shocked niece's school does not teach about potifar's wife

amother

Tue, Dec 30 2014, 12:16 pm

I just learned that my niece's school does not teach many parts of tanach including the story of yosef with potifar's wife (obviously the more juicy stuff).

That makes me so upset b\c to me what makes the characters of tanach so amazing is how human they were (like shlomo).

Is this typical in a in town school? Im oot

BetsyTacy

Tue, Dec 30 2014, 12:20 pm

What grade? 3rd grade or 11th grade?

amother

Tue, Dec 30 2014, 12:22 pm

6th grade

amother

Tue, Dec 30 2014, 12:23 pm

I think more Chassidish schools do that. I went to a "heimish" school and they skipped yehuda and tamar, dovid and bassheva, etc.
Personally, I think it makes kids more curious. Rather teach it to them tactfully and how to understand it correctly, then have adolescents giggle about the unknown.
(Same school censored books with black magic marker. So we held the book up to the light to see what they thought of as "bad").

amother

Tue, Dec 30 2014, 12:31 pm

Huh- didn't realize anyone skipped that story.

My MO elementary school did the whole perek with Yehuda and Tamar in one day, and davka open-house day when we had our parents walking in and out of the classroom all day and no one was paying attention to the lesson. I don't remember how Eishet Potifar was taught, though.

amother

Tue, Dec 30 2014, 12:38 pm

yup I was one of those kids who was always trying to read the blacked out sections

Orchid

Tue, Dec 30 2014, 12:42 pm

"Class, we're going to skip that Rashi"

***everyone huddles down to their chumashim to look at that one rashi****

wiki

Tue, Dec 30 2014, 12:47 pm

In my MO elementary school in fourth grade, we skipped Yehuda and Tamar completely (we had also skipped Dina in Shechem the year before). When we got to eshes Potiphar, our teacher translated all of the "Lie with me"s to mean "marry me." It didn't make a whole lot of sense, but our Hebrew was weak enough that it totally fooled all of us!

By seventh grade, we learned about Dovid and Batsheva very thoroughly--thorough in the pshat and also in Chazal's take.

malkacooks

Tue, Dec 30 2014, 12:58 pm

I'm not sure what kind of service we are doing to our kids by whitewashing tanach. itsnt tanach all about sinning, forgiveness, hashem's love, etc..

Ruchel

Tue, Dec 30 2014, 1:03 pm

It's pretty common to skip or really gloss over (forced marriage instead of attack etc). Even in (my world's) MO school. I'd be very very ill at ease if they didn't, for a 6 th grade! Those are kids, they don't get or should get s-xuality. Not everything is meant for children, a hard concept in this day and age :/

amother

Tue, Dec 30 2014, 1:06 pm

In High School I asked about a Rashi that was skipped in Bereishis. I didn't understand one of the words, and I asked the teacher (a Rabbi). He answered me straight forward about what the rashi said: it had to do with s-xual concepts. Everyone in the class was very mature about it. We were 16. It's a side note, but it was important for that teacher to answer, or at least tell me to discuss it with him after class.

gp2.0

Tue, Dec 30 2014, 1:40 pm

As an adult, you're referring to the parts they skipped as "juicy stuff." Don't you think "juicy stuff" is unsuitable for 12 year olds? Seriously, how do you think they would react? What would be a positive aspect to teaching "juicy stuff?"

There are many, many other examples of how yosef was just human and exhibited both bad and good behaviors. For example, how he bragged to his brothers that he would be a king. How he framed his brothers for stealing and had them thrown in jail. How, despite having the right to be furious at his brothers, forgave them and sent them home with food. All these actions paint a much more interesting picture of yosef as a whole, than the "scandal" of his owner's wife attempting to seduce him at one point and then falsely accusing him out of revenge for her embarrassment when he refused her advances. I mean, it's still interesting, but it paints more of potiphar's wife's character than it does of yosef's.

