My Hasidic Students Need You To Support Enforced Secular Education

By Yitzhak Bronstein
July 11, 2016

As a s a sixth-grade teacher of math and literacy at a Hasidic school in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg, I am extremely disappointed by the silence of mainstream Jewish organizations regarding a secular education bill moving through the New York State Legislature. The bill in question, introduced by Assemblywoman Ellen Jaffee, would enforce a law passed in 1928 that requires private schools to provide an education that is “substantially equivalent” to the instruction provided in public schools.

While some have pointed out legal justifications for remaining silent on the proposed legislation, my day-to-day experiences in the classroom lead me to believe that the status quo is more intolerable and unsustainable than may be perceived. As a matter of conscience, and for the sake of the children involved, the situation calls for a far more vocal response from the Jewish institutional world.

The secular education of my sixth-grade students this year consisted of one hour and 20 minutes at the end of the day, four times a week, dedicated to math and literacy through the federal Title 1 program for low-income children. Needless to say, after a full day of an intense Judaic studies curriculum, little attention remained in their young brains for secular subjects. Problems of focus were exacerbated by the widely shared sentiment that secular subjects represent “tum’ah,” or impurity, and “bittul Torah,” time that could and should be spent learning Torah. These feelings, shared openly by their rabbis and reinforced in various communal contexts, directly undermined my ability to teach in the little time we had together.

Though on the books for decades, the law that Jaffee hopes to see enforced is currently not implemented in Hasidic schools, and that’s an open secret to everyone involved. On days that my students were tired and disinterested in learning, they would bluntly reassure me that my presence was needed only so that the school would meet its obligations to receive state funding, and I shouldn’t be misled into thinking that I actually have to teach.

http://forward.com/opinion/344643/my-hasidic-students-need-you-to-support-enforced-secular-education/

Cross-post from Religion Group.