Some Chizuk for Homeschooling Limudei Kodesh

 I was talking to a friend who is nervous about homeschooling, particularly on the Judaic Studies front. I jotted down a few thoughts and here they are:

It doesn't actually take that long to learn skills. It can be done in 2-3 years post high school in yeshiva.

There is a lot of Torah learning that can be done in an enjoyable way (telling stories etc., having conversation, learning topics like hashkafa or halacha outside any book) that can be tailored to students who are "not students." There was an amazing session at one of the Jewish homeschooling conferences I went to years ago and she talked about how in homeschool we have the freedom to avoid Chumash skills and hours of Gemara if they are not working for our child. We can be creative and there are SO many paths of Torah learning. Chassidus, Navi stories that they'll relate to, coloring, videos, hands on stuff. There is no need to go "the classic path" just because yeshivas do it.

Baalei teshuva are the scaredest to go rogue. They so badly want their kids to have the yeshiva education they didn't get.

People who got the yeshiva education are less enamored of it. Ari once told me the worst torture of boredom he ever had in his life was 7th grade Gemara and he used to think to himself, "if I can get through this, I can get through anything boring in the world." All he wants for his kids is for them not to suffer that.

It could be really exciting for you to get the skills at the same time your kids do. I'm in love with the Rabbi Winder books. (l'shon hatorah). I had ok skills before but this knocked me up to the next level and it's what I used to teach in high school. I was renowned for teaching skills--and I picked up those skills teaching my own children.

Rabbi Winder workbooks

 I really love the L'Shon HaTorah workbooks by Rabbi Winder. And all 3 boys are finally old enough to do them. I want to make it part of their Avos UBanim Motzei Shabbos learning, but E is old enough that he doesn't do that anymore. I'd love to sit them all down once a week to do it for 10 minutes or so. But they'd have to agree (#unschooling) (not #radicalunschooling or I'd wait for them to ask) and I just don't know that they would agree to it. 

Another possibility is leaving E alone and figuring he'll either be an adult who isn't much into skills or wait until he passionately desires skills and is willing to put in his own efforts when he's older. And just seeing if the younger 2 boys are willing.

Then I think that odds are, in the high school years or in the going to Israel years, they'll be interested in acquiring skills and why not just wait until then?

The eternal tug of war between whether or not to try to involve them in skills or trust that they'll eventually want skills and work to acquire them from their own motivation.

I will certainly bring it up for discussion and see if there is willingness. Jack has been learning with me once a week as part of our evening special time, and I think he does better when learning in a linear, orderly fashion. I've been skipping around and I don't think it's doing much, similar to when I was he kept asking me and I was haphazardly trying to teach him to read and he was much happier with a textbook and curriculum.

So even though I think it would be more fun for Jack and Aharon to learn together, it may be that Jack is the one who is ready and it's not time for Aharon yet. But I will discuss it with them and see.

Even if they may be theoretically amenable, oftentimes they are very busy with their own pursuits and are unwilling to stop. Jack stops once a week to have special time with me, and when I asked if we could learn a little Torah as part of that, he said Sure. But the odds of also getting Aharon to join go down exponentially when you are trying to coordinate with more people. So that's why even though it might be fun for them to do it together, practically that may not end up being something that can be regularly coordinated.

I do suspect that once the two youngest are interested in skills, they'll be motivated and put the time and effort in.

limudei kodesh 4th grade & Hippocratic Parenting

My 4th grader really wants a phone. It's my policy that my kids earn their electronics.  This is against radical unschooling policy, which promotes abundance mentality.  I'm reminded of advice that my mom gave me about 17 years ago, when I had no idea what to do with my infant: "Jessie, it doesn't really matter much either way.  Just make a decision and go with it."

There are a lot of bad decisions I can make as a parent.  Sometimes it takes all of my energy to be what I call a Hippocratic Parent*: a parent that First, Does No Harm.  To simply be kind, to not be aggressive or furious or tense or impose my emotional issues on them.
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*which is different than a hypocritical parent, which is what I always associate to :-P

But a while back I read an interesting study that moderate parents who incline more towards permissiveness or more towards strictness don't actually make a difference in long term outcomes.  So the choice of raising children with an abundance mentality which inclines them to generosity, vs. the choice of raising children to earn what they get, which inclines them towards appreciation and responsibility, is really just a matter of preference. (Radical unschoolers disagree, and I respect that.)

I'm not an unschooler purist because I do want my children to learn Torah and appreciate Torah. 

And although I can appreciate that radical unschooling has a different attitude towards money and gifts and earning privileges than I do, and it makes a lot of sense, there are things that I like about having kids earning their tablets and phones and laptops.

So Jack wants a phone.  Both girls earned their phones when they finished Chamisha Chumshei Torah.  I have told Jack for years that when he finishes Chumash, he can have a phone. 

