asked and answered

i am currently unschooling everything except chumash/rashi with my 10 yr old daughter. i am seriously contemplating completely unschooling for my boys. the oldest is 4 now, so we have a few years before it becomes an issue. (i was going to send this to you personally, and then i figured that anyone thinking about unschooling might be interested in our discussion).

i definitely prefer unschooling. i have been able to be relaxed about science and social studies, then about reading and writing, and finally even math (and i never thought that would happen!).

however, i am too nervous to unschool for judaic studies. i am considering it, though, because i feel that my daughter's chumash is lacking the love and joy of other subjects. that could be, though, because she works hard at the skills and has an unschooler's reluctance to engage in tasks that aren't driven by her own motivation.

i feel that there are two factors that give me the confidence to unschool:
1. i am absolutely certain the kids will eventually learn the skill. (eg reading and writing)
or
2. i am ok if they don't learn it (eg they learn what they like in science and i don't care if they never cover the life cycle of butterflies)

neither of those apply to judaic studies skills. although i am fairly certain they will learn to read (and probably write) hebrew, i am not sure that they will put in the effort to acquire the skills necessary for translation. the few unschoolers i've spoken to did feel some desire as their bar mitzvas approached. however, their parents were not orthodox and did not particularly care if they grew up and can't make a laining.

also, i understand that a lot of this type of learning would take place in the high school years. i'm a little concerned about that because i have not had much success yet in providing sufficient socialization in the high school years and my daughter went to school. i suppose it would be ok for us to unschool until high school and then if they want to go to school then they'd be motivated to learn whatever skills they need :-P

anyway, if you have older children and have unschooled them, could you describe the process of how they became interested in chumash, mishna or gemara and how they continued until skill acquisition.

i can easily see the kids being motivated here and there to ask questions, to see, to want to know.. but i find it hard to envision how they would end up being motivated to slog through the hours required to gain the skills to read and translate it proficiently.

thank you!

***
I agree with you on the first factor for homeschooling, but not the second.

My approach is rather that if I feel something is important for my kids to know, then I am going to find a way to make it fun, interesting and relevant to their lives, and talk to them about why I feel it is important. Then I can be sure that they will get to it sooner or later :-)

If you or your husband cannot (for whatever reason) read/learn chumash/mishna/gemara with your kids, then finding a chug or mentor or tutor can be a good option. A mentor who leads the way and sets an example is an invaluable part of a child's life. Finding the right connection and the right person is the challenge to the homeschooling parent. My oldest went to a mishna chug in the neighbourhood that a neighbour started because he was having so much fun learning mishna with his son, he wanted to open it up to more boys and do it all together. My son loved it - it was fun and interesting. Mainly, I think, because this particular man had a knack for connecting the text to real life.

After a few years, the neighbour wanted to stop doing it. Another neighbour tried to take over, but it wasn't the same, and the boys in the group were a bit older (and most had crazy long hours of school) and it just stopped happening... However, my oldest had already developed the skills required to learn mishna and, ultimately, that is what I care about - not how many mishnayot he has memorized. The nice sequel is that since then my oldest teaches mishna to his younger brother and sisters. I love hearing them learning together, and seeing the enjoyment being shared and passed on :-)

My husband used to learn chumash with the kids, but a couple of years got "bored" with going over the same stories again and again. So I have been trying to take it over. It's very hard for me to make the time to sit and do it with the kids because we're very free-flowing unschoolers, and also out of the house a lot. So I try and focus on Shabbatot. I prefer to keep sessions short and fun and interesting, to maintain their interest, and so far so good. I think :-) I find that I'm referring to halachot, chagim and stories in the Tanach here and there when talking with the kids - so then that often prompts a desire to learn it "inside" the text, to understand it better, get the complete story, etc.

I usually focus my Tanach time on my youngest - it's amazing how fast the 11yo (and sometimes the 14yo) gravitates closer to listen too... I also don't "translate" chumash for them - at most I will repeat a phrase in more modern Hebrew by way of explanation, and then (where possible) show them how that correlates with the text.

Incidentally, my 16yo wasn't comfortable and fluent with reading/writing Hebrew until a couple of years ago. He knew the tefillot (by heart), but reading was a struggle he was not interested in. Then he wanted to take a maths course... and the rest is history :-) I had spent those (worrying) years talking to him at any opportunity, but without pressure, about how important reading and writing are, and that at some point when it matters to him, and when he's ready, he will pick up those skills. Well, he did. It worked. (He's now working on a maths degree (bachelor's) at the Open University, and all the course materials are in Hebrew and of course he has to submit his homework in Hebrew.)

And sometimes we end up going a few weeks without learning any chumash -- just the way life flows. I don't get worked up about it. It's similar to having a week or so of not practising violin for whatever reason. We get back to it all when we're ready.

