I never liked Hebrew school. Perhaps I didn’t hate it as avidly as my sister, brother, and cousin did, but I never liked it. I take that back, I liked the taste of a Wendy’s order of fries and frosty as it coated my devious throat during Hebrew school hours when my cousin and I “skipped” and instead of going into our Hebrew school, quickly turned before the synagogue entrance, walked up the little hill and down two blocks to the Wendy’s which greeted us warmly week after week.
I understand the value of Hebrew School. In particular, I agree with the statement that most parents use in justifying Hebrew School to their all too resistant children “It is important to be with other Jewish children”. Many of our friends happen to be Jewish and our children attend Jewish camps and socialize with many Jewish children, so that as a sole reason for sending our children to Hebrew School this year, was simply not enough.
Two years ago, our oldest son (who was 7 at the time) asked my husband and I if we would “homeschool Hebrew school, because sitting in the class listening to kids read Hebrew from our book is like listening to jail cell bars being put up”. We knew then that we were going to have to be creative in whatever we chose to do, even if that meant continuing to send him to Hebrew School (which we did last year). So, another year passed with our boys at Hebrew School and it was again a year of pulling teeth in terms of getting them to go without a fight and trying to help in engaging them in whatever curriculum was being taught, or in the particular manner in which it was being taught.
So, this summer with the support of my husband, I spent much time trying to devise my own Hebrew School Curriculum for my 7 and 9 year old sons. I have borrowed from many different curricular sources and websites available and have incorporated much of my own thoughts and ideas throughout in order to create what I consider an iterative curriculum; one that is ever-changing.
Today was day 1. September 11, 2011 and it was day 1 of our own Homeschool Hebrew School. The day began with an intense and fascinating discussion about September 11th. Nathan had known about September 11th but Charlie had not. I was not very visual or too detailed in my accounts of that day but tried to give enough depth to evoke concern and compassion from both of them (not hard to do). I was shocked by how emotional I felt in telling them about that tragic day, 10 years ago. I actually got choked up a bit especially as I was telling them that on that day, I was pregnant with Nathan telling them about the walk I took around our neighborhood in Arlington Virginia that very night with the silence of twilight and the solemn faces upon faces of neighbors sitting on porches puzzled by the day’s event and trying to lend a lifted eyebrow of hope or pout of collective sadness to help us all feel a little less alone.
We talked about how some people were very mean and had a lot of hate and this hate is what allowed them to do such evil things on this day 10 years ago. We had a fascinating conversation about hate and how someone learns hate. Charlie (7) said “they learn it from their parents”, and then we discussed whether someone can unlearn hate and Nathan (9) said “yes, definitely, anyone can change. We need to just show them how and why.” The discussion continued as we strived to answer the following questions: What is hate? Where do people learn hate? Can hate be unlearned? Should we try to help those that hate or only focus on those who don’t? We discussed the passage from Vayikra about Loving one’s neighbor as you love yourself. We defined ‘self love and self respect’ as well as ‘neighbor’ in this context and then talked about respecting yourself and others. This led us to develop our own “class pledge”, a set of rules we created for creating a safe, secure and engaging classroom environment. We all signed this class pledge for our Homeschool HebrewSchool.
The boys listened about September 11th intently and asked fascinating questions and then talked amongst themselves and actually debated “why didn’t anyone on the plane try to stop the mean people?” (N) And then he answered his own question by saying “I think some probably tried to stop the people but other people probably did not know what was going on”. We then spoke about how people on each of the planes were brave and demonstrated courage. And, then we spoke about the firefighters and the police forces and the innocent workers and how courage was seen all over. We defined courage and talked about the importance of trusting in one another and in our fellow human beings. This discussion culminated with a trust walk outside where the boys took turns being blindfolded and guiding the other through different “terrain” (i.e. mud, through bushes, on the street, on gravel, in dirt). When they came face to face after each of their turns they needed to thank each other for “guiding” the other and for “trusting me to guide you”.
Nathan's wipe board depicting "Courage"
Charlie's Wipe Board Depicting Courage (twin towers)
After we came back inside, we began our Hebrew language work for the day. Since the boys are at different Hebrew levels, I am essentially starting with the basics (where Charlie is) and will be supplementing with some additional activities for Nathan during the week. In the meantime, Nathan is not too far ahead and the review will certainly be of benefit to him. So, we worked on the letter Aleph today and talked about the equivalent numeric value of 1 assigned to Aleph. I taught them that aleph is made up of a vuv and two yuds and the relevance of the placement of these three letters whose cumulative value equals 26, the same as the numeric value for the word for “god” in Hebrew, Adonai.
We went over some “aleph” Hebrew words that are high frequency words and the boys were told that if I catch them using the words during the week, they earn points for a prize in a couple of weeks. We also learned the words for colors. I bought a box of 96 crayons and as each boy looked at their color reference sheet, they had to say the name of the color as we hot glued the actual crayons onto a poster board. Ultimately we had a “Keshet” or rainbow of crayons that we then heated and melted with a hair dryer and they boys made awesome color pictures. It was a lot of fun, and the pictures are beautiful!! And, we most certainly practiced these color words A LOT during this activity!!
The last portion of our Hebrew School today was focused on Shabbat and thinking of Shabbat as a play or a show of sorts—as a special occasion. I explained to the boys about the “overture” of a play and what that means. Today we focused on the overture of Shabbat and what the overture should entail, or in other words what were some things we could do to make the “overture” of Shabbat something special. Some of the boys ideas were:
1. Setting the table really special
2. Shower shampoo and wear fancy clothes
3. Invite people over
4. Make special recipes
5. Be extra nice and loving
I am blown away by the incredible conversation that ensued during today’s first day of Homeschool Hebrew School. I feel very optimistic and encouraged by day number one and look forward to our next Hebrew School adventure.
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