Last week, I went to visit my parents and walked into my childhood bedroom. I was nostalgic as I opened some drawers still full of my childhood treasures.
And there I found the book.
It was not any book; it was - as I remember - my absolute favorite book of my childhood. “The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins.” I opened it up carefully. Its drawings brought the whole story back to me. I was a child once again. And I couldn't wait to read this book to my own children.
So, that Friday evening, after I lit the Shabbos candles, I cuddled with my son. I was so excited to read the story to him. I knew my memories were not going to disappoint me. It was a long book; took me over twenty minutes to read. But I was invested. And, by the faraway look in my son's eyes, I knew he was too.
Finally, we finished. We went downstairs to join my husband and my guests who were waiting patiently at the Shabbos table. I apologized for my delay. "But," I explained to them, "it was for a very good reason. I was reading, for the first time as an adult, my absolute favorite book from my childhood."
I started to read it to them. Again, I really got into it. And, from the look in my guests' eyes, I think that they, too, felt the wonder in that story.
Suddenly a thought occurred to me. Dr. Seuss, the author, managed to integrate so many skills, so many values, so much information into that story, without ever compromising on the fantastic.... There was counting; there was causality. There was alliteration; there was assonance. The vocabulary was sophisticated, yet I never felt compelled to replace with simpler words. Laced into the story were values and lessons. Yet, it never seemed contrived. The story never seemed try-hard or artificial. Even though, in this story, Dr. Seuss embedded so many lessons, skills, and information, it was all so seamlessly woven.
To me, that is the definition of authentic education. Moreover, that is the definition of authentic living: Integration. Wholeness. Rather than seeing skills and knowledge, values and behaviors, home and school, splintered into compartments - math divorced from language, separated from motor skills, unrelated to social and emotional development - we need to realize that each is but a detail of the bigger picture: The development of the whole child.
We treat education like the six blind men and the elephant. So, when we are in the shiny tusk mode, we cannot even fathom that there is a fluffy tail...that is one and the same as the leathery skin...which is connected to the source of the fanning ears...which is the very same body as the shiny tusk. Keeping the whole 'elephant' in mind, seems, well, too big to handle.
Over the last few years, we at Chabad (with the guidance of Dr. Naama Zoran) have been on an intense journey towards the best practices in education. We found our answer in the concept of Integration.
We spent a long time exploring the vertical components in the development of a child, and the horizontal aspects. But, most importantly, how each component interfaces with the other. Simultaneously. Consistently. Dynamically.
We studied the child's social and emotional development, and its inextricable tie into the intellectual and motor growth. We studied the affects of space, of time, on the child.
We discovered how our endeavor is to create a disposition for life-long learning. And, how much deeper that is to merely collecting information.
We came to realize how infinitely competent the child is, and by way of that, came to appreciate our own competence.
We saw how we must be as intentional in what we choose not to teach as in what we choose to teach.
We saw the absolute necessity to provide transparency to our learners, and to their parents. And how that transparency scaffolds the growth of a seemingly unrelated population, people with no connection to our preschool. They just happen to walk the halls of our building.
We realized that documentation is a great strategy in accomplishing all this, but – moreover - we saw how documentation is a Value. In Chassidic lingo, documentation is Cheshbon Hanefesh, the tool for self-analysis and growth.
And, by studying each of the above, we realized how they were really all just different perspectives of the same totality, authentic living. In our school, we have begun to taste that Oneness. We have begun to taste, what is referred to in the famous Shmah prayer, the "Echad".