My husband has learned a little bit of gemara with the oldest, but they haven't managed to hit on a subject that'll hold my 16yod's interest. If anyone has any suggestions of what parts to learn with a math-oriented teenager, I'd appreciate it. I was not taught gemara, so i can't step in there and help. I did start going to a gemara shiur for women at one point, but it was so boring, I left. That could have been due to various factors, but it still means I'm left in a position where I can't help my son to learn this.

I care about my kid getting the skills to learn, so that they can spend the rest of their lives learning (and enjoying). I don't need them to complete a siyum or learn by rote any quantity of anything. I think that different focus is also a relevant and important factor.

I hope this helps,

thinking more about unschooling

we had a week and a half off because we had a little vacation and then came home to lice. so it was a bit tough getting chana back into the swing of things, which had me question more and more her negative attitude and got me thinking about unschooling again. after this post, i will post the question i posed to the orthodox homeschooling message board (to which there has not yet been a response).

i decided yesterday to just do one new pasuk and just do revi'i (usually i like to do an old aliya as chazara, but she was so negative). we aren't that far in to revi'i so i figured it wouldn't take so long, but as often happens, chana's dread made it so that we argued about starting for longer than it actually ended up taking. if she dislikes chumash so much, is it because i am doing it wrong? is it her personality? is it because i unschool her in other areas and she is not used to applying herself so hard to something she dislikes?

personally, i think it is a combination of all three. an argument about unschooling is often that the kids will grow up to be adults who are unable to apply themselves. i think at this point, with a decent amount of unschooling children growing up to be functional , responsible, contributing citizens, coupled with the millions of children who have gone through the school system yet shockingly are still unable to apply themselves to things they dislike, makes me not too worried. when i first started homeschooling, i thought long and hard about what my educational goals were. (i may have mentioned this before).

1. basic skills necessary to get a job (reading etc)
2. a sense of responsibility so that they are emotionally capable of showing up to work on time and can be relied upon to do the job
3. the ability to have enjoyable relationships in marriage, family and friends
4. a non-idolatrous view of judaism and the ability and desire to learn torah.

but i'm getting distracted. my point is, sarah is extremely responsible and trustworthy and i believe chana is making excellent progress on this as well. furthermore, many people in life apply themselves more when they have the confidence and freedom to follow their interests, which unschooled children are quite skilled at.

so i think that my tendency to feel rushed and to put pressure and to radiate slight disapproval when the student doesn't know a translation is DEFINITELY contributing to negative feelings. it would be incumbent on me to work really hard to be in a pleasant state of mind during chumash and to make jokes and radiate positivity. this would probably go a long way.

it might even offset the negativity she feels about applying herself and working hard.

(thanks a lot for helping me "talk" that out, make it conscious, and hopefully improve).

anyway, yesterday she did really well at rashi despite the long break. we still have not read them in the chumash without nekudos. perhaps that will be for tomorrow. today we did just one more pasuk, and i let her choose which aliyah to review, and she chose shlishi because it is so short.

tomorrow we will hopefully read those rashis in the other chumash, do one more pasuk, and review rishon or sheni, her choice.

erev shabbos chumash

erev shabbos. a short shabbos. tough to get work in. we aren't having company, so food is fairly minimal. chana woke up at 10. we negotiated to do work at 11. i have to make a decision between fractions and chumash these days. after 6+ months of hiatus in math, chana is finally grasping it again. i am doing it the way i wish i could do chumash. slowly, pleasantly, with no agenda in mind other than that she fully and completely understands what we do. and to stop before she gets overloaded.

i haven't come to that place regarding chumash. it's about skill of translation more than understanding, i feel rushed to press forward, i want to accomplish.
all of these things remove the joy and relaxation from chumash can cause it to be something that is a chore rather than a pleasure.

practically, chana did shlishi today and then zipped through the old rashis (which we are still doing with nekudos) and then did 4 new rashis with much complaint. the last two, she just read and i translated for her. she griped, "but even if we do that, you are still going to ask me the shoresh, and i'll say i dont' know, and you'll say try, and i'm going to get annoyed." i agreed.

hopefully we can chap a couple of new pesukim today after candlelighting, but if not, not.

today chana asked to do chumash so she could do it before she went outside to play. that was a nice change, her urging me to do it and her getting the chumash and her asking me to come. since we reviewed rishon yesterday, i figured we would do just one new pasuk in shlishi and the other pasuk in shlishi that we did yesterday, and do a full chazara of sheni. she looked at how long sheni was and made a face. i asked her if she wanted to do just 15 min of it. she agreed and i got the timer.

as i mentioned, i really like that she pauses for any discussion and only times the actual translations. she finished sheni with over 3 minutes to spare. the whole thing took about 20 minutes.

we still have rashi left.

