(c) Apr 18 2001 RashiYomi Inc. MY COLLECTED & INDEXED MAIL JEWISH POSTINGS-Ver #1
Individual Postings 1st appeared(& were copied in html form) on the Email List Mail Jewish

From: rhendel@mcs.drexel.edu (Russell Hendel)
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 1996 22:07:37 -0500
Subject: Gifted Children: Lets Produce Them!

Several postings (e.g. Stanley Weinstein V25 #23) deal with the subject
of how gifted children are and should be dealt with in the Jewish
Education system.  I wholehartedly agree with (1) raising the issue
(2)its importance and with (3) the constructive suggestions that have
come in so far.

I would like to add another dimension to the problem: So far it is
ASSUMED that children are either gifted or not---what I want to suggest
is that we have the CAPACITY to make gifted children and our efforts
should be so focused. In developing this theme I also want to touch on
another serious issue (which deserves a whole (mail jewish ?) discussion
in its own right)-- the place of women in Judaism and their "treatment".

[I'd say that there have been quite a few such issues in the past. Mod.]

Rather than develop the issue halachically or philosophically I will
suffice with 3 stories:

STORY 1: Before the four of us were born my mother was a school teacher.
One day a fellow teacher protested to the principal: "Why is Miss Hendel
always getting the more gifted class?."  "Oh no!", replied the
principal: "The average IQ in her class is the same as in the other
classes..but by the end of the year her class has an IQ increase of
about 20-30 points."

STORY 2: My mother frequently told us at the Shabbos Tisch stories of
how she "made" children gifted. Here is a simple one: "I was teaching
4th grade and I had a student with a 2nd grade reading level. Rather
than classify him as stupid I inquired and found he was interested in
airplanes. So I got him every book in the library I could on airplanes.
By the end of the year his reading level was 8th grade."

STORY 4: I recently had Shabbath dinner by some religious friends who
are sympathetic to Judaic issues on women's rights. The wife was reading
a book by Rebbitzen Blu Greenberg on the subject (which of course was
well written and copious with sources). Eyeing the book in her living
room I in passing commented that none of these books including the good
ones really give the religious side.  When I was asked to defend the
statement I explained that: "... for example, there are no books, TV
shows or magazines whose themes focus on mother heroes who continuously
strive to find new ways to stimulate their infant children and raise
their capacity to interact with the environment.  As an immediate
consequence, there are NO role models of CREATED motherhood--women who
actually created new dimensions of humanity in their children. It is no
wonder that without adequate role models of dynamic creative motherhood,
women are "bored" and seek to gripe about what halachah will and will
not allow them to do.

Wouldn't you like a world, I continued, where you can go over to your
girlfriends and share, not routine simchas and problems, but dynamic
creativity: `Oh did you hear what so and so did with her children...look
how this two year old is now behaving..what a brilliant idea, I must try
it myself.'"

I could go on but hopefully other people like myself who have had
excellent mothers can share their experiences. I conclude with the pithy
but sharp words of a master of language and nuances: Rabbi Samson
Raphael Hirsch: "Why are MOTHER (AyM) and IF (IM) the same word? Quite
simply, because they are the same concept, one in the human sphere and
one in the logical sphere: IF mother THAN child; IF no mother than no
child."

Russell Jay Hendel, Ph.d., ASA, rhendel @ mcs drexel edu