When the boys get into the secular subjects they also face this problem, except in general boys care much less about grades than girls.

I do want to take this opportunity to mention the Goldhar Learning System which provides one solution to the rote learning challenge. http://www.goldhar.com

One of the greatest refutations of the Theory of Evolution is the indescribable complexity of organic life, which is far to complex to have evolved through chance.

1) Rote learning is almost never appropriate
2) Rote learning is appropriate for learning basic facts

or something else.

When it comes to test taking, I compare the manner in which each of them study. The girls stay up hours cramming the knowledge into their brains, only to forget most of the information after the test is over. Often, they do not even understand what they are spitting back in any larger context. They just memorize what they needto in order to pass their tests.

OTOH, my boys barely need to study for a gemorah test-or a even a chumash test. They review the material, of course, but there is no cramming because they understand the material. They can translate the words – not because of intensive memorization, but because of the method of learning in yeshivos. the Rebbe teaches, and reviews, and learns more, and reviews the basics, and builds on the basics, while not neglecting them so that the boys have their knowledge “intheir bones”. That is the difference between analytical and rote memorization.

I feel sorry for my girls – after all the pressure and hard work, they are left with a lot less knowledge in the long run.

History will be taught in Jewish schools as well as in public ones. The history teachers will have a college education from “the system.” All history teachers should cover the curriculum as instructed by their schools. Regardless of their biases, they have to do that.

Within secular and religious studies, there are varied opinions. An example in secular history is conflicting analyses, within rigorous academic circles, of a cause and effect relationship between events. If the curriculum includes one opinion, the teacher MUST teach that, and must test on that. The other opinions, although from authentic sources, can be mentioned in the appropriate context and circumstances. If a teacher does not follow school regulations, he or she should be disciplined.

Within religious studies, an example might be the permissible ways and circumstances under which we can photograph a celestial body (That happens to be the day’s topic in the Daily Halachah Discussion by Rabbi Doniel Yehuda Neustadt). The head of a school might mandate a certain opinion that teachers MUST teach and must test. The other opinions, although from authentic sources, can be mentioned in the appropriate context and circumstances. If a teacher does not follow school regulations, he or she should be disciplined.

The two paragraphs are intentionally redundant. The method of supervision of professional teachers should not vary widely, whether the subject is secular history, Torah studies, industrial arts or any other area.

A professional teacher will be loyal to the school that hires him, regardless of where he or she received a degree/s’michah (ordination) or other credentials.

I feel that intelligent young men and women can be informed by a teacher that there are other opinions out there. As the student moves on to further study, he or she can analyze these various opinions with advanced sources or consultation with authorities on the matter.

Thus we are left with our children getting, hopefully, a good education, based on older methodology.

While I’m impressed with my son’s ability to memorize Mishnayos and Rashis (along with tons of information about sports figures…I have never followed sports, so it’s all Greek to me), I’m thankful that his school works on Middos Tovos as well. Holding a door open for someone and knowing to say “Thank you” are just as impressive to me (and maybe more) than Mishnayos al peh.

For the Limudei Kodesh, it is more complex because the Mishna does provide a methodology of knowing Chumash, Mishna and then Gemora, but we have “innovated” away from this approach. Although I put “innovated” in scare quotes, I do not question these innovations by our leaders, only whether they are currently globally applicable. But reading the Ramchal at the beginning of Derech Hashem, I think that even when teach Chumash and Mishna it needs to be taught in context and not through rote-memorization.

In terms of which should come first analytical or technical skills, many if not most schools combined them and focus more on analytical in the classroom. This is probably because the technical skills take repetition and doing this in the classroom is not an effective use of the time. In addition repetition is boring and at least in the analytical realm we have the potential of achieving the difficult task of holding most of the classes attention.

At the end of the day, knowing facts is obviously important, but rote-memorization is the worst possible teaching tool for everyone, even those of us with great memories, in my opinion.

My oldest child (4th grade boy) currently gets postive reinforcement for memorizing Mishnayos from his rebbe.

As a BT (who after graduating public hs attended a post-hs yeshiva in Israel, as well as YU) I totally see where Mark is coming from.
I still am constantly trying to memorize vocab and “root words” in hopes of “catching up”.

As a parent, I see that for my kids who are in a fantastic day school, it’s not, as Mark put it, memorizing “all the necessary vocabulary”, because the students don’t know what is considered nescessary. They simply are relying on their teachers to instruct them in what they need to know in order to excell in their learning.

I think that having the tools (in this case vocab) is needed before working on the analyical skills. If the system is focusing on memorizing (no matter if it is Hewbrew or history facts) at the elementary school age, then hopefully the analyical skills will be a natural growth.

I’m reporting about reality, not about a need for a litmus test. My message is that, under current circumstances, elementary school history instruction should stick to established facts, even some necessary but boring ones, and not promote particular theories and opinions.

I’m not as impressed as you are by the intentions of teachers; if they’ve come out of the system they will typically share its biases.

Jewish history is something else; it should be taught in Jewish schools in a way that is consistent with our Mesorah, by teachers committed to the Mesorah.

Is the answer to train some or all of them in the halls of right-wing academia? Should school systems be required to have a specific distribution of teachers from the northeastern universities along with the conservative schools, such as the “Bible” colleges frequented by evangelicals? Teachers could be hired from those schools, too. Perhaps some of those teachers would travel to take jobs in northeastern cities and suburbs, the same way that Ivy League or CUNY or Bible college graduates might travel to Appalachia or Africa or Afghanistan to teach.

I think that over the years, whether our nation’s political base or the the general outlook of academia has been conservative, liberal or center, most teachers have gone to work to do their job: to teach what’s on the syllabus. Rather than establishing quotas for hiring, or administering political litmus tests, we need to have rules and guidelines in our schools (public AND Jewish) to make sure that teachers stay on task.

As I mentioned in my post (#41)to(http://www.beyondbt.com/2009/10/28/dealing-with-a-rebbes-comments-about-dinosaurs/

“The more experienced and qualified the teacher, the more he or she should be given leeway to express his or her own opinion to OLDER students. These opinions should be accompanied by a qualification that it may differ from the school’s “official position.””

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Regarding the need to memorize facts: I am currently learning Mishnah Nedarim (Tractate re:Vows). I certainly can’t remember all of the particular situations, but after having gone through many scenarios in the tractate, I can sometimes anticipate, or after the fact understand why a ruling goes a certain way.

We recite each morning in “Rabbi Yishmael Says”: 8: “Anything that was included in a general statement, but was then singled out from the general statement in order to teach something, was not singled out to teach only about itself, but to apply its teaching to the entire generality.” (Artscroll Hebrew-English Ashkenaz siddur, page 51)

We can apply this concept to all types of study. For example, there are 50 states, and each has a capital. The capital of Pennsylvania is Harrisburg, the capital of New York is Albany, etc. By going through this list of cities and their role in a state, it is reinforced that America has 50 states, each with its own seat of government.