The Av and the Rav: A Timely and Timeless Lens on the Home/School Partnership
With a weekly session with individual students, a biweekly meeting with the parents and a monthly conference with both parents and teachers, I spent the 1995-96 academic year participating in what was then known in the Teaneck Public School District as the Columbia Teaneck Collaboration Project.
Created by my advisor at Columbia, this initiative was one where the school social worker, or in my case the social work intern, worked to facilitate a model where each voice in the life of the child contributed to presenting the broadest picture of the student’s daily experience and challenges. This collaborative team strategized and implemented plans for school and life success.
The foundation of this approach is no secret. All school professionals know that the partnership of parents and teachers is critical to identifying and maximizing a student’s potential. Each knows a truth about the child that the other does not.
Yet out of all of the articles and chapters I have seen over the years that address this important connection, it is the Pachad Yitzhak, R. Yiitzhak Hutner’s magnum opus on Jewish holidays that gave me both a powerful spiritual and psychological understanding of the critical roles of both parent and teacher.
In his 4th section on Chanukkah, R. Hutner quotes the Rambam. The Rambam points out that that whenever Jews articulate justification for a mitzvah or Jewish law, they do not use the ancestors Avraham or Yaakov as their authority. For the power of law, of instruction and way of life, Moshe is central. It is for this reason that we say, Torat Moshe.
Conversely, when we discuss the foundation for our connection with God, we never employ Moshe as our model. For that theological connection we employ our Avot. It is this reason that we refer to God as Elokei Avoteinu. Even though we learn many lessons of how to live from Avraham, we never employ the term Torat or Halakah Avraham Avinu. And although Moshe had an intimate connection to God, we never use the term Elokhei Moshe.
R. Hutner then takes this important distinction from the national level to the individual. He writes that even though Torah teaching and ritual content instruction comes from the teacher, the Jewish inheritance or heritage, the yerusha comes from the the parents. The parents and their articulated values lay the groundwork for creating the kli, the vessel that will receive and contain their education. The Ima and Abba, provide the koach, the potential, and the teacher, the Rav or Rabba or Moreh or Morah, provides the poal, the actualization of how to live out these values in the world.
We are not a complete people without both the Av and the Rav, and similarly no student is complete without these two necessary forces understanding the critical importance of the other.
Parents must recognize that they cannot do it alone as it is the teachers that give the student the content knowledge on how to live life, whether that be as a math student, literature reader or mishna scholar. And educators must recognize that they cannot do it alone, for it is the parents that share their priorities with their children so they can enter the halls of the schoolhouse understanding their obligation and mission to learn how to live a life of goodness, contribution and productivity.
The home is the space where the fertile soil must be laid. And the classroom is the space that nurtures and tends to the student’s growth.
As we move into the spring season of conferences and report cards which sometimes bring along complicated or challenging conversations, all of us, parents and educators alike, would do well to respect and trust the singular role that each plays in the lives of our precious children--by realizing the critical voices of both the Av and the Rav.
With a weekly session with individual students, a biweekly meeting with the parents and a monthly conference with both parents and teachers, I spent the 1995-96 academic year participating in what was then known in the Teaneck Public School District as the Columbia Teaneck Collaboration Project.
Created by my advisor at Columbia, this initiative was one where the school social worker, or in my case the social work intern, worked to facilitate a model where each voice in the life of the child contributed to presenting the broadest picture of the student’s daily experience and challenges. This collaborative team strategized and implemented plans for school and life success.
The foundation of this approach is no secret. All school professionals know that the partnership of parents and teachers is critical to identifying and maximizing a student’s potential. Each knows a truth about the child that the other does not.
Yet out of all of the articles and chapters I have seen over the years that address this important connection, it is the Pachad Yitzhak, R. Yiitzhak Hutner’s magnum opus on Jewish holidays that gave me both a powerful spiritual and psychological understanding of the critical roles of both parent and teacher.
In his 4th section on Chanukkah, R. Hutner quotes the Rambam. The Rambam points out that that whenever Jews articulate justification for a mitzvah or Jewish law, they do not use the ancestors Avraham or Yaakov as their authority. For the power of law, of instruction and way of life, Moshe is central. It is for this reason that we say, Torat Moshe.
Conversely, when we discuss the foundation for our connection with God, we never employ Moshe as our model. For that theological connection we employ our Avot. It is this reason that we refer to God as Elokei Avoteinu. Even though we learn many lessons of how to live from Avraham, we never employ the term Torat or Halakah Avraham Avinu. And although Moshe had an intimate connection to God, we never use the term Elokhei Moshe.
R. Hutner then takes this important distinction from the national level to the individual. He writes that even though Torah teaching and ritual content instruction comes from the teacher, the Jewish inheritance or heritage, the yerusha comes from the the parents. The parents and their articulated values lay the groundwork for creating the kli, the vessel that will receive and contain their education. The Ima and Abba, provide the koach, the potential, and the teacher, the Rav or Rabba or Moreh or Morah, provides the poal, the actualization of how to live out these values in the world.
We are not a complete people without both the Av and the Rav, and similarly no student is complete without these two necessary forces understanding the critical importance of the other.
Parents must recognize that they cannot do it alone as it is the teachers that give the student the content knowledge on how to live life, whether that be as a math student, literature reader or mishna scholar. And educators must recognize that they cannot do it alone, for it is the parents that share their priorities with their children so they can enter the halls of the schoolhouse understanding their obligation and mission to learn how to live a life of goodness, contribution and productivity.
The home is the space where the fertile soil must be laid. And the classroom is the space that nurtures and tends to the student’s growth.
As we move into the spring season of conferences and report cards which sometimes bring along complicated or challenging conversations, all of us, parents and educators alike, would do well to respect and trust the singular role that each plays in the lives of our precious children--by realizing the critical voices of both the Av and the Rav.
Comments
Post a Comment