With the new school year around the corner, we spoke with R’ Yisroel David, a guidance counselor in the Chabad elementary school in the Krayot. We asked a lot of questions and were happy to hear answers from someone with plenty of chinuch experience. To his credit, he did not avoid a single question, not even the tough ones.
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R’ David is known as an excellent speaker. His approach is to set aside the conflicts and varying opinions, preferring to focus on issues of substance. In chinuch there are no magical incantations; if you ask R’ David he would tell you that he expects parents to be much more involved in their children’s chinuch. As far as he is concerned, parental involvement is most of the solution to everything challenging in the field.
Those who know him know that he champions hard work, the kind that doesn’t allow for taking the easy way out. He is not taking the responsibility away from the school, but is providing a wake-up call to a key force in the educational futures of our children.
“It often happens that we see problematic behavior in children, and when we meet the parents we see where the problem is coming from. When a child goes to school and has a hard time toeing the line, then it’s obvious that at home he is not expected to toe the line.”
What is the role of a teacher? What is the role of the parents? How can we prevent the dropping out syndrome and how can we identify it in its nascent stage? These are some of the questions we asked R’ David.
THE ROLE OF THE GUIDANCE COUNSELOR
After years of teaching, R’ David was asked by the principal, R’ Avrohom Pizem, to become the guidance counselor in his school.
What is the role of the guidance counselor?
The definition of the job is “concern and responsibility for the emotional health of the staff and the students.” I would add, “And the parents.” As counselors, we need to identify the strengths as well as the weaknesses of our students and to come up with ways of improving, helping or even treating them.
I always say that a counselor is like a doctor in the emergency room. He provides the initial diagnosis and advises the teachers and parents. The tasks include meetings, talking with students, evaluations, and filling out of forms. In addition to the clerical work, there is a lot of thought that goes into every decision, the looking for solutions, and mainly a lot of responsibility.
As far as how a Lubavitcher guidance counselor is unique, well, with a Chabad chinuch of Ahavas Yisroel and genuine caring for every Jew, his ability to be accepting and tolerant of, and unwillingness to give up on, any child, is far greater than it would be otherwise. We are trained in our hashkafos to look inside at the neshama, and in this way, the work to ensure that every child remains within the school system is far greater.
LOVE IS NOT A CONTRADICTION TO SETTING BOUNDARIES
Today there is a lot of talk about love in chinuch; with all that love, are the boundaries lost?
It’s a matter of balancing boundaries and love. You can set boundaries lovingly. Setting boundaries in the proper way is important and helps the child himself. A parent who does not set boundaries does not necessarily love his children even if he says loving things. Boundaries provide children with security.
There is no recipe about how to combine the two; it’s different depending on the parent. Every parent has his red lines. I know parents who are extremely particular yet whose children love them very much; they feel secure with them. I also know parents who are more liberal, whose children don’t feel loved; on the contrary. So it very much depends on the personality of each parent.
What’s clear is that a balance is needed between the compliments and love that we, as parents and teachers, shower on the children and students, and setting limits that ultimately help the children and make them feel secure. There needs to be distance between a student and a teacher, between a child and his parents. A teacher or parent is most definitely not the child’s friend.
In setting limits there is the “asei” and the “lo saasei.” When we punish a child and rebuke him, we always speak about their actions and not about them. We don’t say, “You troublemaker,” or “You chutzpinyak.” Instead we say, “That was the wrong thing to do,” or “What you said was chutzpadik.” The child knows the difference, and it is extremely important. We do not seek to set in stone the bad thing he did. When we tell a child, “You are the problem,” then what motivation will he have to do better the next time? He will think, “If I am a troublemaker, then why do they expect me to act differently?”
In a certain school there was a teacher who did not get along with a student. He was a veteran teacher who saw red when he saw this student and the student acted accordingly. The student hated the teacher and constantly disturbed the class. Any day that the student was absent was a reason for the teacher to celebrate. It reached the point where the teacher told the principal, “It’s either me or him.”
I sat down with the parents and the teacher. In that school, there are no parallel classes to the one the child was in, and I gave them two options. Either he could go up a grade or down a grade. In the end, we decided to put him up a grade. The staff prepared the two classes for the change and he was promoted. He did amazingly well and his father told me later on that once again his son was happy to go to school.
The lesson here is that sometimes the fault is not the student’s but ours. We stigmatize a child and find it hard to drop our negative view. The child senses whether we are pleased with him or not. Neither a parent nor a teacher can ever allow himself to feel that a child offends him personally.
THE PARENTS AND THE SCHOOL
How involved, if at all, should parents be with what is going on at school?
That’s a complicated subject. I think that chinuch, for the most part, begins and ends at home. The child who goes to school with no limits set at home will behave in school the same way he does at home. Based on the way a child behaves in school, I can readily know what is going on at home. Even if a parent tells me that everything is fine at home, I don’t believe him. Teaching boundaries begins at home. Parents must understand that limits convey security, love and caring. Don’t be afraid to impose limits.