The issue is, he doesn't read Hebrew very well.  We haven't done L'shon HaTorah workbooks.  So having him read and translate isn't really an option.

But last week, late at night, he asked me to start learning with him.  So yesterday we did.  I read the first page of the Stone Chumash in Hebrew and translated (mostly Biblical Hebrew to Modern Hebrew, with a few English words thrown in like "hover" for "merachefes").  We asked a lot of questions, like What is Tohu Va'vohu?  How does one divide between light and dark?  What does it mean that the spirit of Elokim was hovering over the deep?  What deep?

I told him that these questions are like riddles and as he gets older, learning Torah is looking for answers to these riddles.  Right now we are doing a first reading.

I forgot how much fun it is to introduce someone to the joy of learning. 

I don't know if he'll keep up with this or not.  I think it probably makes more sense to not push and to let him do it when he wants.  I go back to all throughout High School, I tried doing Bio with Chen.  And we did have quite a few enjoyable Bio learning sessions, even though we never quite learned it as thoroughly as I wished.  But now she wants to take Neuroscience and Bio is the prereq, and I found her an online college level Bio course and she's learning it herself. 

So I don't know how this will play out.  Unschooling continually surprises me and never looks like I thought it would. 

high school chumash and other high school subjects

Chana has been expressing discontent with going to school for a while.  She doesn't like sitting in class for an hour, she finds a lot of it boring, she doesn't like the kids.

This is not exactly how I've been experiencing it.  The girls seem very nice and eager to be friendly to her.  When I've helped her study, I've been very happy with the material she has been learning.  She has spoken about topics that were discussed in class, and I love that she was thinking more deeply about those issues.  There were a lot of things that I don't think we would have done together if we were learning ourselves.  And of course there is no "class discussion" when it is just us.

However, she has been complaining about going in every day and saying that she doesn't want to go.  This has been a source of tension between us, and a source of great pain to her.  It was getting to the point where she was crying when I dropped her off nearly every day.

I was in a lot of conflict.  I am in a lot of conflict.  I still feel like she needs socialization (ha! The dreaded "s" word!  And I'm a homeschooler speaking such!) and that she needs more time to get used to the girls and to hopefully find someone she can become closer with.  On the other hand, it certainly occurs that people go through high school without making close friends or really feeling like they belong with those people.

I went to speak to the principal, and as she has been all along, she blew me away with her kindness and flexibility.  She offered that Chana can try other classes, can switch around classes, can try classes in other grades if we think that will work.

When I told Chana she can stop going, she was so grateful that she agreed to do all my favorite Rambans with me, since I can't rely on school any more for her skills work.  So I have to compile a list of those to go through.  I'm beginning to have that giddy feeling of so many possibilities (Abarbanel, Nechama Leibowitz), which I always feel when I embark on a new homeschool adventure.  This usually being way out of touch with reality.  I remember drawing up a whole schedule for the first year I was doing two grades, 6th and 1st, for Sarah and Chana.  Our schedule ended up being nothing like that.  I had to drop a lot of things that I wanted to do (most memorably Mishna) and really prioritize.

When I asked Chana if she could pick any class in high school, what would she want, she asked for a math class.  She has not been delighted with my math teaching.  (Nor was Sarah before her.)  Since I really want her to experience Judaic studies in high school, I decided to purchase Teaching Textbooks.  Chana originally said that we could finish up geometry and get it for Algebra II.  But I am struggling a bit with geometry and this is made for homeschoolers and is specifically designed to talk straight to the student and leave the mom out of it.  Sounds perfect (though I do love learning Math with her and sharing my joy in it, I am really not a clear teacher and she's suffering for it).  It was pricey at almost $200, but that is a lot cheaper than a tutor and I hope she likes it.  I was considering buying a version off ebay for $75, but I wasn't sure if it was the version that grades itself.  I consulted with Ari and he voted for the new version.
Chana will have to do it every day and be in charge of herself.  I assume if she likes it and it is interesting, she'll do it.

Up until now, Chana was point blank refusing to take any classes in the high school next year.  But now that she is dropping one class (she is continuing with Torah she'baal Peh), she is so much more relaxed and cheerful.  She will look at the schedule come June and choose a class to go to.

So I'm feeling pretty sad that she dropped Chumash and sorry that she won't be learning all the things she was learning that I thought was good for her.  I'm concerned that she won't have the opportunities to make friendships and relationships with the girls in her grade.

On the up side, Chana is hugely more relaxed and happy.

On another note, Chana and my study of Eisav has been going nicely.  I'm not doing heavy mefarshim and often we are left with more questions than answers and she doesn't like the answers I give to the questions we ask, but it's fun and that's what is important.

