicates it often has to do with character traits that remained undeveloped and that undermined relationships with bosses and co-workers and led to career stagnation.)
Thus, a school has to accommodate students who will become salesmen, entertainers (actors, musicians, comedians, showmen, etc), businessmen, laborers, tradesmen, artists, artisans, craftsmen, chefs, political leaders, etc. all who succeed with specialized skills not taught in many schools, or with skills that can't really be taught at all, but must be acquired through apprenticeship, like negotiating, or through careful contemplation. Some thought must go into figuring out a way to balance giving "poor" students some formal education against the need for them to feel confident in their ability to succeed.
Moreover, thought must go into ensuring that academically inclined students have both a good Ta'am -- sharp thinking -- and a good Ta'am -- a pleasant personality so that they are M'arev Im Ha'brios. The Chafetz Chaim would say that he makes books, but that (even greater) the Alter of Slobodka makes men.
Thank you for allowing me to present my thesis on education. I hope you will find success with your own educational endeavor.
Peace,
Joe Orlow
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