Monday, February 13, 2012

ideal vs reality

aharon is in for his nap and i'm not doing chumash.  the kids are all happily playing and i don't want to work right now.  plus we did chumash last night at 8:30pm and it feels like we just did it. 

i'm thinking about rashi yet again.  what exactly are my goals?  and are my lessons reflecting my goals?

i thought my goals were to understand all the words in rashi.  but as chana translates it for the 5th and 6th and 7th time and asks for the same words, my patience flies out the window and so too does my determination that she should learn all the words in rashi.  so my goal, such as it is, appears to be that she has a grasp of the general idea and the ability to translate most of the words.

i thought my goals were for her to read rashi fluently with no nekudos.  but this frustrates her tremendously so we are using the chumash with the nekudos and only reading it without nekudos once or twice afterwards and i'm not even makpid that she read it correctly if she can read it and generally translate.

i thought my goals were for her to understand the concept of rashi.  but many times the concepts are too deep for her and she doesn't really understand why he is saying what he is saying or what he is saying really means.  i let that go, and figure knowing generally what he says and mostly being able to read and translate is good enough.

i thought my goals were for her to enjoy rashi.  but it is often a struggle and i push her.

i thought my goals were for her to be able to read and translate rashi independently when she is older.  will she be able to?  i am not sure if what i am doing with her is the path to that.

when i was in high school, we did 50 mefarshim per test.  we would be asked, on any of these mefarshim, al mi neemar (to what is this referring) or mi amar el mi (who said to whom).  so we had to know those mefarshim cold.  after doing that for a year, my skills improved drastically.  sarah is not in the honors track.  she needs to know about 10 mefarshim per test inside.  are her skills improving?  i know they are not improving drastically.  

so i want chana to be able to read and translate independently.  i am not quite sure how to do that.  i thought the way to do it is to read and translate lots of rashis.  is it?  will it work?  will it work if she doesn't learn them perfectly?  if she learns them decently will she remember them?  if she doesn't remember them, will the skills stick anyway?  and let's not even get started on all those roshei teivos.













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