|
OK – let’s start off with a
quiz.
First question. Here’s an S.A.T.
word. What is a “Philtrum”? P-H-I-L-T-R-U-M. (If you want to get into
Harvard you’d better know what a philtrum is.)
Second question. Sports trivia.
Super bowl 45, February 2011. (Just seven months ago). Who was the losing
team? (Oh come on, you call yourself a sports fan?)
Answers will be given sometime in
the next 20 minutes. Stay tuned.
This year, I was honored to serve
on the Jericho Wellness Coalition, a task force composed of school
administrators, teachers, parents, students, and community leaders working
together to promote safety and wellness for children and families within our
community. The coalition focuses on substance abuse and other at-risk
behaviors.
The first issue that the coalition
tackled was student stress in High School and Middle School. We sponsored a
showing of the film “The Race to Nowhere”, which has been screened all across
the country to incredible reviews. The filmmaker, Vicky Abeles, wanted to
address the problems her own 12 year old daughter was having in school, which
led to a diagnosis of a stress-induced illness. The film shows an epidemic of
symptoms – from insomnia, stomach problems, eating disorders, drug use, alcohol
abuse, self-mutilation – and even suicide. We’re talking about kids 12 to 17
years of age.
As the film shows, one cause of these
problems is the incredible pressure that is put on teenagers in school. There
is fierce competition to get into a good college. But in top school districts
like Jericho, there are hundreds of kids whose profile is virtually the same.
Harvard isn’t going to accept 200 kids from Jericho. So students are pressured
to find ways to distinguish themselves from the crowd. Straight A’s won’t hack
it anymore. You need near perfect S.A.T.s, which means taking a course
(costing a lot of money and a good deal of time). You’ve got to take more and
more AP courses (with all the extra work that that entails). And maybe hire a
tutor (more money, more time). And you’ve got to pad your college application
with activities that make you look “well-rounded”: Play a sport, be in the
band, join a club, do community service. And instead of going away to camp for
the summer to have fun and unwind, you’ve got to show how serious you are by
going off to a college to take courses! And, when all else fails, you cheat.
After all, you’ve got to get into a good college, “by any means necessary.”
And if things weren’t hard enough, the competition today is increasingly made
up of Asian students whose parents are first generation Americans (and like Jewish
parents who came to America in the 1920’s push their kids to be
successful.) Imagine growing up with a “Tiger Mom” who demands all A+s, who
requires their child to be a concert violinist, and who won’t allow her
children to play sports or have play dates, or sleep-overs. All schoolwork,
all the time.
The college application process
akin to a Native American rite of passage: They send the young brave out to
kill a bear. If he comes back alive – he’s proven himself strong enough to
survive anything. If he doesn’t make it, the tribe didn’t want a weakling like
him anyway. Each year I watch our Seniors sent out to get into college, as
they take their SAT’s, fill out their applications, and write their essays –
and then I watch them as they wait in terrible fear and anxiety for the
acceptances – and rejections – to come in. And the message is: If you didn’t
get onto a “good school” – then you’re a loser; Your life is basically over.
Which brings me to our Sports
Trivia question. Hardly anyone remembers that the Pittsburgh Steelers lost the
Super Bowl to Green Bay, 31-25. Sadly, in our culture, winning is everything.
It doesn’t matter that Pittsburgh went farther and did better than 30 other
teams. We don’t care. All we remember – if we remember them at all – is that
they lost. That’s crazy. Just as crazy as thinking that someone who goes to a
Community College is not as good as someone who gets into an Ivy League School.
I’ve got news for you: Not everyone who gets into Harvard ends up on the
Supreme Court, and not everyone who goes to Nassau Community ends up working at
a Nail Salon. Shame on us for judging people by the schools they get into, or
by the cars they drive, or by the labels on their clothes.
The Race to Nowhere offers a number
of suggestions of how to help our kids deal with the incredible pressure: start
the school day later (so they get more sleep); require all students to take a
lunch period (which many skip so they can fit in one more class); get teachers
to give less homework (especially the kind that is just busywork); and restrict
the number of AP courses that a student can take in a semester.
The film advises parents not to
live vicariously through their kids’ achievements; to think about the right
college for their child – not necessarily about the best school out
there; to learn to talk to, and listen to their kids; and to become familiar
with the signs of depression, and substance abuse.
We’ve found that parents are
looking to the school to solve the problem. They feel powerless to buck
the culture and the values of the community that they don’t always agree with.
“How can I let my kid be different from everyone else? You’ve got to fit in
around here, or the other kids – and parents – will make your life miserable.”
What I’ve come to learn is that the
school isn’t going to solve the problem. First, there’s the issue of
prestige. The administration, the School Board, the Community aren’t
going to brag: “Our kids have fewer ulcers than those in Great Neck North!” We
take pride in the percentage of students who take AP courses, and in how many kids
go off to prestigious colleges. Second, the reputation of the school affects
the property values. The house that I live in is in the Hicksville School District,
and would sell for $450,000. the same house, two blocks north in Jericho, would
go for $700,000. That’s all about the schools. And third, the school sees
its job as offering possibilities; it’s a parents job to decide which of
those possibilities are best for their children.