A child without limits is like a child walking on the edge of a roof without a railing. He will be constantly nervous about falling.
It is critical that parents know how to set clear boundaries. We are always talking to parents and explaining how to do this. There is a problem in this generation in that parents are perpetually busy trying to survive financially, and many of them don’t have the mental focus to handle their children and to be consistent with them. However, even that is a far cry from totally caving in to the child. A child cannot get whatever he wants, even if he employs all sorts of manipulation. He does that to test us.
A third grader comes to school with a high end cell phone. I ask the mother why he needs it. She says she doesn’t want him to feel that he’s the only one without it. If he has a cell phone, he can call home whenever he feels lonely.
What nonsense! The mother simply didn’t withstand the pressure he exerted on her. Today it’s a cell phone, and tomorrow it will be something bigger. Parents tell me, “But my child was crying…” I say to them, so what? Set boundaries today so that tomorrow you won’t be the ones who are crying!
Generations do change you know …
We learn and grow. We don’t stay the same. That is true for teachers, true for parents, and true for children. If you don’t know how to go about it, learn, ask, and consult. One of the advantages of the teachings of Chassidus is that those who learn it can change their middos. I expect those who consider themselves to be Chassidim to make progress and not remain stuck.
We shouldn’t be frightened by the fact that our children are savvier than we are when it comes to technology and they know things that we are clueless about. We would have a clue if we put in the effort to learn. The job of school guidance counselor today is so diverse and broad; there is whom to ask, whom to consult with. Be one of those who seek to learn and know.
What about children who are not doing well in the classroom and need help, but whose parents blame the school?
It’s a big problem that every school deals with. We do our best to explain things to parents, but if they don’t want to hear it, there is not much we can do. Sometimes we are torn because we see what the child is going through and we know what can help him, but the parents are in denial. Sometimes, I find myself pleading with parents to save their child.
There are cases where we know that a child belongs in a special education classroom, but the parents refuse. I respect where they’re coming from, but disagree with them. We had a student who was dyslexic. He was in fifth grade already when the parents finally “got it,” and agreed to put him in a special-ed class. A teacher in a regular classroom does not have the wherewithal and the training to deal with the problem, and this child had lost out on five years. He was close to bar mitzva age and had zero self-confidence. With the parents’ agreement, he was sent to a lower grade class. He made progress every day and did very well. A while ago, I went to daven in a certain shul and whom did I see going to the amud? That same boy.
WHY DO CHILDREN FROM “GOOD HOMES” ALSO EXPERIENCE UPHEAVALS
How can we expect children to concentrate all day in school, and how can we protect them when they are exposed to endless enticements?
That’s a million dollar question which all schools, Chabad and not Chabad, are dealing with. Today we know that even in schools that have only Lubavitcher children, the situation is far from satisfactory.
Children come with stories and experiences from home that don’t necessarily fit with what we are teaching them in school, which is why I repeat that the most important thing is the home. The home is the foundation. If the home is healthy and loving and if the home cooperates with the school, the child won’t seek emotional reinforcement in other places. When a child feels good, he doesn’t look for love and attention elsewhere. A child naturally copies his parents. He learns from his parents’ behavior how to behave and react. If the home is based on clear Chassidic values, we will see children who are more protected. The home needs to be a defensive wall for the child, protecting him from all kinds of enticements that he may encounter. If parents do this right, the chances are greater that the child won’t fall. The same is true for learning; if the parents promote learning and its importance, the child will learn.
And yet, we see children from “good homes” who aren’t doing well.
Let me word this carefully. I assume that even in homes that seem fine and protected, there are chinuch mistakes. Not everything that looks good from the outside is good on the inside.
In addition, we believe that everything is in the hands of Heaven. There are Heavenly considerations that we are not privy to. We believe that we must do what we can to achieve the maximum success by providing a child with the best chinuch so that he can withstand what the world has to offer and remain a Chassid. But I can tell you that I’ve seen many times, that even those who went off the derech remember their childhood chinuch. At a certain point, most of them return to some degree or another, so that in chinuch we don’t always see immediate results. We should never say, why bother with this child when nothing will come of him. We can never know what will happen in the end.
IDENTIFYING A CHILD WHO IS GOING “OFF”
How do you identify a child who is going off? How does it start? What are the reasons?
There are many causes, but the main one has to do with problems the child was dealing with, which were not addressed and treated properly in a timely manner. Parents often think that problems will disappear and they push off treating the child. They don’t realize that he is miserable in school or every time he tries to interact socially out of school.
Dropping out does not begin when a child announces that he is “dropping out” from school, or that he is abandoning Judaism. It starts long before that, in the lower grades when he goes out to recess and comes back in late, or when he goes out for a drink during class and returns fifteen minutes later instead of a minute or two. I expect a teacher to notice this and to tell me about it so that we can properly assess the situation. At this early stage we already consider it a subtle form of “dropping out,” because we know that this is the start, and we had better stop it in time before it turns into full out rebellion.