Questions:
Why is Eisav called Edom just because he wanted red soup?
(We talked about how it showed a character trait to trade everything for soup and how he didn't even call it soup, but "that red stuff" but she wasn't convinced.)
What did he mean when he sold it because he is dying?
(We talked about that he took risks and figured he'd die before his father [unconvincing] or that he felt what is the point anyway, since he's dying.)
Why did Rivka's argument "the curse will be on me" if Yaakov got caught convince Yaakov?  Yaakov was still responsible because he agreed to it.  And if Yaakov gets fired from a job, his mom saying, "It was my idea" isn't going to convince the boss not to fire him.

Homeschool Chumash: the High School chronicles

Now that Chana finished the Chamisha Chumshei Torah, I'm not sure what to do next.  It's funny how I so strongly wanted my children to read and translate all of the pshat of Chumash.  I didn't want them to skip around.  I didn't want them to miss any pesukim.  I wanted them to read it the whole way through.  I did that with both Sarah and Chana.

Now that the boys are completely unschooled, who knows what will be.  I still value the idea of going through pshat.  And I hope that when they are old enough to do Shnei Mikra they will actually go through the Parsha inside every week.  But I doubt that we will end up doing Chumash the way I did it with the girls.

But boys aside (I am not dividing boys and girls by philosophy; it just happens that the girls came first and then the boys), now Chana is ready to learn on the next level.

Her skills are medium good but not excellent.  Her rashi skills, in my opinion, are fairly poor but not abysmal.  She is taking Chumash class in the High School where I work.

The question is, do I go for the next level of skills (advanced translation and mefarshim) or do I go for a deeper analysis and understanding of the text?  If you've been reading, you've seen me vacillate back and forth over the question of whether my childrens' moaning about skills was something good and necessary, or if unschooling might have been a better choice.  Or if maybe I could have chosen a different way to teach that would have caused less angst.

But all those questions aside, I think that more skills is not my current priority.  I want Chana to feel the excitement of Torah.

It kind of feels like the Pesach Seder all over again--what topic can I choose in Torah that will excite Chana and show her how intriguing and full of wisdom it is?

Here are some of my thoughts:
Eikev, Perek 8.  Just because I love it.
The Ramban on Shiluach Hakan.  Has the advantage of hashkafa and skills.
But probably the best approach is to ask her which character in Torah is most intriguing to her and to read the pesukim more carefully and see what emerges.
Also, she asked to do more Dovid Hamelech.  So really I should do that, since that's what she asked for.  But I think she just wants me to continue telling it to her like a story.
(And I'm still working on the Moshiach sources.  I got through Yishaya but still have Yirmiyahu, Yechezkel, and Trei Assar.)

Another question I have is should I prepare in advance, like I would (and do) as a teacher?  Or should I sit down with her and relax and see what emerges?

overall attitude vs skills

Chana frequently complains about Chumash and not liking Chumash and Rashi.  At the moment, she's acquired enough skills where it's not so difficult and she doesn't complain too much.

She is in 7th grade.
Every day she:
- reviews one aliyah of the parsha she is in the middle of
- does 4-10 new pesukim (depending on how complex they are)
- reviews all the rashis we've done in the parsha
- does zero to 4 new rashis (depending on which rashis I've chosen on the new material, if any)

So now we are in a good phase.  But we had many hours of fighting and whining and complaining, as you will see in the early years of this blog.

Overall, I don't know how much she enjoys learning Chumash.  She's often said she dislikes it.

On the other hand, we've done Navi only very sporadically over the years.

Chana has a wonderful attitude about Navi and great associations with learning it.   She frequently speaks about it with enjoyment and happiness.  But she hasn't spent much time learning it.

In terms of unschooling, I think the theory is that eventually she would get to a point where she would be interested in it herself, and then she would pursue it (or I would help her learn it), and she would learn it quickly and efficiently and with great motivation.

However, I have "discharged" my obligation to teach her skills with Chumash.  If I did Chumash the way we did Navi, she wouldn't have these skills at this age.  Is this age necessary?  She's only 12.  The unschoolers I've spoken to said that they didn't really pursue serious Torah education until leading up to and after their bar/bas mitzvas.  So it's a bit of a scary risk having your children reach almost "grown up" and not having "taught" them.  

Also, I'm not sure that "enjoyment" and "positive attitude" trump "perseverance" and "putting in consistent effort."  (Though perhaps I can argue that I didn't teach perseverance and consistent effort, I just forced it and she will resist and and stop doing it when she is permitted.  As opposed to inherent motivation, which will keep a person learning.)  (And I can respond to that that if a child is forced to persevere and put in effort, and then they gain skills, they feel good about their accomplishments and learn that's what works.)

I do think perseverance and effort are valuable things.  I know a lot of unschoolers are concerned that their children will not gain these skills (which I addressed here and here and here, for example).

I choose to unschool not because I think that enjoyment is more important than learning to put in effort.  Unschooling as an educational approach resonates with me.

