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>III. Home schooling (Kilstein)
>I was recently approached by a family that was schooling their ten year
>old at home. They wanted to review the Judaic studies curriculum so that
>they could review where their child was in relation to his peers. What
>became sad, if not tragic, was that the parents were incapable of teaching
>this child on any level resembling a day school education. The parents
>were able to speak Hebrew after a brief stint in Israel but were totally
>ignorant of Dinim, Chumash and its meforshim, and would never be able to
>move the child on to Mishna or Gemarah.
>
>Certainly our tradition speaks of "ve'shenantam levanecha" - you shall
>teach your children - but this assumes that the parent has the knowledge
>to teach.
A story from an educator working with families in a Kfar
Chassidim/Rechasim/Yad L'achim project:
An Israeli couple in the Haifa area decides to send their son for a more
Jewish education than the regular Israeli secular schools, and their son
goes to one of the network's branches.
The mother calls a friend, a yeshiva family, after a couple days and says
"*Shimon* asked me to help with his homework and I am going crazy! He has
to write about the 13 midot! I can't figure it out- what are they talking
about! I tried millimeters, centimeters and meters, I tried with liters
and I tried all kinds of combinations and I can't come up with 13 midot!"
[measurements!]
The kollel father grasped what was happening and took a taxi straight to
their house, to explain about Elul and G-d's attributes of Rachamim. This
developed into a regular class for neighborhood families held in that
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