The film leads us to ask two
fundamental questions.
First – What is the goal of
education?
I’m reminded of Paul Simon’s line
in his song Kodachrome: “When I think back on all the stuff (my word,
not his) I learned in high School, it’s a wonder I can think at all…”
A cynic might say that school is
just a way to keep kids off the street and out of their parent’s hair from
eight until three every day.
Others would claim that the point
of school is to teach everyone a vocation. That might have been true once, but
certainly isn’t the case today.
Some believe school should try to
make us into good citizens – to understand the key issues of our times and to
help create “a more perfect union.”
Still others say that school should
teach life skills, necessary in our world: how to use a computer, balance a
check book, do research, write a paper, drive a car, cook a meal.
As it is now, you’re lucky if after
16 years in a classroom, you can recall one teacher who made a difference in
your life, or one course which changed your life. The purpose of High School
is to get into College – where you have the privilege of paying $50,000 a year
to take two classes a day, sleep until noon and party all night, and then when
you graduate, you learn that there aren’t really any jobs for you, so you might
as well enroll for a Masters and spend another two years in school…
(I often wonder if the old model of
college didn’t make more sense: Live at home, take classes during the morning
and work at a job in the afternoon or at night to make enough money to pay your
own way. Not as much fun as the new model, but I think you probably learned
more – about life.)
It’s clear from the debates about
‘No Child Left Behind’ and the complaints that we merely teach to the test that
our educational system is broken. Kids in underprivileged districts don’t even
learn how to read, while kids in privileged districts don’t learn much they can
use. We can’t seem to get beyond the question of whether Teacher’s Unions have
destroyed our system. We’re not even asking the more fundamental question:
What do we want our kids to get out of school?
The second key question: what do
we want for our kids?
The answer that I hear most often
from parents is: “I just want them to be happy.” My mother said to me a long
time ago: “Who says you’re supposed to be happy?” Suppose “happy” means
staying home, lying on the couch, playing video games, texting friends, and
smoking dope. There’s all kinds of “happy”; some are good, some not.
Happily married – good;
Trigger happy – not so good.
Happy camper – good;
Happy go-lucky – not so good.
Happy medium – good;
Happy as a pig in filth – not so good.
Of course we don’t want our kids to
be sad and depressed. But we also don’t want them to be happy with the way
things are. You’ve got to be unhappy with the world before you can go out and
make it a better place.
What else do we want for our kids?
That they should be successful? By which we usually mean, May they be
blessed with fame, and fortune. But we all know plenty of rich people who are
miserable, and we learn every day that – celebrity is, more often than not, a
curse: it robs us of privacy and sets us up for intense scrutiny, and
ultimately, for a big fall. Success, like Happiness, can be a double-edged
sword. It’s great to achieve a long-sought, hard-won prize. But then
what do we do? Without a goal to strive for, life can be without meaning, and
without purpose.
If you have to be wary of Happiness
and very careful about Success, what is it that we want for our children?
Let me tell you a story that’s found
in the Talmud, and the Zohar – the classic texts of Rabbinic and Mystical
Judaism.
Before the birth of a child, God
assigns each soul a guardian angel, who takes it on a tour of the world, and
shows it all the places where that human being will one day be. Then the angel
takes it on a tour of Heaven, and shows it the reward of those who are
righteous. Next, the soul visits Hell and sees what becomes of those who are
wicked. Finally, the soul is planted in the womb of its mother. There, with
the fetus, is the guardian angel. For nine months, the angel teaches the soul,
by the light of a candle, all of the Torah. Then, the time comes for the child
to be born. The angel bids the soul goodbye. The soul begins to cry – not
wanting to leave the warm, dark, comfortable place where it has been growing
these many months, afraid of what awaits in the world outside. The angel takes
its finger, places it on the child’s upper lip – and pushes hard. The final
words to the soul are these: “Be righteous, and do good.” Labor begins, and
after several hours, a child is born.
As is often the case, folk tales
try to explain things that otherwise we wouldn’t understand. For example – why
does a pregnant woman experience heartburn? Now you know – there’s an angel in
there with a burning candle. Or how do we explain Déjà-vu – recognizing things
we’ve never seen before. Now you know – your angel showed it all to you before
you were even born. And why do you have that indentation just under your
nose? That’s where the angel pushed you as labor began. (And there’s your
S.A.T. word for the day: PHILTRUM – the indentation on your upper lip.
But in addition to folk tales being
a primitive explanation for the inexplicable, they also convey the values of a
people. In our story, we see three important lessons.
First. The ultimate purpose of
school, and of all education, is to teach us right from wrong, and help us to
live a meaningful and purposeful life. In college I didn’t really understand
why I needed to take “Statistics”, and the 19th Century English Novel.
