About a month ago, I posted a number of articles about the call for increased hours of secular studies in NY private religious schools in a post entitled “Current events in day school education: Updated curricular requirements for non-public schools” - [listserv.biu.ac.il]

Since then, a number of the questions that were raised have been clarified, but I found this article, entitled “What Yeshiva Kids Are Actually Studying All Day” by Moshe Krakowski to offer fascinating insight into the question of the purpose of education in general -

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There are clear differences between a yeshiva education and a public school education. But how significant are these gaps? Are yeshiva students being denied a basic education? Does this educational program hamstring their ability to be constructive members of society?

I don’t think so.

There is much to be said about the aims and limits of the secular education offered by these schools. (I hope to address this question in a separate essay.) But there is an important sense in which their religious study alone provides a significant grounding in many of the essential skills that they would otherwise be receiving; enough, in fact to make the large curricular gaps somewhat beside the point.

This is something that, ironically, most members of the community itself don’t realize, as they take the strengths of this education for granted. But what these kids do in school is actually quite remarkable, and represents a level of intellectual achievement that is significant not only from a religious perspective, but also as a serious foundation for success in most domains beyond the religious community.

Pragmatically speaking, which best prepares students for future success—a secular school program, or a yeshiva program? Even given then schools’ acknowledged limits in secular instruction, I’d be hard pressed to pick the secular track. The critical thinking, textual analysis, reading comprehension, argumentation skills; the historical knowledge, the foreign language acquisition, the legal concepts; indeed, the Jewish culture, tradition, and ethical behavior (which are deeply important to all religious Jews, not just the ultra- Orthodox) embedded in these schools’ religious study are genuinely remarkable.

Read more: [forward.com]
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Shalom



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/15/2019 10:03AM by mlb.