Demand This From Your School

By Rabbi S. Binyomin Ginsberg

A yungerman came to meet with the principal and he inquired if they were looking for a melamed position to be filled. The principal told him that they weren’t looking for a melamed; however, they needed a cook for the Yeshiva.

This happened several years ago. The melamed-want-to-be became the cook and still is. He didn’t have training to be a cook or a melamed. Can you imagine what would have been if he would have become a melamed and not a cook? You don’t have to imagine too hard because that is the situation with many of our teachers.

The cook, in the process of learning on the job, may have burned a dish here and there. The teacher who enters the classroom without training is setting up a situation to possibly burn the neshomos of our dear children.

I was recently speaking to a man who took a ten-week course in culinary school and was finally able to land himself a position as chef in a restaurant. Can you imagine the reaction of a restaurant owner if an applicant would say that he should be hired as head chef because he has eaten hundreds of meals?

It begs the question as to the training of those who are doing our job of teaching our children. Why would you allow your child (without a doubt, your most precious asset) to be taught by someone who hasn’t been trained in the first place and hasn’t been updated on the latest developments in the world of chinuch?
 
Before taking a pen to this subject, I discussed it with some friends, looking for a side to play devil’s advocate. Many people answered my question with humor and no true understanding of the issue, which made me realize that perhaps this issue needs more attention than I originally thought.

One friend explained that the reason why a teacher may not need training is because her whole life of learning has prepared her for this next stage, teaching Torah to others. He even quoted the words from one of the Berochos we say before Shema in the morning. We ask Hashem to help us lilmod u’lalamed, to learn and to teach.

His argument was that the teacher’s own learning in school, high school and seminary, learning for so many years prepared her for teaching and that qualifies as training.

Before we go any further, I must admit that I assumed the position as a melamed before I had any training whatsoever. Perhaps my mistakes were fewer as a result of me being what one may call a born-teacher. Yet, even I had so much to learn and the difference between my years in the classroom before training to after training was worlds apart. 

When I raised this issue to another friend, his comment was that the mesorah is for no training. Therefore, if we want to now institute training for teachers, we are going against mesorah.

My best response to that argument is that I don’t know of any Jewish leader who doesn’t feel strongly about the need for teacher training. On many occasions, the Rebbe addressed the need for teacher training.

One perfect example of how training teachers is not going against our mesorah is the practice that was in place in Eretz Yisroel during the days of Rav Shmuel Salant OBM. As the Chief Rov of Yerusholayim, in the late 1800’s Rav Shmuel instituted a requirement for any melamed to receive shimush (apprenticeship) at the hands of an expert, established melamed before he assumed the position as a melamed.

If you are still concerned that teaching a teacher how to teach is going against our mesorah, I direct you to the Rashi (d’h Basofer Mosoh) in Mesichta Bava Basra (21a) in which Rashi mentions how every city had a primary teacher who taught the other teachers in the town how to teach. 

Over the past few years I have had the great zechus to work with many rabbeim and morahs, preparing them to enter their classrooms or working to improve their skills, even after they already began teaching.  Baruch Hashem, we have really come a long way in this area.

Yet, I still get calls that sound almost exactly like this: A position just opened up for a new morah in this and this school. I wasn’t really planning on becoming a morah now, but I was really pressured into taking the job. I am calling you to see if you can give me any pointers before I walk into the classroom. 

One of the points I stress to teachers in preparing them to enter the classroom that a teacher needs the most skills of any profession.

A doctor can get away with just diagnosing a condition, an architect can do rather well by using his imagination for what something can look like and a computer programmer can become from the wealthiest by just writing a secret code. The teacher, on the other hand, needs to know so much more to just do a satisfactory job.

I feel very comfortable stating that there is no greater job with so much required skill than that of a teacher.

A short list of skill areas include how to manage the classroom, how to relate to people (children and adults), how to plan accordingly, how to use the tools of the trade, how to prepare lessons and how to teach effectively. A teacher is part instructor, social worker, psychologist, parent, and friend.

There is no small amount of training necessary in just helping the teacher become aware of the many psychological, emotional, social, and academic ramifications that each word or smile has on a young child.

Baruch Hashem, we have special training programs for our soon-to-be melamdim and morahs. Any man who wants to consider chinuch as their calling, has several opportunities to be trained, such as the Menachem Education Foundation. Our future morahs can be prepared to enter the classroom and succeed if they took advantage of the one training program available for them in our community.

For many years I have been fortunate to present a semester of classes for future teachers at the Bais Rivkah Seminary in Crown Heights. To describe the experience and the special quality of these young ladies would take volumes. However, as it relates to this article, I can comfortably state that at the top of the list of the qualities of these future morahs is their understanding of the need to be trained.

BE”H, this year I will once again have the great zechus of teaching the future morahs as part of Bais Rivkah’s teacher-training program. The program is available for anyone who has the desire and passion to make an impact on the lives of our children.

Classes will begin after Simchas Torah and I strongly encourage anyone, regardless where they live and which schools they attended for elementary, high school and even seminary, to attend these classes. I look forward to the great opportunity of working with each one of our students, thereby impacting hundreds of precious children.

As we get ready for a new school year, there are several things we can do to influence some change in this area. While they may not be most popular, allow me to suggest the following:

* Ask your children’s principals what training the morahs have.

* Be supportive (financially and emotionally) to any effort the schools are making to provide training for the teachers.

* Don’t object when the school allows teacher trainees to spend time in your daughter’s classroom.

* Don’t send your children to a school that hires teachers who have not been trained.

* Encourage our young ladies that seem to have the natural capacity of being a teacher, to take the next step and enroll in a teacher-training program.

* Be strong advocates for the professional development of our morahs. They need it, but more importantly, your children need it!

–Rabbi S. Binyomin Ginsberg, an educator close to 30 years, has been the Dean of Torah Academy in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is on the faculty of Torah Umesorah’s teacher training institute in New York and is a consultant for Crown Heights schools Oholei Torah, Beis Rivkah and Bnos Menachem, as well as privately for parents in Crown Heights.