I registered for them because they were requirements, and I hated every minute
of them. (Truth be told, you don’t really need those classes in my line of
work). But today, I understand that mathematics is at the very heart of the
universe – in everything from astronomy to music. And literature helps us to
see the world from other perspectives, often opening our eyes to things in
nature, or in the human mind that we, on our own, would have missed. School is
not about Babysitting, but it’s also not about how to get a good job and make a
lot of money. Sadly, education – like Youth – is often wasted on the young. That’s
why they call graduation “Commencement” – that’s when you first start to really
learn.
Second lesson. You will be pushed
in life. Get used to it. It started at birth, and continues with your
parents, your siblings, your friends, your enemies, your boss, your kids –
everyone will push you, in one way or another. Sometimes that’s good – so be
thankful for it. And sometimes it’s bad – and you’ll need to stand your ground
and learn to push back. Wisdom is knowing which is which. School is tough,
and there’s going to be a lot of pressure. There’s no way around it. The same
is true of Life. The trick is not to add unnecessary pressure on top of
what’s absolutely essential. Sometimes, kids aren’t wise enough to figure that
out for themselves. That’s why parents have to know when to push their kids –
and when to stop their kids from pushing themselves.
Third lesson. Here’s what we want
for our kids: To be good. To do the right thing. Rather than a bumper sticker
that says “MY CHILD IS AN HONOR ROLL STUDENT”, I’d rather have one that says
“MY CHILD IS A MENSCH.” (Except that a mensch is also humble, and wouldn’t
show off with a bumper sticker!) What matters in life is not how happy
you are, but how happy you make other people. What matters in life is not how
much money you have, but how much you give away to others. What matters
in life is being a good person – kind, caring, considerate.
Out there, everyone is
running in a race to nowhere. (Some call it a rat race. Even if you win, all
that makes you is the fastest rat!)
In here, we’re saying: Slow
down; There’s no race. It’s a journey and the point is not to win, but to
arrive safe and sound, wiser, and at peace.
Easier said than done, I know,
especially when everyone seems to be breezing right past you, looking back at
you, and saying “What’s wrong with you? Why aren’t you running like the rest
of us?”
No matter what anyone else tells
you, to be Jewish means to be different. This goes all the way back to
Abraham, who was called “the Hebrew” which, the Rabbis explain, means “to stand
on the other side of everyone else.” We live by a different calendar, we eat
different foods, we speak our own language. We’ve got 3500 years experience of
not fitting in, of being different, or marching to our own drummer.
Let me offer you three Jewish
suggestions of how to find your way on this life journey. Three suggestions
that can reduce stress, teach you what is really important in life, and bring
you blessings beyond compare.
First – Shabbes Dinner. We live
crazy lives and our schedules are so hectic. There are times when we hardly
see or talk to one another. Experts tell us that it’s crucial for a family to
eat together. Jewish tradition has been pushing family dinner on Friday nights
since the days of the Torah. Light candles, make Kiddush, say Motzi over the
Hallah. And put out a bottle of ketchup – to remind us it’s time to “catch-up”
after a tough week. No TV, no phones, no texting. Quality time spent with the
most important people in our lives.
Second – Shul. I’m going to make a
radical suggestion and you’ll think I’m crazy – but hear me out. Come to shul
as a family on Shabbes. I know what you’re thinking: “But I’m not that
religious.” I’ve got news for you – neither is anyone else who comes to
services. Some are there because they like singing along with the Cantor.
Others are there to hear words of Torah. Others enjoy the friends they find
here and talk to. Others like to sit and meditate without the distraction of
the phone or the computer. And others come for the cookies at the Kiddush. An
hour and a half on Shabbes morning, that’s all it is. And the message it will
send to your kids about what’s really of value in life – is priceless.
I know what you’re thinking: “I’ve got more important things to do.” I would
answer – “No, you don’t.” I invite you – as a family – to join us, and in
doing so, to change your life.
And third – Jewish learning. The
Talmud teaches that studying Torah is the most important mitzvah – because it
leads to all the others. The greatest
antidote to the poisons that are found in
our culture is a shot of Jewish values. Those you acquire by studying Jewish
texts. That’s really what Hebrew School is all about. That’s why it’s so
critical that our teenagers – who are confronted with so many choices that are
dangerous, be inoculated with Jewish values, which we offer in our Post Bar
Mitzvah Class. It’s why we have Adult Ed here every Wednesday night. And it’s
why I suggest that once a week – maybe at Friday night dinner – you pull out a
section of the Torah and read and discuss it as a family. (Any of the books by
Rabbi Joseph Telushkin would be a great place to start).
Out there, people are obsessed
with what they get on the Report Card issued by the school.
In here, today, we’re more
concerned about the Report Card that God issues.
Out there, people are making
themselves sick as they run a Race to Nowhere.
In here, we’re preparing to
go on a journey to somewhere much more important.
May we reach our destinations –
wiser, healthier – and happier.
|
