Op-Ed: Is Rick Lavoie Really the Issue?
Pashkevilim against education guru Rick Lavoie were put out in Crown Heights shuls, prompting a heated debate. Yehuda Adelist wrote a response.
A workshop presented by the internationally renowned author and award-winning motivational speaker Rick Lavoie will be given Sunday, March 27, between 2 and 4 PM.
Entitled ‘The Motivation Breakthrough – Six Secrets to Turning On the Tuned-Out Child’, it is geared specifically for teachers and mechanchim. Rabbi Shea Hecht will be introducing him.
The workshop is organized by Nechama’s Closet, a 13 year-old organization that helps young brides and married women with clothing and more, and is part of their annual Chinese Auction.
It will take place at Campus Chomesh, 470 Lefferts Avenue in Brooklyn. Cost for the 2 hour workshop is $25 (Receive a free $10 ticket for use at the auction).
In response to a pashkevil handed out in Crown Heights shuls before Shabbos, Yehuda Adelist, a resident who hold a Master of Arts (MA) degree in Special Education, sent CrownHeights.info the following Op-Ed:
Crown Heights and Special Education
I write the following Op-Ed in response to the heated discussion that took place in many shuls this past shabbos. This was in reaction to a letter that was put out regarding the upcoming event with a renowned non-jewish speaker on issues related to special education.
The letter was strongly opposed to an outsider (no matter how professional) coming in to our community and lecturing to us on issues related to chinuch when we have our own torah based experts that can lecture to us from torah sources.
As a person who has worked in remediation with boys in Crown Heights in most of the boys’ schools for 7 years and has earnt a master’s degree in special education, I would like to give some insight on the issue.
I do not take a side whether it is good to go to this event or whether it is not. The content of the above mentioned letter does have some valid points, however, I challenge the people that published this letter to go and organize a similar forum to help the children in our community that sit in the classrooms of our schools that are failing due to issues of special education. They can do it with frum chassidisher speakers. It is easy to put down a peulah that is being done claiming that we have our own experts. If this is the case then go and do it!
Many of our youth grow up and are not what we would call successful products of our system. For some, their yiddishkeit is just a little bit watered down, others go off the derech completely. While there may be a variety of reasons why someone goes off the derech, it usually doesn’t begin at age 17. It may become noticeable by age 17 but it actually begins from much younger. Experiencing failure in school is a big factor.
WE HAVE A FIRE BURNING RIGHT HERE IN OUR COMMUNITY. There are many children sitting in the classrooms of our community that have certain weaknesses that make succeeding in school a big challenge. School related disabilities don’t just exist in public schools, they exist in our schools too! I am not blaming the schools. These children bring these challenges to school, the schools do not create them.
There are unfortunately many of our students that have reading disabilities. Reading is a prerequisite for most learning that we teach in school from Pre 1A until Zal. Imagine what it’s like for a child that just can’t crack the code who has to sit following along a text from 9 until 4 day in day out for years on end. What would we do if we had to stare at a page of Chinese for the next 12 years!
Children with high functioning autism (aka Aspergers) also attend our schools. They are the children that maybe just can’t get along with anyone, maybe they aren’t developing any friendships (they might not even be interested in making friends), or are maybe acting aggressive 24/7. They might look happy and then a short while later hit their friend because they didn’t like what the school cook served for lunch.
Children with processing difficulties are also a common occurrence. This is the child that sits in class apparently staring into outer space. He needs the Rebbe to repeat each question 3 times to process the question before he can remind himself of the answer.
Then there are the children that have been through trauma. It may be abuse, it may be divorced parents, or loss of a loved one G-d forbid (or something else). These children act out so often they just aren’t participating in class adequately.
We could elaborate in the many other school related disabilities. The point is we can be in denial and claim that this is all a myth invented by the goyim or we can try and help these children and acknowledge the reality that this is very prevalent. We are not just talking about a handful of children who are anyways in a separate program. We are talking about an estimated 1 in 5 and perhaps more.