Chana's attitude towards Navi as compared to her attitude towards Chumash gives me something to think about.  Chana's Chumash skills compared to how much time she has put into learning Navi is also something to think about.  At 12, though, the unschooling journey is really just at the beginning.  Chana herself is preparing to go to high school.  The boys are right now completely 100% unschooled.  It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

This is not an unschooling post

The vocab in shlishi was so difficult, even though it is short, that Chana began complaining with only 5 pesukim left to the aliya.  She agreed to do 2 more and save the last 3 for this evening.  She said that going through the parshios where they build and make all of the things they are discussing in these parshios will NOT go quickly because she is not remembering this vocabulary.

Maybe if I were a little more flexible about Chumash and thinking in terms of the goal of her understanding the mishkan and not wrestling with the text, I would probably not have her go through all these pesukim and translate them, but instead we would take out a book with pictures.

I read a Marshall Memo this morning with the title: Day schools are not about Jewish Identity, but Jewish Literacy.  I'll post it in the comments.  But it did remind me why I do have Chana grapple with the text and I don't just do pictures.  I don't know if I'm just making her frustrated and just pushing her to do pointless translation that won't even stick into her head.  But I want her to engage with the words of the Torah, the specific words that are used.  I want her to be intimately involved with them.  To spend time reading them.  To have a relationship with them.

Of course, I risk that her relationship with them is dislike.

On the other hand, maybe acquiring skills is painful, and when she comes out the other side she'll be glad she has them.

On the other other hand, maybe I'm making her bang her head against these words, and she's not relating to it in a meaningful way, nor will it have a positive impact long term.

(Yep, since we homeschoolers are completely and 100% in charge of our children's education, we agonize about ponder these things.)

One of the pesukim was so fascinating.  It says the kohen gadol will wear the Tzitz (crown), and it will be on his forehead "l'ratzon" for the jews before Hashem.  First Chana asked what "l'ratzon" means.  I said shoresh "ratza" and it will be something desirable.  She didn't understand.  I said it was like the pair of shoes that she keeps asking me to buy.  The shoes are "l'ratzon" to her.  So she understood, and then she asked what that even means in Hashem's framework because He has no needs.

So I got all excited because we never did finish those brachos in shemona esrei and there is a bracha "retzei" that asks for our prayer to be desirable to Hashem.  So my brain is already creating this awesome little lesson about what makes a prayer more "desirable" than others (e.g. kavana), meaning there's a qualitative difference and that's described as "l'ratzon" or not, and I'm showing her the bracha... and she tells me she's not interested.

So we closed the siddur and the Chumash.

It is my opinion that because a great deal of Chumash time involves activity that Chana does not enjoy, she is eager to get it over with and not inclined to pursue these questions.

On the other hand, I've always been inclined to leave questions as questions until the student pushes to think about or find an answer.  This question won't go away.

artscroll rashi

I have excellent skills.  I went to an elementary school that did Ivrit b'Ivrit.  From kindergarten to 8th grade, our limudei kodesh teachers did not speak English to us.  In fact, I believe the principal specifically hired teachers with poor English.  At least, they always told us they didn't speak English.  I went to a rigorous high school and was in Honors classes.  For one test, we had as many as 50 rashis, Ibn Ezras, Rambans etc to know inside.  (For comparison, my daughter, in a rigorous high school non-Honors, has about a dozen.  Probably the honors classes are similar to mine.)  I feel comfortable opening a mikraos gedolos and looking inside.

With all of my wonderful education that we all who are homeschooling are desirous of giving to our children, so they don't have to crack open an artscroll, today I opened the artscroll Rashi to deal with the mishkan.  And it is glorious.  The picture of the menorah is so clear.  Chana was not that interested, since I had kept muddling through it when we were doing it and she didn't want to hear about it anymore. ("I KNOW about the goblets and the buttons and the flowers.  You showed me so many times already!") But I really hadn't understood exactly what the pesukim were saying about the different locations of each.  It just seems so much clearer with Rashi laying out the details, and artscroll translating Rashi so beautifully.  I opened it to deal with the planks.  I will be using it for the rest of our pesukim on the mishkan.  And hopefully with the boys in the future.

mishpatim

In case you were wondering how chumash is going, mishpatim has been a verrrrrrry loooooooong parsha for me.  we just finished shishi.  i personally found the pshat of many of the pesukim difficult.  not the words per se (though some of them were complicated), but understanding what the plain meaning of the text is.  chana would often ask, "but what does that mean?!" and i would have no idea.  example: if the sun shines on the robber, then his blood is not on him.  or something like that.  you know, that probably would have been a good opportunity to talk about torah sheba'al peh.

since we've dropped rashi, we've more than halved the time spent on chumash.  i figure she's about 10-15 min a day, between chazara and new pesukim.
i thought chana would estimate more, but she figures new pesukim take 3 min (that's good news, because it felt longer to me) and chazara between 5 and 7 minutes.
during the days when we were doing rashi intensive work, she has done 15-20 min chazara, 10-20 min new pesukim, and 30-40min rashi.

