Hi honey, how was school, what did you learn today?
Every day, students are burdened by having to come up with an answer that will satisfy the parents’ quest for the value of education. This is further complicated when the child returns from two hours of intensive Hebrew school education and throws up her arms and says, “I don’t know.”
Recently I had an experience that throws the above statement and others like “I don’t know, I don’t care, I’ll never use it, I don’t remember, I don’t even know why I go!” into oblivion.
It’s been a while since another teacher and I had the opportunity to teach students in a local conservative synagogue how to sing the Friday night services. We did this from grades 3 through 7. As a matter of fact, the students were so motivated by their ability to lead that they volunteered for three years in a row to go to various senior citizens facilities and lead services.
We both stopped teaching there two years ago and the program dissipated. Earlier this year — after not having any contact with these students for a long time — we reached out and asked if they would like to volunteer again. Eighty percent said yes!
We recently held a Zoom rehearsal and, although very few of them attend Friday night services, they remembered all the tunes and the Hebrew!
Many readers of this column have been involved in Jewish education from a student point of view. This includes not only prayer liturgy, Torah, Israel, Holocaust, in some cases Talmud, home rituals, and so many other topics.
As parents, when we ask our children about their education and what they learned, we want to make sure that the education they get is valuable and worthwhile. Do we do the same with our own education? Believe it or not, we do have homework!
We can use our Jewish education to improve our cognitive thinking, our ability to generate income and live a balanced family life, the home rituals of holidays and Shabbat, connect with our history, and be part of the social and spiritual group of our people. Remember, we set the examples for our student children who I know have reflected upon their thoroughly enjoyable times in Hebrew school — and if they don’t see us doing homework and using the education that we acquired, then they too will say “I don’t know!”
The students I mentioned above never lost it, why should we?
Andy Greenberg is a 25-year Conservative Jewish educator of grades 3-12 and a lecturer for adults of all ages.
