There is a fourth grade girl in my community who I help with her homework. Starting yesterday, her teacher began assigning homework about the sons of Yaakov: questions about their brachot from Yaakov and memorizing those brachot. Luckily, it's only one son at a time (though today Shimon and Levi were together) but what I want to know is this: this girl barely understands what she's memorizing. It's all just sounds to her. I ask her if she knows what the words mean and she says she doesn't. So how can she be expected to memorize something if she doesn't even know what it means? And she learned the psukim in school with a tune and hand motions but the hand motions have nothing to do with the words!
When I was in sixth grade, I had to memorize Shirat Chana. We had hand motions too, but at least they made sense with the words to help us understand what we were memorizing! Even then, though. What was the value in my memorization of Shirat Chana? I never had to recite it to anyone after sixth grade, no one ever really cared that I knew it, I never even learned it again in school! So what was the point? Hooray, I can rattle off the psukim if I'm singing them in the song. And I don't even know if I have all the words 100% correct. And in sixth grade I got hepatitis and I remember getting in trouble one day when I came back to school after being out for a while because I hadn't memorized the next part of the Shira. I'd had hepatitis. Do you think I cared about memorizing a bunch of psukim from Navi? I was trying to keep up with all my other schoolwork and I had my country report to work on and I had to keep myself sane from all the itching (hepatitis makes you reeeaaaally itchy).
In seventh and eighth grade, I had a teacher who made us spit back the Torah. We had to take notes by writing every word of the pasuk and its translation and then the same for the mefarshim. And we could get ten points of extra credit on the final if we memorized ten rashis. Or maybe it was five rashis. That's more likely. And the deal was they had to have more than three words each. But STILL. So the girls who were good at memorization got to have ten extra points? Is that fair? I'm AWFUL at memorization and spit back (even though I have a really good memory in general). I shouldn't say that. I can spit back movies, shows, books, that sort of stuff. I'm just not great at being forced to memorize something and then spitting it back. Or maybe I'm good at it, but I hate doing it. It bores me, it takes too long to actually memorize - I just don't like it. The books, movies, and shows I know by heart I didn't actively memorize, it just sort of, well, happened.
My point is, why make a fourth grader memorize all the brachot of Yaakov's sons if she doesn't even understand what she's saying and it won't actually effect her ever? What's the point of all her frustration?
2 comments:
You're right. Unfortunately, this is what happens in many, many schools, and it's not only with shirat chana. In fact, Piaget's theory of learning (look it up in any psychology textbook) makes your point exactly, and he stresses how children should not only memorize, but KNOW what they learn.
I have no problem with memorizing, as long as the children know what they are memorizing. You say that they may never need the information again, but I think it is likely to come up later in life--like they say, you never know. However, they should understand the material as well. Maybe that's something you can accomplish in your tutoring. Hatzlacha!
I totally agree with you. Thank G-d, I had teachers who weren't big on memorization, so I didn't have to waste time trying to remember something that would be essentially meaningless to me. Still, it was annoying when I went to seminary and all the teachers expected that type of learning and it was hard to keep up.
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