today we did the section that there won't be miscarriers or barren people in the land.  so she said, "i'm pretty sure there are those in israel."  so we did the rashi (outside) that it means if you keep the mitzvos.  she said, "so if you keep the mitzvos, but not everybody does, you get punished?"  i explained that the regular way is that there are miscarriages.  so it's not like a punishment, it's just regular.  but if we keep the torah, then hashem makes a miracle to stop these things.  she said, "EVERYONE needs to keep the torah?"  i said i think most people need to.

then we talked about "filling the number of days" meaning that you get "full" days instead of "part" of your days.  i gave the example of opa, who had full days, as he lived into his 90s.  chana asked if 80s is considered full days.  i said yes.  i think anyone after 60.  because before 60 is "cut off."

then we talked about the phrase in 23:27 hashem giving your enemies to you neck.  yes, that's the literal translation.  which brings me back to mishpatim having odd pshat.  and which, as i just caught a glimpse of rashi, i interpreted differently.  now i have to check the other rishonim if anyone explains it how i explained it.

Isn't there a place for both in Talmud Torah?

Dan asked:

you schooled Chana or unschooled?

What do you think about the idea of using both methods based on circumstance? Isn't there a place for both in Talmud Torah? 

I don't think it has to be an all or nothing thing - all lo lishma bo lishma or all Kohn. I think the Rambam and Kohn are both right. Sometimes its best not to push with rewards and let pure curiosity determine the agenda and sometimes its best to push with rewards - as is clearly the case with Chana that you described. It appears to be a delicate balance depending on circumstance, child, subject, age, and everything else.
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I started to answer Dan, and it turns out I have a lot to say.   (that's why i blog :-P)

I unschooled chana until about 3rd grade.  Then we started doing "official" chumash.  I do think there is room for being more or less unschooly, and for a combination of official teaching and of following the lead of the child. There is a place for many different methods in talmud torah, and I am not advocating one over the other per se.  What I love about homeschooling is that parents get to choose for themselves, and tailor their education to their own children.  Many people who choose to do this do it thoughtfully and heed their principles and pay attention to the effects the education has on their children.  Most homeschooling children have a fairly large amount of input in how and what and when they learn.  In that sense, it is a combination of "child led learning" and "classical" learning.

When I muse about these issues, it's mostly when I think about taking a purist unschool approach, which really can't be mixed with official teaching.  Let me explain.

A purist unschool approach (which I'm not necessarily touting, though I do ponder it often here) waits for the child to show interest, for the child to request to be taught, for the child to be so motivated by his own interest in the knowledge that he studies it because he is interested in it.  He learns because he wants to know it, he wants to learn it.  He pursues it because he desires it.

Teaching actually interferes with this.  I can see this pretty clearly with Chana in math.  She asked to be taught carrying and regrouping, she asked to be taught multiplication and division, and she asked to stop being taught fractions.  I have used, as suggested above, a combination of unschooling and schooling in this situation.  I introduced fractions, she didn't understand them, we waited a few months, we did them again, it wasn't well-received, we waited a year or two, I brought it up again, periodically, casually, and she learned them.  The idea of waiting until she was ready (vs. when she was "supposed" to do it by curriculum or grade or age), and stopping when she disliked it or didn't understand it are elements of unschooling.

But.  I am still clinging to the framework of school, to the notion that she must learn these things, that this is the math "curriculum." Instead of her discovering math, a joyous body of knowledge to unfurl, desired, as she seeks it, I am trying to gently and kindly slip it into her brain, in the least painful way possible.  So she will probably never discover it as a fascinating toy to play with.  Because I keep trying to give it to her.

I don't think all areas of knowledge are like math.  Then again, maybe they are.  Maybe they are all to be explored and played with and enjoyed.

If I keep trying to give Chana math information and skills in as pleasant a way as possible, she might not dislike it, and she might learn it.  But she will likely have a tepid, uninspired relationship with it.*  I think if i let her come to it on her own, she will enjoy it and internalize it in a way that I can hardly imagine.

There is, of course, a risk that Chana will stick with art and writing and never be interested in math at all.  Many people insist they never use algebra.  I personally feel that Chana's brain would and will love mathematics, if she would ever be interested in studying it.      But what if she never does?  As an unschooler, she would be used to learning things quickly and efficiently when she wants to know them.  There is no doubt that it will take her not more than 20 minutes to understand the intricacies of 10, 20, and 30% off sales when she is spending her own money.  But will she ever go beyond practical business math to the beauty of mathematics?  It's a risk.

And that is not a risk that a Jew takes lightly regarding Torah.

