Is More Torah Always Better?
Assessing a cheder's daily schedule has never been more important...or more difficult
We entrust our children's education – and an awful lot of our money – to our Torah schools. But how can we know what we're getting in return? Focusing for now on non-Chassidic, North American, boys' schools, consider these questions:
Do all of our boys get all the value they can out of each of the many hours they spend in cheder?
Is it possible that minor adjustments to their schedule could lead to significant improvements?
Could families choosing schools for their sons benefit from in-depth information about the curriculum choices available to them and their implications?
Obviously Jewish boys should learn Torah. But there's a point at which the law of diminishing returns (כל המוסיף גורע) predicts that, for many boys at least, imposing too much in-class time reduces the absolute value of each hour. Perhaps it's simply unreasonable for us to expect a ten-year-old to sit quietly for eight or more hours a day in a crowded classroom. Perhaps the average young and developing mind will absorb new ideas and information most effectively for only a hour at a time. Perhaps regular intense physical exercise can help stimulate greater intellectual performance and retention.
I wrote "perhaps" because I have no clue one way or the other. The problem is that, as far as I can tell (after teaching for twenty years in the system), no one else does either.
Some might argue that today's Torah schools are simply faithfully following the mesorah begun in pre-war Europe and that these are things we haven't the right to change. I'm not so sure.
While it's true that teaching Torah is all about accurately transmitting to our children what we've received, the ways we go about doing that are constantly changing. For instance, I doubt there was ever a cheder in 19th Century Eastern Europe where they:
Examined student achievement through written tests
Offered emunah programs
Employed social workers
Taught in English (or Polish)
Used lesson plans
Required teacher training
Included למודי חול curricula
Didn't hit misbehaving children
I probably wouldn't have sent my kids to a cheder that didn't make use of those innovations. but we can't deny that they were, indeed, innovations. So if we're willing to change and adopt in those areas, perhaps it's worth exploring the way we set schedules.
As a data analyst, I tend to assume that with enough good, clean data you can answer just about any question. In this case, an ideal data set would allow us to measure the outcomes experienced by graduates of a range of school styles. Is a population that's exposed to gemara learning a year earlier, for instance, more or less likely to still devote serious time to learning 15 years later? Is there a correlation between extra hours and negative mental health outcomes later in life? Is the school or home environment a bigger predictor of success and failure later in life?
Some time ago I even put together an online survey that would have collected such data. The goal was gather and analyse enough high quality data to point us to the perfect balance between learning and free time that delivers the optimum outcomes. The survey never gained traction so, for now at least, it’s dormant. But feel free to complete it yourself if you like and then tell me what you think.
Whether or not that survey will prove helpful in the end, I feel that parents deserve more tools to help them make informed and wise decisions for their kids. How do you think that might work? Please do share your thoughts.