I ask these educators who distributed this letter this past shabbos, how would you like to be in their shoes? How would you like your own children or grandchildren to be in their shoes? Would you want our mechanchim becoming educated to be better equipped to handle these children or would you want someone to bar these issues from being spoken about? Maybe we should or maybe we shouldn’t need to get a goy to come and speak. However, if we’re not going to listen to an outsider, then at least organize something similar with our own.
Last year, I asked a certain individual who was organizing workshops for educators if any of those workshops would be for issues related to special education. I stressed the importance to him that many of our top educators come across these children in their classrooms and feel helpless how to deal with them. They would be very grateful to become educated on such topics. His response was, “We have other priorities, we are dealing mainly with issues such as standards”. Every rebbe and principal knows that the amount of children that have hardships that make them struggle can sometimes be half the class or more. These children are not part of our priority!? Unfortunately, the attitude in our community has to change. When I saw the advertisements for this speaker, and I heard that all the schools were sending their mechanchim, I thought, “Wow! The schools are really opening themselves to learn more about the subject.” Then someone had to try and knock it down.
Having watched as few of his videos as part of my course, I agree that not everything he says will be from Har Sinai. To say we should never ever punish children is not really in line with our chinuch. Chesed has to be greater than gevurah, but a child has to see some sort of a consequence after committing something wrong. Nevertheless he has many valid points and knows how to bring them out very well. Contrary to the assertations mentioned in the circulated on Shabbos he is not a missionary and does not preach his bible. If he quted the bible in one of his veideos it was to a Christian crowd. When he spoke to the Jewish community in New Jersey two years ago, he did not preach his bible.
Those that do attend should know that not everything he says will be in line with our Torah as he is a goy and we should pay careful attention to filter what he says. Those that are not attending for the reasons mentioned above, should try to find a replacement from a good torah source to become educated on the school related challenges that many of our children have on a daily basis in our schools.
Yehuda Adelist M.A Sped
ceo
this speaker is not teaching us about Torah, he’s teaching outlooks in education which can benefit our children. He is not teaching religion at all, he is teaching education and not in a religious way. What is the problem with this, remind me?
ceo
this speaker is not teaching us about Torah, he’s teaching outlooks in education which can benefit our children. He is not teaching religion at all, he is teaching education and not in a religious way. What is the problem with this, remind me?
Standards and Control
outlooks on anything besides what comes from a select group of people in our various communities are treated as treif. their interest is not your kids, but maintaining a distance between you and them, they are the same people who tell you to make sacrifices so they don’t have too, the same people that tell you don’t worry, eventually you will understand, meanwhile for their friends and family issues are addressed immmediately, they want you in the dark, control is power, that is what they are holding on to, in this dark world of golus
About Time!
I’d rather learn about special education & what’s needed to address these serious issues from a bible-thumping religious non-Jewish expert that the lousy, hateful, unprofessional moronic Rebbes my son had in Yeshiva. HE knows what’s talking about…these “teachers” (HAH!) have no clue. All the workshops that Rabbi Lustig travels to (I wish I had his job) means gornisht if the teachers still emotionally abuse academically weaker students.
Yid
If you want to wage a battle, here are worthier causes:
1. Rushing and cheapening of our davening
2. Using and even bringing cell phones to shul
3. Talking during kaddish, krias haTorah and davening in general
4. Learning or reciting Tacahnun during chazaras hashas
5. Using unfiltered internet in our homes
6. Bitul zman surfing the internet
7. Lack of iyun in learning chitas
and the list goes on
cocoaman
oichen vay if we had to rely on only frum doctors,surgeons, dieticians,psychologists, psychiatrists.
like everything, when in doubt get a second opinion.
I think a little credit should be given to the teachers and mechanchim of our mosdos.do u think they will swallow everything without filtering.
if mosdos hired them, THEY know who they hired and what is best for them.
if even one learning disabled child is helped thru this workshop and thus he is kept on the derech dayenu!
qt
if you needed surgery. you would pick the best surgeon that specialized in your type of surgery. I doubt that you would ask his views on kashrus or tznius, but rather how many of this type of surgery he did, with what success rate.
