What the Avos have to say about genius

Pirkei Avos פרקי אבוֹת
משנה כא

הוּא היה אוֹמר בן חמש שנים למקרא בן עשר שנים למשנה בן שלש עשרה למצות בן חמש עשרה לתלמוּד בן שמוֹנה עשרה לחוּפה בן עשרים לרדוֹף בן שלשים לכח בן ארבעים לבינה בן חמישים לעצה בן ששים לזקנה בן שבעים לשיבה בן שמוֹנים לגבוּרה בן תשעים לשוּח בן מאה כאילוּ מת וּבטל מן העוֹלם

I grew up with a genius. My brother, while not the smartest person I’ve ever met, was by far the smartest person on the block when we were children. His particular genius was focused on the arts and it’s no wonder that he has grown up to become a successful animator. But the recent trends in educational philosophy have made me wonder if my brother or his less blessed brother, that would be me, received the best education possible. The attack on gifted and talented programming has come from many angles; gifted and talented programs are labeled elitist, racist, and unhealthy for the children involved. To quote Alexandra Robbins's website, “our high-stakes educational culture has spiraled out of control”. The underlying theme of all the detractors is that the average American middle (more often upper-middle) class child is often unfairly pushed and pigeon-holed for dubious reasons or by self-absorbed parents and/or schools.

Unfortunately our world, the orthodox one (no matter the stream), is similarly afflicted. The manifestations on this obsession with “keeping up with the Joneses children” are evident throughout the community; whether it is frum from birth and baal-teshuva children growing up feeling somehow “less-than” for disappointing the communal or parental standards, or the scores of 18 year old yeshiva boys who can “learn” a daf of gemara but only really sat and learned chumash when they were being bar mitzvah’d… We also far too often push our children (and adults) too fast, too far and too soon; burning them out or even worse pushing adolescents completely out of our community and off the derech. Faranak Margolese examines this phenomenon in her book “Off the Derech” and rather than repeat the work that she did there, I will add that I have seen the phenomenon myself and have made many friends, both here and in America, that have suffered under our own “high-stakes” culture. Sadly, in both the secular world and the Jewish one, the consequences of growing up as either a genius under pressure to perform or as a dunce doomed to failure do not disappear with the end of childhood; many adults are unable to sample from the orchard of Torah, not because of their own inability, but rather because our world never catered to their needs.

So what are the solutions? Chazal gave us clear instructions (above) for how we are to educate our children. To quote mishna above, “Bible at the age five, Mishna at age ten and Talmud at age fifteen”. Chazal never intended that we push children to begin Talmud study upon entering high school, and certainly not without a strong background in tanakh and mishnios. Rav Yitzchok Shlomo Zilberman, zt"l began efforts to address what he found lacking in the education of our children. The “Zilberman Method” (and the similar Barkai Method) now taught in many institutions in Eretz Israel and abroad uses chazal’s education formula as its template for instruction. Anecdotally, the children that I have met who learn under this method possess a wealth of knowledge at their fingertips that children educated under the “regular” yeshiva system lack. I’d go as far as to say that the recall of biblical events and specific pasukim is can only be found in the generations previous to our own. But embedded in a recent report on the Barkai method is that it is just as susceptible to the elitism of our current system; to quote a teacher “(the method is) not geared for heterogeneous population, only the most talented students are capable of integrating the enormous about of material at the pace that is covered daily”.

So what are we to do? I think the answer for both the secular world and the religious one lies in accepting all children as they come, and developing a system that is able to morph itself for the needs of more children (Montessori?). In addition, I think that our society has to grow broader definitions of success that embrace the many talents H’ has given us. Most families hope to have sons who will grow to become chachamim, but there is an avodah in playing an instrument or being an artist. And perhaps that's the deeper lesson in the mishna, that we must have patience with our children, and only give them tasks that are appropriate for their age and ability. To quote another article, “…the solution isn't to mark fewer students as gifted and talented. It's to challenge all our kids, all the time”. Or as "Hillel used to say: A brutish man cannot fear sin; an ignorant man cannot be pious, nor can the shy man learn, or the impatient man teach."

Labels: education, genius, judaism