Which is why I hesitate.  Ironically, I feel more willing to take the risk with the boys.  Psychologically, I think it's because I haven't started down a path yet and feel comfortable letting things go until about age 10 and reevaluating then.  Even if they learn nothing (which I doubt), that's still plenty of time to teach skills.  Also, because talmud torah is really Ari's chiyuv, I feel like I have a backup person responsible and it's not all on my head, so I can be a little more risk-taking and experimental.  But I'm going off on a tangent.  Basically, if I wanted to do a purist type of unschooling, which would (hopefully) lead to the children learning efficiently and quickly and most enjoyably and when they are self motivated to do so, I can't really also teach them skills as pleasantly as possible, because the very act of teaching them and trying to put information into their brains affects their desire for it and prevents their curiosity from welling up full force at a later time.  It's kind of like saying, "I'll wait to feed my child when he's hungry and asks for food," while also giving them an IV, or feeding them little bits of pb&j so they don't starve while you are waiting for them to get hungry.

feel free to comment and force me to clarify.  As I was writing this, I felt that I really don't have a full idea of what benefits, exactly, I'm anticipating from unschooling.  What is the nature of the type of learning that unschooling leads to?  What is good about it that I want my children to experience it?  Why do I think that it would be better than classical learning?  (hmm.. another blog post coming?)

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* Sarah adores math.  I taught it heavily to her and used a pretty intense, honors curriculum.  She didn't love math, but she tolerated it and was good at it.  We rushed through algebra, faster than was good for her learning, in order to finish in time for the test, the Regents exam (everything I dislike about school).  When she got to high school and had professional teachers, she fell in love with math.  So I'm not saying that teaching precludes passionate love for a subject.

chumash unschooling beginning methodology

As i discussed here, I used to go through the R' Winder Lashon HaTorah books and then begin chumash once the child had a sense of prefixes and suffixes.  I hope to possibly unschool the R' Winder books (though that might be a bit of a challenge, but the kids always enjoyed them and to a large degree Chana did unschool them because I basically let her go at her pace and she often requested to do it), but there is a good chance that Elazar will start being interested in the pesukim before he has made significant inroads in R' Winder.  I have been interested in leining for a long time (years), and I began to really study it when I noticed that Elazar responds to tunes. 

So if Elazar should ask me to read him some chumash, I will open up to the first pasuk, lein it with him a couple of times, and explain it.  I'll do that either for as long as he is interested, or until he has a basic grasp of the pasuk.

This is different from how I taught chumash in the past, where I focused on them translating, figuring the best way to learn it is by doing it.  (This also provoked many complaints and tears).  So now, I'm going to just tell him the information, keep it pleasant, and (theoretically) have confidence that when he wants the skills, he will concentrate on them and acquire them.

ben chamesh l'mikra

elazar asked me a few weeks back why i spoke to him in hebrew.  i took chana's chumash and opened it and asked him what language it is.  he said hebrew.  (he knows at least half of the aleph beis).  i said, "that's why i speak to you in hebrew! so you'll be able to understand the torah!"  and he got very excited and said, "i can understand the torah?" and i said, "i hope you'll be able to understand a lot of the words, and whatever you don't, we'll teach you."  that was the end of that and it went as well as i had hoped.  neither sarah nor chana was that excited that they would understand the torah, though they definitely appreciated that me speaking to them in hebrew would help.  i think that elazar seeing chana and me being "amelim b'torah" so to speak, poring over it for long stretches, made it appealing to him.  (i didn't learn as many hours with sarah, and chana didn't observe what sarah did as much as elazar observes what chana does.)  even jack heard my rabbi giving shiur over the phone last week and noticed he was speaking about aharon and that he mentioned rashi numerous times.  jack (age 2 1/2) got pretty excited hearing about rashi.

since elazar turned 5 twenty days ago, a remarkable transformation has occurred.  i am, as i often am, marvelously delighted with the deep insight of chazal.  as we were strolling outside, and elazar was walking next to me, i realized that he is mature enough to wear a kipah.  i said to him that i think it might be time to start wearing a kipah when he is outside, if he's up for that.  he knows his friends (homeschooling neighbors--yep, i hit the jackpot) wear yarmulkes, and his daddy does, and all grown up (male) jews that he knows.  he agreed, and he asked why do we wear yarmulkes.  did hashem say to?  i said, no, hashem did not tell us to.*  i vaguely remembered (hopefully accurately ;) that it's a minhag not to walk 4 amos without a headcovering to remind us that hashem is "above" us.  so i said that it is to help us remember that hashem is above us.  he got all excited, "hashem is in the SKY?" oops.  "nope.  um, higher."  "outer space?"  yes, classic, i know.  i still remember when we were in a plane soaring above the clouds and 5yo sarah turned to me and asked if we were going to see hashem.  i said, "when i said 'above us,' i meant more powerful than we are and in charge of us."  he likes powers and being the boss so that spoke to him.

