@The Little I know.
1. Thank you.
2. I am going to ramble, and go from subject to subject, and probably lose you a few times because I have MANY squirrel moments as I like to call them. I am SEVERELY ADHD AND ADD, but still managed to stay focused enough to get my many worthless pieces of expensive paper without drugs.
3. I both agree and disagree with some of what you wrote. You are correct that the yeshivos and even the public schools are filled to beyond capacity. However, the interplay between discipline and education often don’t work because the rebbeim and teachers are not taught HOW to teach. Often they are people who need jobs within that community, and poof, instant teacher. But they are not teachers nor instructors. In the “days of old” you had rebbeim and teachers smacking or hitting the students with rulers or even worse, with their hands, causing the children to fear both going to school and learning. This caused generations of students not only to hate learning, but to harbor decades and decades of resentment towards schools, religion, families, and so on, only causing more pain, which often then manifested more abuse, whether in families or in communities.
Sadly, violence often begets violence, and cycles perpetuate themselves unless consciously broken (which is a very difficult thing to do).
These days, there are more educated rebbeim and teachers and morahs even, but it’s rare to find any of these people holding valid state teachers licenses. It’s not like college or university is strongly encouraged. But when it comes to educating our children, education of the teachers should be TOP priority, and it’s really not.
There is a blatant lack of respect that is almost subconsciously encouraged by the schools in how their “English” or General Studies teachers are treated. Regardless if that teacher is frum or not, the English and General Studies teachers are often paid far less, not treated the same with regards to “Bonuses” at yomim tovim or summer break, and left out at Chanukah time because they are (as I was told for many years) “just an English teacher” (even though for quite a large number of years I was the ONLY teacher in the entire school to hold a valid teachers license). Children see that, and learn from it.
Keep in mind btw, that because I was “just an English teacher” I was not entitled to maternity/paternity leave when my children were born, causing terrible financial hardship. But again, that did not matter because I was “just an English teacher”. But I digress… going back to your comment….
A well trained teacher or rebbe knows exactly how to handle both education and discipline in his/her classroom, and can do so without interrupting the flow of the class. A really good teacher/rebbe will keep the ‘troublemaker’ in class, and will adapt his/her teaching style to those of the children in his/her class. For example, a teacher might teach the same unit in visual, audible, and tactile styles, ensuring that all the learning styles of the class are met. And a teacher for older students will ask their students how they learn best, since by high school most children know in what way the information sticks with them. A VERY good teacher will make sure to adapt his or her lessons each year to ensure that the material does not get boring, and that the students will actually learn something year to year. The teacher cannot be bored with his or her lesson either, because that will translate to the students getting bored. The first year I taught, I leaned against the door jam as I was lecturing, and essentially bored myself to sleep. I realized that if I was bored enough to fall asleep WHILE talking/teaching, my students were even more so. I immediately changed everything about the way that I taught.
Teaching and educational methods, along with ways to ensure that lessons work, how to evaluate those lessons, and how to deal with children with behavioral needs, special needs, ADHD and ADD children, even children on the pervasive development scale, could all have those needs met in a multi stage and mainstream classroom, but these methods that are taught, and often taught WELL in college. But, college educated teachers are far and few between in yeshivos and day schools.
3. You are absolutely correct about cookie cutter lessons, but again, there are ways for a creative teacher to “spice” those lessons up, and change them, even slightly, from year to year. What unfortunately does not change, is that schools that get any money from the government for any reasons, are required to have their students take state exams of some kind, all of which are standardized. Thus, the teacher finds him or herself teaching to a test, which is basically a lot of useless information that the children will never, ever use.
Additionally, there are a large number of extremely bright, intelligent children, who do not test well, and therefore, are then labeled and stuck in classes that are not good for them, often boring, etc. (which can then cause additional problems), all because of an asinine test that hasn’t changed since its inception, and is essentially a tool that sets many children up for failure. And those children, because they have been improperly labeled or tagged, will therefore never have their true educational needs met.
Norms, as you state, are a very very dangerous thing. By definition, and of course statistically, a child that doesn’t meet that specified percentage of the “norm”, or doesn’t quite meet the required numbers, is then statistically set up for failure each and every year post that first test. The first failure that a child becomes vitally aware of, will be the measurement that both they, and the schools, will measure them for the remainder of their academic career. Making a predetermined norm is likely one of the most destructive things that schools, as well as diagnosticians could have possibly done.
I could give an individual an assessment and if that individual scores a 31 or higher on certain scales, they would be “predetermined” to be a psychopath, exhibit psychopathic behaviors, etc. If that individual becomes aware of their score, they then have an excuse to behave in an inexcusable manner, saying “well, this is what I am because someone told me that this is what I am. Take it up with them”. If the person has no knowledge of where he or she falls on the psychopathy checklist, he or she could end up becoming something brilliant and amazing. Perhaps he or she goes on to cure cancer. That person never takes advantage of his potential situation just because they might fall on a scale set up by a person or group of people who think one way and one way only.
And, it is in my personal opinion, that conforming to any predetermined norm has the potential to be very dangerous. People become sheeple instead of potential leaders, children with exceptional imaginations have them lectured or beaten out of them, when the imagination could have created something amazing. Conformation… is dangerous if not done correctly. We are not encouraging our children to be something amazing and wonderful, something different. We are telling them to do exactly what the rest of the children do. So, if the rest of the children act like vilde chayas, then we are telling our child, conform to that, that’s the way to do it. If as adults, the general norm is to cheat and lie on one’s taxes, and then use HUD, Welfare, Medicaid and food stamps… that’s the norm that we anticipate out children will conform to. But it’s still not right, even if everyone else is doing it.
Additionally, I want to add something that is “hinted to” but not stated outright. Just because a child is different in how he or she thinks, or that individual questions G-d, or even his or her religious observance, does not mean that this person is mentally ill or unstable. And, it is exceptionally important in today’s day and age, that we not immediately insist that people who act differently, perhaps not as “expected” or a person does not “conform” to something he or she is morally, ethically, or simply just opposed to, immediately run to seek mental health assistance. We do a tremendous disservice to people when we take someone who does not conform, and stick them with a mentally ill tag.