Let’s Talk Schools: we can’t outsource all Jewish education to schools

Schools can evaluate and chart progress in ways that the home cannot. Schools offer key educational support and social learning too. But that does not replace the home.

The home may not be a direct or classic learning environment, but the home is the main environment for holistic growth and development. What a child sees at home will shape the basis for any later education: the child’s attitude, character traits, sense of ethics, values and integrity will stem from the home.

When a young couple are blessed with a baby I often remind them that their home will shape the child’s sense of status quo – their “norms” of what a relationship is, what a home should look like and so much else of their approach to life.

Despite the centrality of education to Judaism, the notion of Jewish schools only began in the second Temple period. Until then, education was done at home. A parent understood their child best and tailored the education accordingly.

As parents we embrace our schools and rightly so. They do a wonderful job in difficult circumstances and they just cannot fiscally and practically provide the full breadth of activities, subjects and personal attention that can cover every child.

But we should not feel that we have outsourced our education. Schools are our partners in educating our children, not our replacement. It is parents who know their child best, who have full context and ultimate responsibility for their child’s development.

Jewishly the word for education is chinuch, which means “to dedicate” or perhaps to “develop”. The Jewish understanding of education is to equip a child with whatever he or she needs to excel in their own way in life. This means that education is not “one size fits all” nor represents a single expectation for everyone.

Thus, the verse tells us that Ishmael was raised by none other than God Himself. Yet what did Ishmael turn out to be – a great philosopher? A man of ethics and morals, kindness, someone who changed the world? He became a hunter. His potential lay in that area. Chinuch means developing a child’s talents and unique purpose in life.

Education in Jewish thought has always been more than absorbing information, even when backed up with exams. The Jewish hallmark of education is how much the knowledge has shaped you – how much have you developed through your study. Which is why education has been difficult to calibrate; can you put a number on something so refined as personal growth?

Education certainly happens at school. But not the full gamut – our children’s wholesomeness and character development of is so much down to the parents and atmosphere at home. Parents are charged with the responsibility to educate their children – it is only parents who have the full picture of their child from birth and beyond.

Rabbi Fine is education director of Seed