the anti-alfie

today elazar and jack's tablet came. i told chana that if we do milim in rishon and part of sheni, and finish sheni and finish rashis, then she could play with it (ie set it up, since she's the most computer savvy person in the house). we finished very quickly and she kept pushing me to do more when i had to take breaks.

what negative things am i teaching in the course of chumash lessons?

so today i violated "never go against a sicilian when death is on the line!!!" again!
today it took the form of "never do chumash when chana hasn't eaten."

she woke up 11am. she was babysitting at 12:30 (ok, we also violated "don't do chumash when you have to crunch it into a small time"). i spent the first 20 min of her learning doing fractions. having nothing to do with chumash, we have dropped her math curriculum since last year before pesach because fractions were confusing. i have been feeling like maybe she might grasp it better, so yesterday i suggested it, and the idea was well received and so i did a little lesson this morning.

then we took a break and did chumash. ideally, we would have left chumash until after she babysits. ideal for her. for me, i like to get it done so it's not on my mental list of "things i have to do today." as always, this becomes a conflict of better for my emotional state as the one in charge of the household vs better for her emotional state as the learner. although i believe that you will get the best "bang for your buck" ie "intellectual work for the effort" if you go based on the learner, if the teacher's emotional state is not taken into account in this imperfect world, ain't nobody happy.

but truly, whenever i push because i don't want it hanging over my head (which begs the question: if I feel like it's hanging over my head, and it's a responsibility i want to get over with, how am i possibly supposed to imbue chana with love of learning?), it ends up sort of backfiring because chana is not in an optimal state. and really, for me to be rushing to get it over with is not an optimal state for me, either. ideally, i'd like to be relaxed, have nothing else to do (ha! haha!) and look at this as a time for me to chana to enjoyably explore the torah.

anyway, i asked her if she wanted to do new pesukim first or chazara first. she chose new pesukim. we decided to finish sheni since it is pretty short and simple. we did the new pesukim pretty easily. and we reviewed the story of yesterday's pesukim outside.

then it came time for chazara. there were, what, only 6 pesukim and not difficult ones? (i didn't mention in yesterday's post that chana accidentally did an extra pasuk because she just kept going). she started whining that she didn't know one of the words. (which was from that brutal chamishi from last parsha that i didn't push). i told her what it was, but she kept whining. she had a headache. she doesn't know the words. she can't do this.

then i got annoyed and said i'm not listening to you talk to me like this.

which was fine with chana and she just sat there. this is a dynamic that we get into often
("how do you homeschool your child?" like you do any other parenting! with all its attendant conflicts, mistakes, etc). but then we only had 10 min until she was being picked up to babysit and i still had 5 rashis to get to, 2 from yesterday and 3 new ones.

so i said to her i wanted to get going. she, rightly but obnoxiously, countered that i was the one who told her we weren't doing more until she calmed down. and now i wanted her to go. but she wasn't calm yet. naturally, she said this in a rude voice because she wasn't calm and i was pushing her. you gotta love (not) how you (me), the parent, create these ridiculous scenarios by saying one thing and then pushing another. i sent her out of the room (thereby being more ridiculous and punishing her for her tone which happened because i was not giving her time to calm down). then i followed her out of the room and told her that we don't have time, and i'm being pushy, and i apologized and told her to eat, and i was choosing 2 slices of american cheese because we don't have time for her to leisurely eat a bowl of cereal (which i knew she'd prefer and which takes her 5-10 min to eat). she looked daggers at me (she's got a finely honed "evil eye" or "look of death," as i like to call it) and took the cheese.

then she came into the room with no cheese. my first thought was that she threw it out in a fit of standing up for herself (or defiance, as the textbooks call it :-P). i asked her where the cheese was, and it was all crammed into her mouth. she broke the ice in our dynamic by being comical about this. kudos to chana for not sulking. i latched right onto that peace offering and appreciated her humor. we giggled about it and settled in to finish chumash.

the food helped and chana was perfectly happy to do the rest of chumash. as an added bonus, her ride was running late and we even had plenty of time to do the rashis.

chana asked which camp yaakov was going to be in: the one that would get killed or the one that would escape. i did the rashi (not inside) with her where he said he would fight.

"never go against a sicilian when DEATH is on the line! hahahahaha---"

this line is going through my head, though more something like, "never do chumash with a preteen after having a discussion about what songs are and are not allowed on her ipod..."

let's see, homeschool rules i've violated today:

1. doing chumash while i'm hungry
2. while chana is hungry
3. in the middle of an argument about music
4. under a specific crunched time when i need to be done in 20 min
5. with no kids napping
6. with one infant being cranky

bizarrely enough, i don't think violation of time crunch really was a problem today. i chose to do 5 pesukim and 2 rashis. all easy. and she breezed through the whole thing in 12 min, leaving us 8 min to spare.