Rick LaVoie is a master at what he does as well as parenthetically being one of the most moral people I know. I cannot say that for many frum yidden I know. Rick is a brilliant man who can help us. World famous, he is coming here for a minimal fee, bc he cares about kids and their struggles and he holds the keys to fixing things. Arguments like the ones in shul are the reason CH lags FAR FAR behind the rest of the frum world in chinuch and is considered a joke. It is also the reason our children are disgusted with our “frumkeit” bc it basically consists of dissing outside others and each other. Wake up CH! Our children are off the derek, not from outside influences but from the example of constant shinas chinam we set.
HaGanenet
The interesting question is: From where comes the notion that all children must maintain the same chinuch path?
The sad answer is: The secular world.
Their solution is to lower the standards for everyone.
BH we do not have that. We try to have all follow a similar system.
It is the underlying assumption that is a major factor in the unsustainable level of cost-increase in chinuch today.
There was a time (and place) when a bermitzvah bochur (and younger) left the cheder and went out to help in the harvest, etc. (tailor, shoemaker…)
We attempt to maintain a system from Aleph-Beis to Chuppah. At times it reaches a level of misguided intention, almost as ridiculous as teaching boys how to be nursing mothers. It is a goal just not suited to that kid.
Yes there are children who need special education. It should be based on an entirely different goal, resulting in a different system. Why should it need high cost professionals? Self esteem and success can be generated by a caring, if ignorant, teacher-guide. The issue is “What is the goal?”
Then of curse there is the issue of the gifted child. No amount of professional intervention will have deep thinker spend a lifetime waiting, working, singing, and slogan mouthing, about The Return.
Chassidus of the Baal Shem has the answer for the first type child; Chabad has the answer for the second.
But where is the Chabad in Lubavitch today?
Anonymous
QT – Bravo! Well said.
st
Agree with QT. Very well said. Wake up everyone and start to realize that the communities children are suffering, the education system needsto start to listen, it has and does not work the way it has been done untill now. change is good.
advocate for children
I teach children with special needs. I am Jewish. My students are not. Special needs are special needs. We must become educated and sensitive to the fact that healthy growth and awareness has emerged over the years in the field of teaching and learning. Many students can reach more of their potential with our earnest study of these historical milestones. There are times when some of us must come out of a state of denial or defensiveness and come into a desire to offer our children ways to learn WITHIN our particular school choices. These are not religious issues per se. One can absolutely adhere to any and every spiritual tenet in ANY religion and at the same time become educated in ways to reach a myriad of differences in the individual needs of a given student. I can not imagine that the Rebbe would not support such a notion. Afterall, he was constantly learning and constantly up on current themes. Perhaps the community can seek out Jewish experts in the field of special education. In the meantime, this circumstance seems to have brought out a very crucial subject. It doesn’t have to be an either-or situation….i.e. Mr. Lavoie OR the rabbi who abused his student by having little knowledge or sensitivity of child development or the psychology of learning. Perhaps one could give it some thought….for the children.
Not true
You lump together failing in school and becoming more modern. It is not so. There are plenty of brilliant kids who become more modern and plenty of, shall we say, kids with low IQ levels, who sit in 770 all day.
mother
where do you think the frum “experts” get their chinuch info from? of course from the university “experts”!
we are able to filter out the questionable on our own just like they can!!!
sick of the system
Sadly, the teachers and principals that really need to be attending this lecture probably will not attend. They will continue to damage our children and will take advice from noone.
If they do attend, they’ll likely walk away with the “ach he’s a goy so what does he know” attitude.
Just a reminder
The Rebbe used to point out the lesson which we learn from the 4 sons of the seder is that there is not one size fits all in chinuch. There are 4 sons and each one is different than the other. The parent or teacher must address each one on the level that they are on.
28 years in chinuch
to ganenet,
you say that children with special needs do not need high cost special instruction. that a caring although perhaps ignorant teacher can have succes. wow,what wishful and dangerous thinking.many children in our communities neverhave their special education needs met because of your type of reasoning.
oh,dear....
