I have decided it is time to restart my daily (or almost daily) attempts at disseminating my ideas to those of you out there who might even pretend to care slightly about one person's views. The last topic I began discussing on this blog was prayer. To continue with the discussion, I would like to turn my attention to an issue which all educators have trouble handling. How do I, the teacher, convey to my students the love or appreciation for something? In this case, let us analyze how one person can convey the meaningfulness of prayer to a student.
The first issue one must face in a school where prayer (תפילה) is mandatory is the problem of discipline. Instead of the teacher being able to properly concentrate on his/her praying, the educator needs to make sure the students aren't misbehaving. Notice that I do not say the educator needs to force the student to pray. Being forceful very often will lead to resentment. I am not saying that a more "stiff-necked" approach is not necessary. However, the educator needs to recognize when tough love will work and when sensitivity will work.
The problem is that once the teacher needs to discipline the students, their prayer becomes uninspired, and the student knows it. Students are perceptive to sincerity in their teachers. Therefore, the question is, how can educators promote the positives of prayer in an environment outside the mandatory prayer? How can educators convey their own personal experiences in prayer? Should educators attempt to convey the experience, for often the powerful experiences felt during prayer are too difficult to explain in words?
One potential solution might be to spend time, maybe once a week, discussing the structure and meaning behind the various parts of the prayer service with our students. One could argue that this is done in elementary school, so why repeat it in the student's high school education. However, just like any other subject that we teach over and over again, the understanding of prayer needs to grow over the course of time. A high school student's understanding of the subject will need to be more complex than an elementary school student. Therefore, devoting time in the classroom to providing practical advice on what prayer is about, through the structure of the text, might be a method that will foster a more meaningful, spiritual, prayer experience for the students, and through them, ourselves.
The first issue one must face in a school where prayer (תפילה) is mandatory is the problem of discipline. Instead of the teacher being able to properly concentrate on his/her praying, the educator needs to make sure the students aren't misbehaving. Notice that I do not say the educator needs to force the student to pray. Being forceful very often will lead to resentment. I am not saying that a more "stiff-necked" approach is not necessary. However, the educator needs to recognize when tough love will work and when sensitivity will work.
The problem is that once the teacher needs to discipline the students, their prayer becomes uninspired, and the student knows it. Students are perceptive to sincerity in their teachers. Therefore, the question is, how can educators promote the positives of prayer in an environment outside the mandatory prayer? How can educators convey their own personal experiences in prayer? Should educators attempt to convey the experience, for often the powerful experiences felt during prayer are too difficult to explain in words?
One potential solution might be to spend time, maybe once a week, discussing the structure and meaning behind the various parts of the prayer service with our students. One could argue that this is done in elementary school, so why repeat it in the student's high school education. However, just like any other subject that we teach over and over again, the understanding of prayer needs to grow over the course of time. A high school student's understanding of the subject will need to be more complex than an elementary school student. Therefore, devoting time in the classroom to providing practical advice on what prayer is about, through the structure of the text, might be a method that will foster a more meaningful, spiritual, prayer experience for the students, and through them, ourselves.
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