By Racheli Jian, Senior Arts and Culture Editor and Layout Editor
“Whether you think you can or whether you think you can’t, you’re right.”
These words, spoken by Henry Ford, show one thing: A mindset can change everything. If someone is confident that they’re able to do something, they might fail, but they also have the capabilities to succeed. If someone believes they’re unable, they are stealing that chance from themselves. Our self-beliefs can influence how we behave in social settings, how we motivate ourselves, even in our academic careers.
One of the requirements of the Jewish education major is observing different schools in the areas of New York and New Jersey. It also involves student teaching at one school. I’ve been given the privilege to see various classrooms ranging in hashkafot and skill level. Yet, through my experience, I came to a realization that they all have one commonality – kids today can’t do hard things. Or to rephrase properly, they don’t believe they can do hard things.
A large part of Judaic studies is struggling with the text. No matter how knowledgeable or skilled a person is, there’s always going to be a part of Torah that they will have to have a certain level of ameilut (toiling) when they learn it. This can be anything from reading Rashi script to understanding different rulings on a complicated halachic question. However, students today try to circumvent this process. Instead of grappling with the challenge, they immediately ask the teacher for help, claiming, “I can’t do this.”
This behavior isn’t limited to one school or one age (although I have seen this more in older grades, where the students are more likely to be asked to work independently). This is a widespread phenomenon that even teachers outside of Jewish schools are picking up on. It’s been found that 78% of educators say that current students’ ability to guide their learning independently has declined in the last decade. There are various reasons as to why the abilities of students are drastically changing.
One possibility of this generational change can be due to the fact that for current middle schoolers and high schoolers, a big part of learning how school worked was during COVID-19. The youngest of the demographic would’ve been a first grader during the pandemic and the oldest would’ve been in 8th grade. This range is extremely formative for learning how the classroom operates. 1st grade is the transition from play learning to organized learning, usually with rows of desks and routines. 8th grade is the transition from middle school to high school. Teachers usually take this opportunity to foster students’ creative and critical thinking. However, when these experiences are transferred to a computer, students lose out on the developmental aspects of the classroom.
Another possibility could be social media. Although I’m not so old that I would say “It’s the phones,” I do think there is something to consider when we discuss social media’s effect on children. While the digital age has benefited many people with communication and easier access to information, it has also taken away a fundamental part of growing up: childhood.
Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist and prominent writer on this topic, proposes that social media (along with parents being too overprotective) has robbed kids of the vital aspect of their development known as “play-based childhood.” Instead of having the opportunity to be out in the real world and test limits and their own capabilities, children are left in an artificial world, where everything is pre-programmed and set up for them. This loss of “the chance to explore, test and expand their limits, build close friendships through shared adventure, and learn how to judge risks for themselves,” has left children with an inability to act on their own.
So, what does this mean? Do we give up hope on these kids ever being functional human beings?
In short, the answer is no. There is a way to change the trajectory. Judaic studies are unique in that a wrong or right answer isn’t the only thing that is important. More relevant to the teacher is if the student followed a logical line of reasoning. A hava aminah (literally, “I would have thought”) is more useful to the Talmud because of the opportunity it provides to further understand a concept, not because the hava aminah is necessarily correct.
As an educator, but also as someone who cares about the next generation, it is my responsibility to make sure that students are able to appreciate the journey it takes to get to an answer rather than only valuing the “right” answer.