Shalom,
My general attitude towards this question is that of Yitzchak Jacobs, but I’d like to expand on it a bit:
Other than a rudimentary facility with the Three Rs, is there anything we teach in K-12 that the students will likely need afterwards? History? Literature? Science?
I would say, then, that our first order of business is to disabuse the students of the idea that we are focused on preparing them for the practical necessities of living. I would say that, but really there’s an even more fundamental objection that we have to raise to their complaints: Their happiness is not our focus either, so any question of how a class will be useful to them is beside the point.
What is our focus? I may have mentioned here before that a statement of Joel Wolowelsky’s, when I was his student, had a profound impact on me. He said the “Judaism is a religion of responsibility.†Many years later, R. Amital, ztâ€l, was to expand on that principle in opposition to the fad of “connectedness†that had gained currency. We are trying, then, to make of our students responsible adults, with a knowledge of what their responsibilities are and the tools required to execute them.
Along the way, we want to do right by them as we want them to do right by others, so we supply them with the knowledge, skills and attitudes that will let them derive satisfaction from their lives. There’s plenty of evidence, if the popular psychology books are to be believed, that people are happiest when they believe they’re doing the right thing, and Kohelet has taught us that while there may be no ultimate practical advantage to knowledge and skill, the difference between having them and not is the difference between light and darkness.
These are things that I think the kids can be led to understand, after which, even if they don’t come to feel that they’re gaining anything from learning gemara, they may at least figure that it’s useless to complain.
Michael Berkowitz
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/21/2015 08:55AM by mlb.