To “Not True”…. I think I may have been misunderstood. I was not “lumping together failing with modern” . I was saying that sometimes there needs to be a conscious effort to find ways to help all children learn . IQ doesn’t relate to what I am referring to. Brilliance is not what I am referring to. I am referring to the fact that research continues to offer better ways to reach children who might not learn in a very traditional way. Did you know that there are ways to teach children that facilitate their learning many concepts that otherwise would have slipped right by them? Just because a child does poorly by conventional standards, doesn’t mean they would do so poorly with the appropriate teaching style, method, etc. Some children ARE brilliant, but they learn differently from the next brilliant child. The problem is, the conventional learner is recognized in a positive way. Usually the student with a different way of succeeding doesn’t get the chance to show his/her brilliance, because some educators are NOT up on these issues. There are geniuses in our midst who drop out of school, have low self esteem, show signs of depression, on and on. It’s not about modern vs. ANYTHING! It’s about increased knowledge within the context of understanding the complexities of teaching and learning. New or increased knowledge is worth researching, at least, when it comes to our children’s well being.
Reading is a HUGE challenge
I wasted my time trying a bunch of tutors and programs to get my kid to read. You name it, I tried it. The Master-Mind program was the only one that actually made a difference. They really know what they’re doing. I had such Nachas finally hearing my son read his Bar-Mitzvah Maamar so smoothly and beautifully.
It’s no joke. Lots of kids, and even Bochurim, have such a hard time reading.
be responsible
Responsible parents ,no one is forcing you to send your kids to horrible teachers and principals , if you believe they are ruining your kids. How can you send them ? Veshenontom levonecha is your mitzva. Home schooling is legal. Hire a melamid you trust or tech them yourself . What type of parent knowingly send their child every day to be taught by someone. They think is awful?
HaGanenet - please explain
Please explain in clear concise, understandable langauge what you are trying to say. What you wrote is at best contradictory, at worst gibberish.
And you are a teacher!
Trying to traucht gut
I read your article with interest because I have special needs children. I have a chld with processing issues and I have children with PDD. I still would prefer to hear a frum speaker. Yes, I could filter out, but why should I have to when I live in Crown Heights?
I do wish Nechama’s Closet a lot of success with their auction, but I’m not really interested in going.
To #19, homeschooling is a drastic option. A less drastic option for a child with special needs or borderline special needs, which can be sometimes harder to deal with, is to send the child to school outside of Crown Heights. We’ve done it with great success.
My take on our chinuch system is that it’s extremely over-crowded, and if you don’t fit the cookie cutter, it’s getting easier and easier to slip through the cracks, and become “at risk”, ch”v, at as young as 6 years old. A lot of problems would be solved if we can have a maximum of 15 children in a classroom.
The time is ripe...
I am just very happy that this issue has become an opened forum! The time seems to be ripe, and the seeds are developing into buds, the buds will be blossoming into flowers, and so on….At some point in time, more than one child will be a bit more blessed with the opportunity to feel good about her/himself and the learning opportunities therein. Maybe some folks who do not intend to investigate researched information in the realm of teaching-learning-and-the-child have been overlooked themselves! Maybe they were not encouraged to think creatively or be open to learning new ways. Part of a good education, I believe, is the notion of having opportunities to investigate and continue learning. If I’m correct, doesn’t Judaism encourage this notion? I’m not “frum”, but I’ve always respected the wise counsel I have read about from the Rebbe and others similarly inclined. Am I off base here?
Very Concerned
I only hope that those leaders in the educational system within chabad do take a sincere and open-minded look at this very crucial issue. There are adults in this very community who exhibit symptoms resulting from not having their learning style needs met. Because of ignorance in this area of learning, these men and women have been miseducated; as a result ,many times vindictive, or jealous, or dishonest, or seemingly insensitive actions are exhibited. At what expense do the “educators” hold on to ways that do not work for all? It’s not only WHAT you teach, it’s HOW you teach. This is a crucial issue, perhaps more relevant and vast in scope than the “educators” can ever dream of. PLEASE pursue this with sensitivity and intelligence.