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.

Beginning of No School

Yesterday I finally filled out the paperwork for NYS and sent it in.  The 11th grade IHIP (individualized home instruction plan) was fairly simple--oddly, I find high school paperwork a lot easier than elementary school.  The boys all had previous year's paperwork that I could use except for 5th grade for Elazar.  I have done it 2x before with the girls, but apparently it was before things were in the cloud and so I had to make a new IHIP for him.  A tip that I use for Math and Language Arts is to google "5th grade curriculum" for the subject I want, and then copy the ones that are most likely to come up or that he already knows.
Excerpt from math:

- learn to choose, describe, and explain estimation strategies used to determine reasonableness of solutions to real-world problems.

- estimate quantities of objects to 1000 or more, justifying and explaining the reasoning for their estimates.

Examples from Language Arts:  

- Compare and contrast the varieties of English (e.g., dialects, registers) used in stories, dramas, or poems.

- Use context (e.g., cause/effect relationships and comparisons in text) as a clue to the meaning of a word or phrase.

- Use common, grade-appropriate Greek and Latin affixes and roots as clues to the meaning of a word (e.g., photograph, photosynthesis).

- Interpret figurative language, including similes and metaphors, in context.

- Recognize and explain the meaning of common idioms, adages, and proverbs.

- Use the relationship between particular words (e.g., synonyms, antonyms, homographs) to better understand each of the words.

Even though we unschool, Elazar is involved in these activities.  Mainly from youtube videos, which are pretty sophisticated and have introduced him to most of the above concepts.

Chana started college Russian.  Since she came home from Japan the day that class started and took a couple of days to recover, she only had about 3 days to do the first week's worth of work.  It was a bit overwhelming in addition to figuring out the online system but I think she got the hang of it.  She hasn't asked for any more help.  And yesterday she went to Gulliver's Gate Museum (#socialstudies) and there was Russian there and she was able to read it and look up some of it online.  So she's already happily using it.

I signed Jack up for engineering once a week and Jack and Aharon up for Science class once a week.  We also have parkour once a week.  Elazar adamantly refuses to go to science class (for the older grades there is more talking and sitting and less hands-on activity so I agree with him).  Chana started Gemara class 3x a week and has already asked me about Bahaaloscha and Dovid and Golyas in the last couple of days.  I also hope that she will continue her once a week math sessions with her friend.  The $200+ chemistry set that I bought at the beginning of the summer continues to be unopened.  I wonder if I should hire someone to do chemistry experiments once a month with her.  I'll ask her.

Aharon and I reviewed the aleph beis today and he only knows them in order.  When I pointed to them and asked him if he knew them, he doesn't know most of them.  He did not want to review nekudos and was not interested in learning more.  Aharon is somewhat unhappy socially.  This is not a new story and has been somewhat of an issue for years.  Because the boys are close in age, he doesn't have his "own" friends.  I would have sent him to preschool because of this except that he was a particularly aggressive toddler and I didn't want to send a biting and smacking preschooler to preschool.  Now that he has outgrown that, I did send him to camp this summer so that he could branch out on his own and make friends his own age.  But he wasn't happy in the second month.  And in fact, one of the boys in his bunk that he liked actually plays a lot with Elazar.  So I have to schedule separate playdates (because the boy only plays with Aharon if Elazar isn't there) and it often doesn't work out.  Elazar is extremely social and extremely proactive about making playdates.  So he often has already arranged a playdate before Aharon even thinks about playing.  So this is an ongoing issue that I am grappling with.  If I knew he would be happy, I would consider sending him to school.  But he was unhappy in camp.

I've been making some effort to daven out loud as many mornings as I can and sometimes I hear the boys humming the tunes.  

Overall, the boys are pretty proficient at English reading and doing basic math problems.  I want to learn with Elazar and start a daily seder with him but he is extremely uninclined.  As usual, I go back and forth between thinking I should just unschool and leave it all up to him.  And feeling concerned that I am not being mechanech him about how important Torah is by not doing it regularly when he is old enough.

Also, their playroom is utter chaos.  I think it's time to remove a lot of things that they aren't playing with anymore and revamp it.

That's my news.  Happy unschool!

chinuch suggestions for boys from an educator

I read this with interest.  Since I'm unschooling the boys, I imagine we will be doing all of this a lot later than his suggestions, but for people who are doing traditional homeschool chinuch (hahahahaha whatever that means) and have only the education you received as a child, or if perhaps you didn't have a day school education and you aren't really sure where to start, or if you have some ideas and you'd like to read some more ideas, Rabbi Pesach Sommer wrote some very specific suggestions in his blog post The Chinuch Our Boys Deserve- Creating a better Torah curriculum for boy's yeshivas

how will an unschooler learn chumash, rashi, and gemara skills?

