EDUCATION
EACH CHILD NEEDS TO BE ASSESSED AS AN
INDIVIDUAL, ENSURING WHATEVER MEASURES
NECESSARY TO KEEP THEIR SELF-ESTEEM AND THEIR
LOVE FOR THE WORD OF G-D INTACT. Lee-at Goldstein
lessons ‘chol’. That is inaccurate! Chol
means profane, and we teach nothing profane to our children! Every iota of the curriculum at a Torah school is holy. However, the dichotomy is as follows: in the first
half of the day we teach the word of G-d,
and in the second half we teach the world
of G-d!” Both these areas of education are
vitally important to any student. Yes,
some schools have an extremely demanding kodesh syllabus, but that never means
a child should not have and does not merit
a place in the system. In a recent cartoon
that circulated, it depicted a row of different animals required to take the same
test, that of climbing a tree. The quote
read, “Everybody is a genius. But if you
judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it
will live its whole life believing that it is
stupid.” Each child needs to be assessed as
an individual, ensuring whatever measures necessary to keep their self-esteem
and their love for the word of G-d intact.
PHYLLIS
JOWELL
JEWISH DAY
SCHOOL
Natalie Altman
I see a kodesh and
general studies
curriculum as an
integrated
and
mutually supportive curriculum. I believe
the spiritual gravitas, emotional security,
identity, critical thinking skills and life lessons that the kodesh syllabus brings is the
strongest platform on which to build the
supplementary knowledge that comes into
the general studies curriculum. In addition,
there are so many ways to bring mutually
beneficial skills, such as higher order questioning and analysis, into both syllabi in order to reinforce them in different applications. When it comes to the kodesh
56 JEWISH LIFE ■ ISSUE 85
curriculum, I believe the love for Judaism,
textual skills and then content should be
stressed. The child who isn’t able to cope
with the more academic parts shouldn’t be
overstretched or pressurised to learn, but
rather encouraged at an appropriate pace.
There are so many children today with a diverse range of learning needs, be they academic, emotional, social or even purely the
paradigm in which they learn best. As much
as is manageable, schools should provide individualised education, enabling us to fulfil
the wisdom of “chaneich lena’ar al pi darco”,
teaching each child according to his way.
YESHIVA MAHARSHA
HIGH SCHOOL
Rayna Raff
A busy child is a happy child! A stimulated
child gets to learn, appreciate and enjoy
their world! The challenge is to make all
learning relevant to the student. Kodesh
study is central to the lives of our students. General studies act as a support
and aid to this study, and is an important
aspect of our children’s education. Children need to have opportunities to do
what children do – kick a ball, explore
their world, and develop their individual
talents with the facilities to do this. When
all these various facets as well as the values of the home are in sync, together with
an education that ensures good basic
learning skills with mentchlichkiet and
derech eretz, we will have happy, stimulated and growing children who will get to
not only enjoy their childhood,