Pigeon-holed

In our Sodom-like society, a child is incessantly tested, labeled, ranked, and pigeon-holed since the time he or she first enters school. Instead of school being a place to learn the real wisdom that will help him in life, the child gets the message that life is all about winning or losing, being the best or the worst, passing or failing.

Modern industrial cultures hurt their children with this one-size fits all pass / fail mentality. From an early age we are conditioned to be very nervous about being a winner and not a loser. Whether its sports, music or academics, kids really hate being tested even the kids that do well on tests resent the oppressive emphasis that is put on their having to always perform. The teacher says: “Don’t forget – tomorrow is the big test” and everybody goes into a panic. Some kids give up and others study all night but either way there is damage being done to those children.

Children regardless of their natural abilities should never be graded except on one thing and that is their level of effort. How long can a child go on when he is putting all his effort into studying and still gets back a paper with a big red “F” on top. Can you imagine a more crushing  insult to a child’s confidence and motivation. Such a child feels that now it’s more likely that he is going to get more and more “F’s.” He starts to worry that he won’t graduate with his friends, that he’ll be left back. A child who is left back feels like a leper. There is no greater humiliation for him than seeing all his friends moving up to the next grade and he isn’t. Sometimes these kids want to run away but where are they going to go? They must remain there in their communities and undergo the public shame. Sometimes these kids want to throw themselves out of a window. Sometimes they do. G-d have Mercy!

Let’s say a 6th grade child is having trouble with mathematics. It could be that he needs his teacher to just help him see the connection between a few ideas and it will un-block him from the trouble he was having.  Maybe all he needed was some one-on-one attention from his teacher for 10 minutes a day during her lunch break.  He’s just as bright as most of the class, he’s just having trouble concentrating. Instead his teacher decides that since he is not on a 6th grade level in math that she will send him across the hall to sit with the 5th graders during the daily math lesson until he ‘gets it.’ Instead of giving him the individualized help he needed, his teacher used that time to polish her nails and look at her I-phone. The result was that this boy was publicly humiliated for a year.  He was sent into his younger brother’s class everyday for a year! Every single time he walked into that classroom he felt 30 sets of eyes staring at him as if to say ‘what in the world is wrong with you. You must be stupidest kid in the 6th grade!’ Each time he slivered into the room and turned as red as a beet he felt another part of himself dying. Although he ultimately went to college, he is still affected by this trauma today.

Our very backward culture puts such pressure on succeeding and winning at all costs.  Our children are feeling measured and are measuring  their own value by how high they score on national exams, where they get accepted to college, and how much money they can make. Many people feel they have no choice except to cheat on their tests and spare themselves the biting shame of ‘failure.’

In a culture where people are made to feel they must hide from their ‘inadequacies and limitations’ in order to spare themselves the shame, mockery and self-persecution that comes from perceived ‘failure’ the actual truth as taught by our sages almost seems absurd to them, yet without the truth what chance do they have for a happier and more fulfilling life?

Rebbe Nachman of Breslev says that in order to be really happy even a genius most look upon his areas of ‘limitation’ with acceptance, and only by embracing his ‘defects’ can a person grow emotionally and spiritually.  In fact, Rebbe Nachman says that by accepting our limitations we can achieve more than we can by ignoring them, resenting them, hiding from them and doing only what comes easy to us.

So what, you may not be a wiz at computer technology, or languages, or maybe you can’t sing on tune or dance at parties like Fred Astaire. It’s a big mistake to not do these things anyway and get as much satisfaction from whatever degree of proficiency you have in them.

For now we must live in the world that we’re in, but at the same time we can teach ourselves and our children the right attitude to take about all this ‘testing.’ That way we won’t be intimated by the only tests that matter which are from Hashem.

You’re lucky children can grow up in a home where they get a real education.

What’s that?

It’s living in a family where they see their parents and older siblings turning to Hashem for everything all day long. It’s where they are educated from the time they can speak and understand that everything comes from Hashem and if Hashem decides to make somebody mentally slower than average, or poor, or less attractive, or less agile than his friends then it’s really okay and that person is just as valuable as all the unhappy genius’ that are walking the earth.  Just do your best to teach your children that their worth has absolutely nothing to do with the societal tests than they must endure.

The real tests in life are good for us. There is no passing or failing grade. There are endless chances to succeed and each ‘failure’ only better prepares us for the possible pitfalls ahead. Hashem’s  ‘tests’ may be a time of temporary disequilibrium, a time when our usual homeostasis is interrupted but a Divine test offers a great opportunity. If we turn to Hashem, the Torah, and the advice of our sages during these times, ultimately we are all guaranteed that Hashem will lift us up and make us truly successful.