anyway, in my usual unschooling/lazy/halfhearted-chinuch way, i let the matter drop.  elazar, though, came home and dug up his yarmulke that a family friend had bought him last year.  he brought it to my parents' house for shabbos.  he wore it outside at least half the time.  this morning he put a hat on before leaving the house to play.  when we were going out again, he remembered his hat and dashed in to get it.

i was pretty impressed that he was remembering and following through, and i said, "i think you might be ready to start learning torah."  he gave me such a gleeful grin.

well, folks, here it begins.  the grand unschooling experiment?  what will i do?  how will it go?  will i end up deciding that pushing the skills is more important?

i love his excitement and delight and anticipation.  is it realistic that this will be his attitude?  or does it make sense that he will have to put in some grunt work to acquire those skills?  (does the grunt work have to be painful?  i think about those rebbes that i hear about, who make learning the vocab and the translation enjoyable..)

how will i start?  what will i do?

he planned to go play some more and then start learning torah later this afternoon.  do i wait for him to ask? ("purist" unschooling)  do i suggest it when there is a quiet moment?  do i just read and translate it?  do i tell it as a story?  do i make any attempt whatsoever for teaching it to him so he'll remember it (ie review it with him)?

i'll do a little thinking, a little planning, and dive in and see where my intuition takes me.  i count on observing his reaction and then i make adjustments. 

i told him the story of dovid and goliath the other day (i told you, he likes the little guy having power, so i figured that would appeal, and it did) as a bedtime story.  the next day, we google imaged suits of armor and slingshots.

i guess he is ready.  i had planned on letting him play for another 2 years, and not start chinuch except very informally, following the dictates of the gemara (or 6 or 7).  but i see that his intellectual spark has ignited.  so here...we... gooooooooooooooooooo....

________
* note part of chinuch: distinction between d'oraisa, d'rabanan, and minhag.

on homeschool tantrums

An example of why talking to other people is so important.  I dropped by a friend's house on Shabbos.  While I was there, I took the opportunity to ask her husband his thoughts on a question Chana had on Rashi.  In the course of conversation, he asked if Chana enjoys learning.  I paused.  She enjoys the thinking, she enjoys the questions, she enjoys parts of it.  But overall?  I don't think she enjoys it.  I think she finds it something to get through, something she dislikes.  Something she tolerates.  That gave him pause.  He told me about his son, who is in school, who really enjoys gaining the skills.  His son doesn't find it painful to acquire the chumash skills.  He is enjoying it.  Is it his son's nature?  No, he thought that the Rebbes make it fun for the kids.  He suggested two possible and related reasons.  1.  These Rebbes focus all of their educational energy on imparting skills.  It is their craft.  They hone this ability and their main goal is to make learning skills pleasant and achievable.  Whereas I am trying to do a whole bunch of things, one of which is teaching skills, and that is only a small subsection of my concept of "learning."  2. These Rebbes are EXCITED about teaching skills.  They love it.  They look forward to it.  They enjoy it.  They think it is wonderful.  They live for it.  Whereas I... I dread it.  I view it as a necessary evil.  Something to get through in order to get to the real "meat and potatoes" of learning.  Obviously, this attitude gets transferred to Chana.

This gave me plenty to think about (in addition to the last few weeks, as I have been ruminating about the boys' future chinuch).  I often find that having a conversation with someone can really open my mind to a whole new angle.

But homeschoolers, let's admit.  Our kids tantrum more than kids at school tantrum.  I rarely hear about an elementary aged child who tantrums about work in school.  The combination of social embarrassment, peer pressure, and being used to doing things they dislike make it an unusual occurrence.  Whereas homeschoolers are quite vocal about work they don't want to do.  If it's painful and they don't see the benefit, they will complain.  Loudly.  Often.  Since you are the mom, and a safe person, it can and does degenerate into tantrums (youtube: don music sesame street).  There are no peers around to cause embarrassment.  As a student, your opinion about the work you are doing is taken into consideration.

Supposedly unschooling eliminates most of that.  Though it still petrifies me to throw myself into that route.  However, I have a lot to think about regarding making skills work exciting and fun.  And thoughts are crystallizing..

seeking opinions

today chana did the second half of pasuk aleph, all of pasuk beis and all of pasuk gimel. i started by saying, "we will be doing a lot today, and i don't want an argument." truth is, she knew pretty much all of the words, and was pleasantly surprised how she zipped through it.

then i saw how easy pasuk dalet was, and i wanted to go further, but she didn't want to. i said maybe tonight. she said no. we'll see if we have time.

we didn't review r' winder and so she is still having trouble with those prefixes and suffixes. i'm going to go right now and review it, and review the rashi letters.

does anyone have any opinion as to whether it is better for a student to work through the translation himself with the teacher on standby to help him, or whether it is better for the student if the teacher runs through it first with translation, and then drills it a few times with the student until the student is fluent in it?

