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Jewish Homeschooling?!
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Question:
I am a Jewish homeschooling parent.
I am interested in knowing if there
are any Jewish Homeschool list servs.
I am also interested in hearing from
other Jewish homeschoolers about their
experiences, especially those which
address the limudei kodesh aspects/challenges
of home schooling.
Answer:
- In Baltimore there is a growing cluster of Orthodox home schoolers
reflecting such complaints over how the schools are run (not merely
tuition) and a desire to have superior secular and Jewish education than
what the schools provide (and Baltimore does have a broad range of
excellent schools). There are several Jewish home school groups but no
listserve or website as far as I can find. You might repost this to the
general (non-Christian) home schooling news group.
There isn't a Jewish equivalent of the "Calvert" "packaged" curriculum for
either secular or Jewish studies. In other words, parents are on their own
in terms of curriculum, though they can borrow from curricula intended for
institutional schools. Most of the boys are tutored either individually or
in groups (and Baltimore is a good city to find qualified tutors for
limudei kodesh). Even if one has a "yeshivish" background, it would be
hard for a father to handle the gemarra part of the boys' traditional
curriculum, so by fifth grade tutors would be almost mandatory unless
there is a stay-at-home parent with sufficient background to learn
gemarra. A mother with a good "seminary" (post-secondary) background would
probably handle boys' to middle school, and girls through high school, but
the typically large family size is an added complication. Once one has a
group tutorial, what you have de facto is a small heder or yeshiva
(depending on grade level), which means that many traditional Jewish home
schoolers end up being part time home schoolers, which is actually very
traditional in the Jewish community. Secular subjects pose additional
challenges since the way many day schools teach a non-Jewish perspective
on secular studies while indicating to students to take it with a grain of
salt just won't work in a home school.
- Regarding the question about Jewish homeschooling, we are also a
homeschooling family and would be glad to learn of any appropriate list
servs.
My children are 7.5 and 5. We begin our day with the Shema and an
abbreviated morning service followed by a "morning meeting" at
breakfast to discuss our plan for the day. Ours is more of an
"unschool" approach than a school at home, so I don't record how much
time we actually spend on various subjects, but a substantial part of
our schedule revolves around Jewish content. We study Hebrew together
(I'm just learning myself and so only a few steps ahead of the
7-year-old at the moment -- we may soon get a tutor). Both children
are creating illustrated prayerbooks in which they add various prayers
as we study them. We study the portion for the week on Shabbat eve and
sometimes other times during the week as well.
We also rely pretty heavily on the Jewish calendar for our secular
material -- e.g., using Sukkot to introduce colonial times.
I've considered sending the children to Hebrew school, even if they
continue to homeschool for "academics," but I haven't found one that fits.
As another poster mentioned, a tutor or an informal heder seems
likely as the children get older. (For what it's worth, our local Jewish
Bookstore has been very interested in and supportive of the homeschooling
idea, helping me find the best texts for our unusual situation, etc.)
I'm afraid I must admit ignorance, since I don't know what "limudei"
means, but I hope I've answered the query somewhat.
The original poster or any other homeschooler is welcome to contact me
directly --or in this group. I'd love to hear from other Jewish
homeschoolers.
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