The way our ancestors learnt…
The other day I met an 8th grade Rebbe, and we started speaking. When he asked me what I do, I told him. I am an Effective Learning Specialist, for 7th , 8th grade, through high school. So he asked me what my method is based off of. I told him that parts of the method are based off of the method of Evelyn Wood, CBT, Body Language, Coaching, NLP, and experience. He said to me, that the Chazon Ish said that the best method for reading is what they teach in the Cheder, Kametz Alef, Ah. In other words… We do not need new methods.
I told him, you are right. The funny things is, that the method of Evelyn Wood is to read with a moving finger. This is the next thing they teach you in Cheder, after Kametz Alef, Uh. The problem is, when people forget what they were taught in first grade. After all, everything we need to learn for life, we learnt in kindergarten.
He asked me, So, are you going to tell the kid to read with his finger? That is something I tell them everyday and it is coming out of their ears! They don’t listen to me, no matter how many times I tell them, finger on the place!
I replied, that the word Education, comes from the word Edu, which is to extract. The word Melamed, literally does not mean to teach. It means to cause another to learn. To be a great melamed, is to cause them to learn, not to preach, tell, or relay information, but to get them involved, to ask them questions that they are ready to work on answering. To cause them to learn, and to extract the information from them. To get them to read with their finger, put up pictures in the classroom of famous Torah giants, that show how when they learn, they learn with their finger on the place. Then ask them, how did R Ovadia, R’ Elyashiv, learn different, than the way you are learning now, that brought them different results?
