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Dear Lookjed, and dear Rabbi Herring:
I knew a school, once, which did an excellent job of teaching ethics. The
principal , who apparently deserved the credit for this extraordinary
accomplishment, would have called the subject "midos."
I learned about the success of this project when a little girl, a
prospective transfer student in the second grade, visited the school , She
received a note with the telephone numbers of all the current second
graders, inviting her to call them for help with the transition. And when
she called, they offered real help.
Two or three years later, the same little girl described how she and a
friend recruited a team for an academic project. "We asked one girl to
join our group because she does research well, and one because she writes
well, and one because she can do art work, and one because we were worried
that no one else would ask her right away."
The principal himself set the example for this kind of thinking. I believe
that every teacher and student knew that the principal would demand it of
them, as he did of himself.
Somebody told me that offered to help the principal with something, and
the principal said, "take me grocery shopping." The friend felt puzzled
as the principal directed him to a supermarket in a neighborhood many
miles from home. When the shopping basket was full, the principal guided
it to a particular line. As the clerk toted up his bill, the Principal
encouraged her to have optimism about raising her child, and offered help
with enrolling the child in a Yeshiva, if the mother would agree to it.
I do not believe that the extraordinary effort persisted after the death
of the principal. But while he lived, students and teachers in that
school understood their responsibility to include the unpopular, to tend
to the feelings and needs of every member of the group, and to look out
for the rest of us as well.
One of the things which I remember best from my own elementary schooling
(public school) many years ago is the cruelty. I remember the sense that
the children form cliques which have among their goals punishing
outsiders, misfits, people who do not belong. I do not recall whether
teachers had much influence on this process, or whether they tried to
exert influence on it, beyond limiting physical manifestations of cruelty.
Perhaps the teachers despaired of altering a natural process.
I think bullies must have enjoyed the school yard more than I did.
The leadership of a school committed to Torah values could devote some
effort to overcoming our "natural" tendency to define and punish outsiders.
The school could then serve as a place where we go beyond studying, all the
way to practicing the hard values of our faith.
Shalom,
Eliezer Finkelman</HTML>