This is the question I was supposed to answer at the Orthodox Jewish Homeschooling Conference.

And it's the answer I feel most badly about not answering clearly and in depth.

Perhaps the reason I skirted so much around the issue is that I'm not actually qualified to answer it yet.  I did unschool Chana for limudei kodesh completely until 3rd grade.  I am unschooling Elazar and Jack completely at the moment.  But they are almost 6 and 3.  So there isn't much going on.  Next year Elazar will be in first grade, and I fully expect him not to pick up skills next year.  He actually asked me this morning when he was going to learn to read.  And I told him he can learn to read whenever he wants.  He said, eyes wide, "You will teach me to read right now?"  I said, sure.  He smiled, his eyes glazed over briefly, as I imagine he was imagining the glorious world of literacy.  Then he looked at me and said, "Nah, I don't want to learn how to read yet."  And he ran off.

So I am not actually in any way qualified, via experience, to answer how unschooled children acquire skills.

However, that doesn't mean I don't have some thoughts on the subject, which I regret not having articulated more clearly at the conference.

Points I mentioned:

- Many children become interested a little before bar/bat mitzva age, when they realize at age 11 or 12 that various halachic responsibilities and obligations are coming up soon.

- Unschooled children learn skills later, but more quickly and efficiently.

- You can always start unschooling and catch up later when you get nervous, at around 9 or 10.  There is still plenty of time to teach them all the skills they need.  (I did that with Chana but I wish I had confidence to risk it because I think a lot of unschooling really flowers as they get old enough to truly take responsibility for their education, which happens after bar and bas mitzva.)

- As you do a lot of learning outside, you do show them the text ("See?  This is an asnachta" or "Look how Rashi says this word here") and make it clear that you are reading in the original language, and how learning in the original language is more accurate and more nuanced than translations.

- You have conversations about how when they are ready to learn to read they will be able to read it inside.  And when they are ready, they will put in the time and practice and get good at translation.  This way, they grow up thinking that as soon as they are willing to put in the time and effort (which is under their control and their will), they will do so and successfully gain skills.

- Many people are able to gain skills very quickly (in a matter or 2 or so years) when they are motivated.  And in the meantime, your child can have an awesomely fun childhood.

But I really didn't speak about the concept that is dearest to my heart and perhaps the most fundamental.

All of these are predicated on the assumption that your child will WANT to gain skills when he or she is older.  That your child feels Torah is interesting, valuable, relevant, and desirable.  As an unschooler, this should be your unwavering guiding goal and everything should emanate from that.

unschooling gemara

In case you were wondering, chana finished all her rashis last night.  But we went to the bronx zoo today, so we didn't do chumash yet.  It's almost 8pm and nobody's in bed yet...

Anyway, back to the unschooling question.   The recent daf yomi siyum has engendered the question: how come so many adults LOVE dafyomi and so many people talk about how wonderful it is and how it's changed their lives and are so excited to do it, when so many teenagers in school hate gemara?

I read an interesting article on that today.

Though off the top of my head, I can think of two differences:

1) One hour of daf yomi a day instead of 1.5 hours of chevrusa and 1.5 hrs of shiur.
2) Being an adult instead of being a kid.

Despite that, there are a few good points in this article:

How To Teach Gemara by Rabbi Zalman Baruch Melamed

That means that the Yeshiva High School and Junior High School rabbis must take the time for introspection. Perhaps it is those who teach the teachers how to plan their lessons who need ask themselves – how can it be that Gemara study can attract ordinary, working Jews so strongly, and  get them to sit together and study after a long work day, but that many young students in yeshiva high schools have admitted that they do not like to study Gemara?

These youngsters are not at fault, the methods with which they are taught are at fault. Instead of learning Gemara as Oral law, concentrating on the content and only using the text for review and recall -  teachers spend their time on word study, on syntax – and very little time on the content and its presentation.

If they would teach the content first, orally, and read the text afterwards, the sessions would be alive and interesting. This way, they would also cover much more ground, their students would feel good about it, and know that they are being filled with spiritual riches.

 I note that this is the method I've been thinking about regarding unschooling: focusing orally on the content and less focus, at least initially, on the word study and syntax.  He mentions that the flow of gemara was written down in a way to preserve its character as Oral Law.  It is like a discussion, with arguments, citing pesukim and other sources, and going back and forth, with lots of topics coming up on the way.