Time marches on. It doesn’t stand still for anyone or anything. The precious hours spent in school need to be maximized to achieve curricular goals. Defining those goals is the tricky part. Who determines what students should study? The principal? The board of education? Parents?
What are the school’s goals? To produce Hebrew speakers? Talmud savants? Biblical scholars? Scientists? Poets? Knowledgeable observant Jews? Zionists? There aren’t enough hours in the day to accomplish all that we wish for a comprehensive Jewish education.
Is the school day long enough? Is the school year long enough? What have we done to make up for the lost instructional year during COVID? Given the multiple areas of Judaic and general studies mastery that we theoretically require of our students, what happens to art, music, physical education and extracurricular activities? Whether we realize it or not we are prioritizing certain goals via the school schedule.
Schools do not have identical values or goals. If a school wants to produce students grounded in Talmud and Halacha then it will allocate more time to those subjects. However, in the process other subjects will be diminished or omitted. Similarly, if the goal is to produce students who can read the classics of Hebrew literature, then here too other subjects will be downgraded.
It seems obvious that the goal is to produce literate observant Jews with a good grasp of Western culture. This allows for a wide difference in curricular approaches. Where to put the emphasis? We’ve heard it said over and over that it is sad that after 12 years of Jewish schooling studying Hebrew, most day school graduates cannot speak Hebrew. Equally distressing is their lack of knowledge about Jewish history and Zionism. Putting aside for the moment the issue of general time allocation in our schools, events of the past year have clearly demonstrated the need for a good grounding in Jewish history for our students on college campuses.
Parents have choices. They can select a school based on that school’s philosophy of which subjects to emphasize. The other alternative is for schools to lengthen the school day or the school year. I hear the crescendo of groans, but the alternative is to produce graduates with limited knowledge in certain key areas.
Modern Orthodox schools face a serious dilemma. They proudly trumpet their curriculum of Judaic subjects and general studies. What’s missing perhaps is an articulated goal of what kind of student they wish to create. To do this they would need to do a deep dive into time allocation for their course offerings.
At the very least it’s worth a discussion. If the schools can agree conceptually, then let the dialogue begin. If the educators cannot take the lead, then perhaps a coalition of parents can ignite a dialogue.
Dr. Wallace Greene is a veteran educator and educational consultant.
