The Yomim Tovim are over and our children are back in school.
Of course, we want them to have a successful school year.
However, wanting and wishing are only part of it. In order
for our little ones to succeed, we, the parents, have to work
at it.
There was a generation of Jewish immigrants to America who
provided their new country with half a century's worth of
prominent professional people and business leaders.
The top American doctors and lawyers, accountants and even
authors of best selling novels all came from homes where the
Eastern European born parents spoke to each other and their
children in Yiddish.
If you asked any of these people how they rose to the top of
their field, they would answer, "I was at the top of my class
all the way through school. My parents had such reverence for
my English-speaking teachers and principals that they treated
everything I learned in school as a veritable pearl of
wisdom. It had to become contagious. I drank in everything I
learned and was able to go on to the best college and
professional school."
If you want your youngster to go on to the best
yeshivos and seminaries, take a page from that book. Treat
your children's primary school teachers with respect. Speak
to the rebbe, teacher or gannenet as you would speak
to gedolei Yisroel. If you give some thought to it,
these people are our true gedolim. They are molding
the next generation of Jews.
You may be on the street corner with several neighbors
waiting for the school bus or van to pick up your children.
You may be tempted to say something about a teacher. Please
bear in mind the old expression, "Little pitchers have big
ears."
You may think that little Moishy is busy talking to his
classmate, but he is really taking in everything you say. If
you don't believe me, try a simple experiment.
One morning, while waiting for the schoolbus, just as Moishy
is engaged in showing his friends the newest addition to his
stone collection, tell your friend, in a very quiet voice,
"While the kids are in school today, I'm going to try to bake
some chocolate chip cookies." When Moishy gets home, you can
bet that the first thing he does is check the cookie jar!
That little comment that you make about the teacher can
destroy the whole classroom relationship for the year. And it
doesn't even have to be a derogatory statement. You might
want to tell your neighbor, "Do you know who the preschool
teacher is this year? I just found out that it's Sora
Goldberg's youngest sister. You know, the one who got married
last year."
Thirty years ago, when my oldest son had just learned to read
English, I had an article published in a national magazine.
When the publication arrived in the mail, I proudly showed my
son the title of the article and my name at the tope of the
printed page. The seven-year-old's face fell and he said to
me in a voice filled with disappointment, "I didn't know that
magazines are written by people's mommies."
Well, four-year-olds may know that even grown-ups have
sisters and brothers. After all, they have aunts and uncles.
But they don't want to know that teachers are "people's
sisters."
Another area where parents influence their children's
attitude toward school is the manner in which the weekly
communication from the school, whether a parsha page
or a daf kesher review sheet, is received.
If you are really excited when your newspaper arrives, but
you treat the daf kesher in a ho-hum way, your child
will pick up on that. Even if you are busy with the last
minute Shabbos preparations when your child shows you that
week's folder, manage to smile and say with some measure of
real enthusiasm, "Oh, what a beautiful tree! Did you color
that yourself? I love the leaves. They are soooo pretty!"
Then when the time comes for your child to share what he
learned in school that week, try to remember that for him or
her, the parsha is brand new. The rebbe or teacher
probably used a teaching style that involves asking a
question and then answering it. Your child will try to
duplicate that approach.
When he looks like the cat that swallowed the canary and
asks, "Do you know how many days it took for Hashem to make
the whole, whole world?" the last thing in the world that he
expects is for you to answer his rhetorical question.
I was once at an Elul shiur for women. The subject was
Tshuva. The speaker's script called for the following: He was
going to ask, "Tell me, what is a chet? What do we
mean when we use the word chet?"
He was going to look around the room, waiting for the answer.
Someone was supposed to say, "A chet is a sin," and he
was going to use the next twenty minutes developing the
concept that a chet simply means missing the mark.
Unfortunately, as soon as he asked his question, the first
woman to respond said, "It means missing the mark." The
speaker was an experienced seminary teacher and initially, he
was a bit flustered, but he got out of it by saying,
"Exactly! Chet means missing the mark, but many people
mistakenly think it is a sin. That is what we are going to
talk about tonight."
Your child does not have the veteran teacher's ability to
think on his feet. If you change his script by answering the
question that he feels confident in asking because he just
knows the answer is beyond anyone except his
expertise, he is going to be one unhappy camper. Until Morah
Miriam told him that the world was created in seven days, he
had no inkling of this, and he expects that you are similarly
in the dark. Therefore, don't answer at all. Look brightly
into his face and say, "Hmmm. Can you tell me?"
One last thought. Sometimes your child will come home with a
review sheet (daf kesher) that says something that you
feel is wrong. Do not say anything to your child. If you want
to approach the teacher privately and ask for a source for
that commentary, then do so when your child is not around.
But no matter how strong the temptation, do not tell your
child that the teacher may have made a mistake!
Just as your child is unable to digest the fact that the
teacher has such human qualities as the ability to be
someone's sister, your little one does not have to know that
the teacher can make mistakes. Let's let that be our little
secret. And what your child doesn't know cannot hurt him or
his success in the classroom.
