PARENTING

ILLUSTATION BY WAYNE VINCENT

"tzedakah" instead of charity,
according to Fran Pearlman, di-
rector of education at Temple Is-
rael.
*Ms. Pearlman added that a
child should demonstrate a corn-
fort level with Jewish home
rituals. Is the child knowl-
edgeable that there is a
blessing for lighting the
candles, over bread, etc.
*She added that old-
er children's ears should
"perk up" when they
hear something about
Israel or the Jewish
community on the radio
or television news.
"To me, that means
that the child feels he be-
longs to Kial Yisroel, and
that is very important," said
Ms. Pearlman.
*A child should be able to
participate in a religious
service with some de-
gree of comfort. As a
parent, you want to
make sure that they
can follow the basics
of Jewish prayer.
*"Energy and ex-
citement from the
child." That is what Sue
Stettner, director of Jewish
Experiences for Families or
JEFF, says parents should look
for from their children.
"Jewish education has to pro-

vide the facts," she said. "How-
ever, it has to be imparted with
a spirit and a passion that will ig-
nite the child and, therefore, come
home to the family. It's that pas-
sion that's so needed to connect."
*Ms. Stettner added that par-
ents should make sure that their
child's Jewish education has rel-
evance in his daily life.
'The values that they learn in
religious school should be able to
be measured in how they live
their lives. Parents should see a
correlation between their child's
life and his Jewish education.
*Parents should observe that
their children are looking forward
to returning each week, each year
to religious school, says Shoshana
Ben-Ozer, educational director
and family planner at Beth
Shalom.
"It's up to the school to help the
family come away with nice
memories of their Jewish educa-
tional experience. To do that, we
make sure that children learn
about experiences such as Shab-
bat and Havdalah."
*A parent should make sure
that their children aren't just be-
ing dropped off to -a form of
babysitting in a synagogue, but
the children should be coming
home with information they can
use right away, according to Ms.
Ben-Ozer.
*Older students should help

Area Jewish
educators
identify key
indicators
your child is
receiving solid
Jewish
schooling.

teach younger children. In the re-
ligious school, teen-agers should
spend time teaching the younger
children step-by-step, according
to Ms. Ben-Ozer. It's important
because it shows the younger chil-
dren that Jewish education is im-
portant to their older brothers
and sisters.
*Parents need to also demand
from their educational institu-
tions a list of goals and desired
outcomes teachers have for the
children. This is according to Aki-
va Hebrew Day School head-
master Rabbi Zev Shimansky.
"A parent should hold the
school accountable in this way,"
he said. "Does the school meet its
objectives in terms of its goals in
each area for your child?" Parents
should have guidelines from the
school so that they can measure
their child's performance at any
time during the year.
And like other educators, Rab-
bi Shimansky said that it is im-
portant for religious school
students to learn information that
they can carry over to life itself

Beyond Alef, Bet

C lassie comment
made by parents
through the ages
(typically said
with a twinge of
musicality and
sincerity):"So,
honey, how was
school today?"
Classic child's reply (passed
down through the ages with a
hint of attitude in the Mom,
you've been through this before,
you know what this is all about
mode:) "Fine."
Now, add four to six hours a
week of religious school to eight
hours a day of secular school and
the conversation all too often goes
like this.
Parent: "How was Hebrew
school today, dear?"
Child: "Boring."
Parent: "What did you learn?"
Child: "Nothing much."
"That cannot be the end of the
conversation," insists Dr. Ron
Wolfson, a nationally known pro-
ponent of family Jewish educa-
tion and member of the faculty of

the University of Judaism in Los
Angeles. "As a parent, you've got
to get underneath 'boring.' Lis-
ten, it's a terrible time of day for
the kids, and it's a challenging
business to keep them interest-
ed from 4 to 6 in the afternoon.
But parents still need to ask the
child to tell them about what hap-
pened in religious school. It can-
not be on the run, it's got to be
over dinner or before bed time."
* Dr. Wolfson said a parent can
go a long way to insuring a good
religious school education by not
offering a subtle message that
there's "real" school and then
there's Hebrew school.
"That's like shooting ourselves
in the foot," he said. "It's not help-
ful. "Parents have to elevate the
level of religious school if they ex-
pect their children take it seri-
ously."
* So, according to Dr. Wolfson,
a sure fire way to ensure your
child a strong religious school ed-
ucation is to make sure that he
sees Mom or Dad taking courses
or learning once in a while.

Stacie Fine, education direc-
tor, rabbi in training and youth
education director for the Inter-
national Institute for Secular Hu-
manistic Judaism, agrees with
Dr. Wolfson. At the Birmingham
Temple, she even takes it a step
further by requiring that religious
school students sign a contract
with their parents to learn about
something Jewish together for at
least five minutes each week.
Ms. Fine sends home materi-
als geared to bring families to-
gether in the spirit of learning.
"There's a real give and take
toward learning," she said.
*Parents should have the child
demonstrate at home the Jewish
skills that he has learned at reli-
gious school. This could mean
leading the prayer over Shabbat
candles or even singing a song or
demonstrating a dance.
*A child should be able to use
his Jewish or Hebrew vocabulary
in everyday life. For example, he
should interchange words such
as "daven" for pray when going
to "shul." He should give

PHIL JACOBS EDITOR

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