post shavuos

so today chana did three halves. the first half she blitzed through. the second half was fine. i should probably have stopped there. but it was so tempting, since she read "therefore a man will leave his dad and his mom." and then she was wondering why and how and what that means. and i thought it would be great if she read the second half and answered it.

but she didn't want to which meant that it took 3x as long to do 5 words as it took to do the two halves that she had already done. whining, moaning, groaning, forgetting suffixes, complaining. even after translating she didn't really understand what it was saying, and she was so busy fighting me that she did not get the pleasure of having her question answered.

i do think, however, that had i waited until next chumash session, she also would not have gotten the pleasure of having her question answered. because the moment the question occurs, while you have that curious feeling, is the time. and it's not so easily recreated.

some questions came up on shavuos regarding chana's learning. first, that a child her age ought to have the capacity to sit and learn for hours with breaks.

i am thinking about that. according to chazal, between the ages of 5-10, the child is supposed to learn all of torah shebichtav. whether that's the 5 books or the 24 books of tanach. let's just even say the 5 books. to be fluent at reading and understanding them by the time he is 10, or let's even go crazy and say 13.

it was a challenge to get through the 5 books with sarah by the time she got to 8th grade. we did it, but i can't say she was fluent at it or had it at her fingertips as a solid basis for delving into torah shebaal peh.

i am also thinking about how i don't think kids chana's age need to be sitting for hours and studying, even with breaks. i like the idea of a childhood mostly doing what she is interested in. i have found with sarah, and i think chana will be the same, that when she wanted to go to school she had no problem sitting in class from 8:30am-5pm with small breaks. many children in schools are burnt out from the hours of sitting.
so i am currently thinking about the capacity to spend more time working and the benefits it will have on her skills and abilities, vs the benefits of a more "unschooled" and self-directed childhood.

secondly, it has come up (and my rabbi mentioned something similar) that i am not structuring chana's rewards properly. as i posted previously, my rabbi suggested that torah learning (as opposed to let's say, learning to read books or scientific inquiry) do not go in line with the instinctual nature of the child. to some degree curiosity is innate and in every tzelem elokim, but the hours of effort that are a prerequisite to serious learning is not going to be achieved naturally. it has been suggested that we wait until the child is grown enough to appreciate it (adulthood?) and then the child will seek the skills himself, like a baal teshuva does. but assuming i want to equip my child with the skills so she can learn, the hours that need to go into translation skills are not naturally inclined. i do think there is more natural interest in thought training, but i am finding that i am (perhaps mistakenly) trying to do that at the same time as the skills work, and the skills frustration is obfuscating the thinking training.

i do find that chana is trying to get through the work as quickly as possible, not inclined to linger and think about it, not inclined to do more pesukim (even though i was rewarding per amount), and vehemently opposed to review.

i am not sure how to begin structuring a rewards system that would get her to do the pasuk a number of times until she was fluent in it. and have her do a lot of pesukim.

i have been having her translate. i wonder if i would translate for her first, if that would make a difference.

also, i need to review the prefixes and suffixes with her. it seems she's forgotten most of them. i really have to make this a priority. i've been trying to get her to speak hebrew (she's got 7 words on the list of 10 words i made) and write etc etc. so much to juggle, so much to keep track of, so much so much! and she's forgotten the 6s and 7s of her times tables... so we've been reviewing that. ok, enough feeling overwhelmed. i'm going to review prefixes and suffixes with her.

another thing that came up was a friend of mine was telling me how her daughter used to be so frustrated about writing. and then, the teacher this year taught them "scaffolding," which is a very step-by-step process of showing them exactly how to write and what to write. and now her daughter doesn't complain or have trouble. which reminds me of alfie's point that before a rewards system is structured, it is important to consider what we are teaching, if the child is capable, if it is interesting, and the method we are using. perhaps before thinking about rewards, i need to think about how i am having her translate and if it is the most effective for her.
i also need to think about what my goals are. yes, i'd like her to read and translate. but more specifically, how do i want each chumash session to go? right now i don't think either of us are enjoying it all that much.

i did mention to chana that i think she is old enough to do more pesukim than she is currently doing, and she was receptive to that.

goals and curriculum

chumash goals:

1) chana should learn to read and translate
2) (if possible) chana should have read and translated the 5 books (chamisha chumshei torah) by the end of 8th grade
3) rashi reading and translation
4) methodology of asking questions and gaining yesodos (fundamental principles)

we started by

1) learn the aleph beis and nekudos
2) learn to read hebrew
3) R' Winder "lashon hatorah" series, 1-4. we did not start any chumash until all of these were done.
4) hebrew language immersion (with my mediocre american hebrew. my kids don't understand israelis).

note: sarah (oldest and homeschool graduate) started learning chumash in 4th grade. chana started learning chumash in february this year, after finishing the 4th R' Winder book.