The School-Home Partnerhship - Part 2: Ezer K’negdo
In my recent blog post, “The School-Home Partnership: A Match Made in Heaven”, I included HaRav Shamshon Raphael Hirsch’s point of view that the essential component of an effective partnership is the Torah’s description of Chava’s relationship to Adam, “Ezer K’negdo: a helpmate that is opposite him”. He explained the ideal partnership to be two parties with distinct differences in talent and abilities complementing each other as they unleash all that they have to fulfill their goal.
Unlike other partnerships, the school-home relationship naturally meets the Ezer K’negdo criteria because they are so different. As such, each partner should be focused primarily on those aspects of educating children that fits its “personality”, the school or the home.
HaRav Hirsch sees the task of Torah education as two prongs, training the spirit through acquisition of knowledge and development of character or moral education. Despite the limitations that prevail in the standard classroom approach to instruction and learning-one size fits all, the acquisition of knowledge falls into the domain of the school and for many children there is an adequate level of success.
Regarding the development of character, HaRav Hirsch is emphatic that moral education is a task suited for the home. In the aforementioned blog, one of the take home points stated at the conclusion said, although parents give their children over to a school at the appropriate time, it does not imply they abdicate their responsibility for the education of their children. Moral education is the essential task alluded to in this statement.
Why is the home the ideal place for moral education and by inference the school needs to play a supportive role at best? HaRav Hirsch describes character development education as an individual child program. To train a child in the development of his character requires the instructor to know the child’s personality completely. Listen to the words of HaRav Hirsch on this point:
The person who raises the child must immerse himself, with loving empathy, into the total personality of the child…He must study his child, wisely assigning him tasks that will remedy his individual shortcomings and encourage the talents still latent to him. He must seek, with loving perseverance, to help the child triumph over himself so that the child will gladly perform duties that were initially viewed with loathing…This devoted concern with the individual personality of the child can be put forth only by the child’s parents…
No matter how well a good teacher can relate to a child on an individual basis, the school is in no position to bestow such devoted attention on each child as long as the school approaches instruction and learning in the traditional classroom structure.
All of us with the awesome responsibility of educating children Jewishly, parents and educators alike, recognize the challenges we face today in moral education and character development. Society in general, our lifestyle in particular, and our educational and behavioral expectations have caused this task to be formidable. We are all too well aware of the outcomes when success is not met.
Points to Ponder:
Are parents today prepared to shoulder their responsibility for moral education?
How is the giving over of children to caregivers and early childhood centers as young as infancy impacting parents’ ability to provide moral education?
If according to HaRav Hirsch and other leaders in Torah and general education, that the traditional one size fits all approach to schooling is so inadequate in this task, what steps should be taken to enhance the school to have greater success in moral education?