Over the course of my 20-plus years in Jewish educational spaces, I have championed the idea that parents are their children’s most important and impactful Jewish teachers. I created family learning experiences where adults would first learn in parallel to the kids’ program and then families would come together for a joint educational activity. I wrote bulletin articles lifting up the power of parents as role models and teachers. At every opening religious school assembly, I would offer the encouraging message of partnering with parents in the sacred task of their children’s Jewish education.
But I think I got it wrong. What if parents being their children’s teacher isn’t actually the most important role?
To be clear, I’m not saying that parents aren’t important and impactful teachers – they most certainly can and should be. But imploring parents to step into the role of ‘teacher’ might be intimidating to some – How can I teach something I don’t know? Wouldn’t my child be better off learning from those with expertise in content knowledge and from those trained as teachers? A parent only in the role of ‘teacher’ misses out on playing a different, and perhaps even more crucial role.
What if, instead of asking parents to only be their child’s teacher, we flipped the script and empowered parents to be their child’s learning partner? What if learning together created opportunities to bring new dimensions both to the relationship between family members as well as to the Torah being learned?
“What if, instead of asking parents to only be their child’s teacher, we flipped the script and empowered parents to be their child’s learning partner?”
This isn’t only about parents and children, but truly can be any adult and any child in a family. Imagine a world where grandparents and grandchildren together explored unfamiliar Jewish texts with wonder and curiosity, navigating it together with the various wisdoms and perspectives that both bring to the conversation. Envision this as adults connecting with their nieces, nephews, cousins across generations. Picture opportunities for family learning – at home around the Shabbat table, in special programming at a synagogue or community institution – where relationships are strengthened because people are building skills to listen closely not only to the text, but also to one another. This is the power of embracing a pedagogy of family learning, far more multi-dimensional than a model limited to adults teaching children or even children teaching adults.
Since I joined Hadar in October 2021 as the Senior Director of Children and Families, I have been deeply inspired by the work of my Pedagogy of Partnership (PoP) colleagues. PoP’s educational model is centered on relationship-building and harnesses the powerful mode of havruta learning. In this framework, learning is imagined as a triangle, with two points as the two learning partners, and the third point as the text. Often in a classroom setting, this looks like two students and the content/text they are exploring, but the model has wide applicability and the learning partners are not limited to children in a classroom. This educational approach is at the heart of our Children and Families Division, infusing the way text is approached in our resources, the way scaffolding questions are posed, and the way programming is created.
I’ve heard the success stories of this havruta-based model in school settings, but more than experiencing it professionally, I’ve felt the immense power personally. Two examples illustrate different dimensions of this model of a pedagogy of family learning: grandparent-grandchild learning, and parent-child learning.
During the pandemic, my dad and my oldest daughter signed up for Hadar’s very first “Learning with Grandparents” program (I wouldn’t even start working at Hadar until a year later!) and that first experience was so memorable that they looked forward to each and every one of the subsequent dozen programs over the course of two years. The program would begin with opening framing and introduction, and then grandparent-grandchild pairs would split into their own family breakout room to learn together with the guidance of a source sheet. After about 30-35 minutes of havruta time, everyone would head back into the main zoom room for some concluding thoughts. It wasn’t uncommon after the formal program concluded that my daughter would grab my phone and call her grandfather so that they could continue their learning together, or that in the days that followed, my dad would reach out to tell me he was still thinking about something my daughter had offered during their learning. During Pesach, they facilitated a part of our family’s seder based on their learning together, bringing even more family members into the experience of learning with one another. These experiences exemplified a core PoP learning stance – “I have something to learn and I have something to teach.” By engaging in shared Jewish learning as learning partners, they each experienced teaching and learning simultaneously – from and with one another, but also from and with the text. I am proud to say that my father is a rabbi, but I am even more inspired by how he served as a true role model for my daughter about what it means to be a lifelong Jewish learner.
“It wasn’t uncommon after the formal program concluded that my daughter would grab my phone and call her grandfather so that they could continue their learning together”
I also had the privilege of learning parashat hashavuah with my 10-year-old son. While the impetus for this shared learning was our co-hosting two seasons of Hadar’s Torah Time podcast, the experience of learning with him far exceeded either of our expectations. Simply put, learning Torah with my own child has made me a better parent to him. Together, we encountered texts that were at times familiar, but sometimes totally new to us. We noticed together and we wondered together. We learned to listen really carefully to one another, and we found that oftentimes we each brought a different perspective that helped us collectively deepen our understanding both of the text and ourselves. Some weeks our learning felt on fire – buzzing with interesting ideas, interpretations and connections! And some weeks, it felt flat and we, in turn, felt like we had each let the other one down. But those difficult moments also led to some of the most magical connections as afterwards we would process the experience together. The experience of regular Jewish learning offered me the incredible blessing of deeper insight into how my son thinks, and that is something that I wish for all parents and children!
I believe that powerful and impactful learning is inherently a social experience. While some may see education as the process of writing on a blank slate, or filling an empty vessel, that one-directional (and therefore, to my mind, one-dimensional!) version of learning falls short every time – especially when I think about Jewish education. As links in the chain of ongoing tradition, we owe both our ancestors and future generations so much more. When we engage as learning partners, we can explore the world of Jewish learning together, noticing aloud, posing questions, making connections, sharing stories, and celebrating the insights we each bring to the table. May we each merit the opportunity to serve as learning partners within our families and our communities, modeling for others and for ourselves the value of teaching and learning
