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August 22, 2003
Being a good role model
Parents and teachers require character development.
LAWRENCE KELEMEN SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH BULLETIN
When asked about the greatest challenge he faces today, the principal
of one of the largest Jewish high schools in the United States related
to me this complaint:
"Parents spend thousands of dollars a year in tuition to send
their children to our school where, along with calculus and chemistry,
we are expected to teach some semblance of ethics. Then, on Sunday,
the parents take their child to an amusement park and lie about
his age in order to save five dollars on the admission fee. To save
five bucks they destroy a $15,000 education."
Our best day school and high school principals have included separate
ethics courses in their school curricula. A handful of these experts
have gone even further, weaving an ethics perspective into every
aspect of their schools' educational program.
There is another step we could take, and that step might do more
to improve our children's ethics than any of the commendable efforts
described above. Parents and teachers could also engage in the sort
of structured and guided work on character development we are so
proud to see our children do. We could create mussar vaadim
(ongoing character-development workshops) for interested parents
and teachers. Participants in these programs would actively work
on their character so as to be more thoroughly refined models for
their children and students.
Our tradition tells us that parents and teachers can be powerful
role models. The rabbis of the Talmud long ago explained that a
child speaks in the marketplace the way he heard his parents speaking
at home. Psychologists also remind us that the model we parents
present influences even our youngest children.
U.S. studies indicate that the probability of a child smoking doubles
if one parent smokes and quadruples if both parents smoke. Data
from the Norwegian National Health Survey demonstrate that the probability
of a young adult's having a diet low in fat is five times higher
if one of his parents had a low fat intake. Similar associations
exist for alcohol consumption, wearing seatbelts and doing exercise
and we have no reason to believe parental example does not powerfully
influence all behaviors.
We all know of children who have been scarred by parents and teachers
who respond with anger, use vicious language or display selfishness,
dishonesty or other less-than-refined traits. Sometimes they drop
their religiosity. Sometimes they just mirror the harshness they
experienced at home or in the classroom. I meet such children every
week. They are living testimony to the necessity of a formal framework
for adult character development.
Most parents and teachers realize that values and perspectives must
be planted by personal example. However, in practice, we sometimes
try to build into our children and students behavioral routines
that we personally have not yet mastered. We insist that our children
get proper sleep, even though we scrape by on far less than we need.
We insist that they eat properly, even though we survive on coffee
and doughnuts. We insist that they control their anger, even though
we sometimes show rage. In short, we find it easier to work on our
children than on ourselves.
This hypocrisy has disastrous results: Too many children legitimately
view their parents and/or teachers as insincere. Disrespect burgeons
slowly until, around ages 12-15, it shreds the parent-child or teacher-student
relationship. Then children reject the moral authority of the adults
in their lives. They isolate themselves emotionally from parents
and teachers, and begin making their own (often self-destructive)
decisions.
Or sometimes, these children thoroughly accept the lessons of their
childhood. They might behave beautifully and do well in school,
but they also absorb their mentors' inconsistency. By their late
teens or early 20s, these children have mastered the art of hypocrisy,
and much of their behavior has absolutely nothing to do with their
stated values. These are the university-age students who claim they
want a better world and yet purchase term papers off the Internet.
Even if we never cheated in school, if we acted with hypocrisy in
other areas of our lives, our children will absorb that lesson and
practise it wholesale.
Eventually, the real values and perspectives parents and teachers
planted through our own behavior (for better or worse) show themselves.
Being a model is not easy. Our children see us at all hours of the
day under all circumstances, making it impossible to maintain a
facade of ethical refinement. We have no choice but to work on ourselves.
We must set aside time to develop our character, especially our
patience.
The traditional framework for working on character is the vaad
– a group of five to 15 people, led by a Torah scholar experienced
in vaad work. This traditional approach is complex, long-term, often
counterintuitive and highly effective. In Jerusalem there are more
than 120 English-speaking mothers and fathers participating in ongoing
character-development workshops. Most have been members of their
vaad for more than four years and many have participated for more
than seven years. They meet every two to six weeks to learn about
the particular character trait they are working on, receive practical
exercises and readings that will help internalize the character
trait and discuss their successes and failures.
Jewish education has come a long way in the last 50 years and the
Jewish day school movement has consistently been on the cutting
edge of this progress. Perhaps the time has come to redefine the
state-of-the-art in Jewish education and perhaps innovative day
school administrators, teachers and parents will once again lead
the way.
When our forefather Abraham sent his servant Eliezer off to find
a wife for his son, Isaac, Abraham asked Eliezer to swear that he
wouldn't bring home a woman from the local Canaanites – known
for being murderers and thieves. Rather, Eliezer was told to select
a woman from Abraham's homeland – even though those women were
known for being idol worshippers.
The author of the Torah commentary Kli Yakar VI asks why Abraham
preferred an idol worshipper over a murderer or thief. He answers
that although parents attempt to pass two inheritances to the next
generation – our character traits and our beliefs – only
our character traits pass instantly and without modification into
our children. Our beliefs hover in spiritual no-man's-land until
our children choose to accept them or reject them.
Abraham understood that murder and theft result from corrupt character.
He reasoned that a woman from a family with corrupt traits would
necessarily pass those traits on to her children, and the Jewish
people would need to make a massive effort in later generations
to clean out this character-contamination.
Idol worship, in contrast, results from mistaken beliefs. Unlike
the inheritance of character traits, parental beliefs don't necessarily
penetrate too deeply and their superficial influence could be corrected
quickly.
Jewish day school administrators, teachers and parents now have
an extraordinary opportunity to guarantee the inheritance of our
children. The character-development vaad has proven popular in Jerusalem.
Without doubt, it would be at least as popular in other cities around
the world. Perhaps ongoing character-development workshops are the
framework we will choose to build the spiritual fortune we will
pass to the next generation.
Lawrence Kelemen is a professor of education at Neve Yerushalayim
College of Jewish Studies for Women in Jerusalem. His most recent
book, To Kindle a Soul: Ancient Wisdom for Modern Parents and Teachers,
was recently ranked the 48th best-selling book in the United States.
His Web site is www.lawrencekelemen.com.
This article comes from Aish Hatorah (www.aish.com)
and is distributed by L.E. Friedman through the Kaddish Connection
Network, which is dedicated to promoting Jewish unity and understanding.
E-mail: kcnnet1@ hotmail.com.
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