The story of Yehuda and Tamar is far more complicated and (to me) a horrifying example of how hypocritical and bad even the best people can be at various points in their lives.

amother

Tue, Dec 30 2014, 1:41 pm

I'm a Tanach teacher. A few points, both from my experience as a student, and as a teacher: most of the Rashis we skip over are not that exciting. Generally, we skip over Rashis that are overly technical/complicated for the level of the class. I'm sure some kids try to see what we skipped, but they will be disappointed LOL

Now, perakim in Tanach the get skipped, well, yes, that tends to be more an issue of content. I teach high school and we don't skip anything due to zxual content. At that age, they are old enough to handle it, and it's a great opportunity to discuss the Torah outlook on sx. Under high school, I think it varies according to hashkafah.
My own experience growing up: I went to MO schools, NOT sheltered at all, and we skipped most of this stuff till middle school. I actually remember wondering how Yosef ended up in jail, because all they told us was that he went to jail, not why. And I tried reading it on my own, but didn't understand the term "lie with me" when I was six (or, at least, I didn't understand why that would be a bad thing to just lie down in bed with someone). At some point- maybe 3rd or 4th grade?- we were told eishet Potifar asked Yosef to kiss her, and that we understood was bad, because she should only be kissing Potifar. I think I got the true story in middle school- 6th or 7th grade. Same deal with Yehuda and Tamar and some of the other juicy bits. Again, MO school, so I'm not surprised that more RW schools might wait even longer than that, and I really don't see the big deal.
TO all those saying we must NEVER censor the Torah for children, how far are you willing to take that? Should we teach Pilegesh baGivah to 4th graders learning Shoftim? Yehudah and Tamar while teaching 1st graders the Yosef story- because after all, that one shows up smack in the middle, and we can't have any censoring! There has to be SOME standard. Kids shouldn't get the unvarnished truth no matter what. ANd I think reasonable minds are going to differ- some will be ok with certain things earlier, others will prefer to hold off- but it's silly to claim we shouldn't do any censoring. It is obviously necessary in the younger years to some extent.

Heyaaa

Tue, Dec 30 2014, 1:59 pm

We learned about yosef and potifars wife that she tried to marry him, even as young as kindergarten.

amother

Tue, Dec 30 2014, 2:03 pm

I was never taught the story of yehudah and tamar. ever. first heard about it in seminary and I went to a beis yakkov

workaholicmama

Tue, Dec 30 2014, 2:05 pm

[quote="Heyaaa"]We learned about yosef and potifars wife that she tried to marry him, even as young as kindergarten.[/quote

Ditto
But the story of yehuda and Tamar I heard first from my dh....

amother

Tue, Dec 30 2014, 2:12 pm

Im ok with not skipping parts because it makes kids more curious but at the very least dont dwell on the juicy parts in detail!
My son is 7 and learning about lot's daughters marrying him because they thought they were the last ones left in the world.
Its a charedi school and I did NOT appreciate the worksheet for HW asking who married who, when and why. And what happened as a result (a baby is born)
TMI for little kids. I mean seriously?

Simple1

Tue, Dec 30 2014, 2:44 pm

I learned about it but I don't remember in what grade. Maybe she'll learn about it in older grades.

It's funny, because just the other day, my mother who went to a very modern school, very far OOT said she never learned all those types of stories - Yehuda and Tamar, and Noach after the mabul.

Actually I remember learning the Noach story in 2nd grade - it was probably taught in a way that makes sense for little kids.

Fox

Tue, Dec 30 2014, 3:00 pm

This topic makes me think of essayist and first-grade teacher, Bailey White, who wrote: "When children get the idea that written words can tell them something absolutely horrible, half the battle of teaching reading is won."

She goes on to describe her preferred strategy, which focuses on maritime disasters: "Give me a man overboard or a good sinking ship, and I can teach a half-witted gorilla to read."

It sounds to me like omitting these stories while acknowledging their existence could produce a great many gifted Chumash scholars.

malkacooks

Tue, Dec 30 2014, 3:39 pm