A child who sits in class and doesn’t want to be there is frustrated. Who can sit day after day in a place he doesn’t enjoy? And if he does not learn, then he knows less and then he feels inadequate compared to his classmates. When a child feels inadequate, he tries to boost his image by doing things that make him feel good and strong. It can be by bullying or with other unacceptable behavior. So it is very important to identify and treat this as early as possible.
When you realize that there are these subtle symptoms or even more overt ones, what can you do about it? What do you advise parents to do?
The most important thing is not to abandon the child, not to give up on him. Our natural inclination as parents and even as teachers is to not see the child in front of us, because it is hard for us to handle a child who has turned his back on us.
If the child is not around, it hurts us less. “Out of sight, out of mind” is a subconscious maxim that repeats itself. It’s absurd, but we end up welcoming everyone but our own child. When a child drops out or shows signs of dropping out, the most important thing is to talk; not to avoid talking about certain things, but to ask and take an interest, even if we don’t like what we hear.
Ignoring it is the worst thing of all. Ignoring it is interpreted by the child to mean you don’t care. When you yell at him, you already hate him, so there is no point in screaming and ranting; that will only distance him. Lots of love and open communication can bring him back. However, as I’ve said, the best thing of all is to notice the signs in time.
THE BENEFIT AND DAMAGE IN OUR LONG VACATIONS
The Rebbe talks about our needing to live with Moshiach and to instill Moshiach within everything. What is the best way to do this when it comes to chinuch?
In our school, there is a bachur-shliach whose job it is to arrange Chassidishe activities connected to Moshiach. He serves as a kind of shliach and I recommend this to every school. Children relate to him and look forward to working with him.
Besides that, of course we have activities and shiurim about Moshiach in class too, but in order for the message to get through, it’s important that it not be restricted to class time.
What responsibility, if any, does a school have toward its students during vacation?
That’s an excellent question. I think the responsibility is on the parents. During vacation, I expect teachers to call each student for a brief conversation, and to ask the parents to preserve the successes that were gained in the previous school year.
The children should be occupied during vacation and not bored. The shorter the summer vacation, the better.
RABBI YISROEL DAVID
R’ David was born in Haifa in a Mizrachi home. He finished high school and then studied education in Kiryat Noar (Boys Town) in Bayit Vegan.
He was drafted, and after serving three years in the army he began working in the field of education, at first in a yeshiva high school in Miron and then in a yeshiva in Nahariya.
In 5735 he married, and the David family moved to Kfar Chassidim. A year later, they moved back to Haifa and settled in Kiryat Shmuel where he was one of the pillars of the young religious-Zionist community. There is where he first encountered Chabad Chassidus, thanks to a Tanya shiur given by the shliach R’ Yigal Pizem.
“I was exposed to the depth of Judaism which I had not been aware of before, and it fascinated me. I didn’t miss a single shiur and R’ Pizem knew how to present the deepest concepts in a way that we could grasp it.”
Then he met R’ Reuven Dunin and began attending his farbrengens. Shortly afterward, he became a Lubavitcher Chassid himself. In 5743 he wrote his first letter to the Rebbe, and in Tishrei 5746 he went to the Rebbe for the first time. “I felt I had come home.”
A TEACHER’S TEN COMMANDMENTS
As a school guidance counselor, R’ David wrote up ten principles for us, for teachers. “A teacher who reads this and can answer yes to all of them is what I consider a professional teacher who is doing a fine job. If a teacher cannot answer yes to all of them, I invite him or her to think about it and improve.”
1) Do you love your students like your own children? Not half-love or unconditional love, but genuine love?
2) Do you know your students well? What does his home look like? Where does he sleep? Who are his parents? What are his strengths and what are his weaknesses?
3) Do you find the time to talk with your students about matters having nothing to do with what you teach? I’m talking about conversations outside of class time and about subjects that are not directly related to class studies.
4) Do you enlist the parents to work with you? Parents who see eye-to-eye with the teacher are a tremendous help.
5) Are you always prepared? Even experienced teachers have to review what they teach, prepare and change things from the way it was taught previously.
6) Are you knowledgeable in the material that you teach? Do you have more than a superficial grasp of the material so that you can give a lesson on more than one level?
7) Do you make an effort to keep the lessons fresh and exciting so the students are focused and their interest doesn’t wane?
8) Do you say encouraging words to your students? Children, certainly young ones, must receive a lot of attention and encouragement on a daily basis. If you give compliments, they must be genuine.
9) Do you adjust the material to the level of the class? It is possible that last year you had a class on a higher or lower level.
10) Do you set limits and have clear rules and enforce them? It is the last principle but the most important. The rules need to be few in number and the students need to know that they are engraved in stone.