Some Sobering Perspective Before Going Back to School

By Menachem Levy for COLlive

Fresh smiles on children’s faces, packed book bags with new seforim, notebooks, and colorful pens. New teachers, new classes, and new lessons – the excitement is palpable.

We are sending our kids back to school after a long vacation, straight into the hands of the caring and professional educators and school staff. The children and young adults are returning to another year of yeshiva. (Or what is sometimes more ominously referred to as the “system”).

It may be suitable to take a look at the real meaning of Chinuch (something that takes up most of the waking hours of our children, if not more) and the delicate and nuanced partnership between teacher and parent.

“The System” sounds like a rigid, loveless behemoth that is blind to rhyme and reason that pushes everyone into cookie-cutter shapes, forcing everyone to either shape up or ship out. But, in reality, the “system” is made up of thousands of moving parts. There are tons of schools, teachers, educators, school staff, students, etc. each make up and contribute to the delicate fabric that is our Children’s Chinuch.

We all know and remember the teachers, the program directors, or the principals who have positively impacted us, on some level – forming and developing who we are. Taking a closer look at the specific details, we can see the dedicated professionals – the teachers and staff that are shaping our children’s lives.

We can fight the system, but we must talk and work with the specific staff that work with our children, and ensure that our children grow in a happy and healthy environment. 

Chinuch has been upgrading and evolving in recent years. The physical make-up, the organization and the administration, the staff and their attitude, new models of teaching and discipline, and a heightened sense of responsibility and care for each student. At the same time, developments breed accommodations and more changes, some times to the other extreme. 

Chinuch is not just to teach or give over information. Classes aren’t podcasts or courses. The teacher is not there just to speak and to talk to the willing students. Chinuch is to give the children the opportunity to master the learning of Torah. It is to train, apprentice, and guide the children into mastering the skills needed to learn and the basis of knowledge to be able to navigate the world of Torah and the world at whole, from a Torah and Chassidus-guided perspective.

On the other hand, Chinuch is also not therapy. It is not meant to be an expectation-less validation-centered Kumbaya. Schools (and parents) are meant to hold the children accountable for their studying and their actions, allowing them to actually grow. A teacher must care for each of their students and behave in a way that will respect them and trust them as fair and good people, but they do not need to be loved and adored by the students by giving in on every subject.

The children are young and still developing; they do not always make the right choices and do not always know what is right or wrong, honest or false. By siding with a child unequivocally, you are stifling their opportunity to learn how to be wrong, to rectify, and to grow.

On the other hand, Children aren’t bad. They are testing, learning, experimenting, and unloading. They don’t need to be “put in their place” or berated. They do need to know that they are respected and cared for unconditionally, they can feel safe in a classroom setting, yet, there are consequences to their actions and they are responsible for themselves.

Teachers and parents should never be at odds. If teachers and parents put the child’s best (not perceived “best”) at the top of their priorities, this partnership will allow the student to grow to unbelievable heights.