Is the home better than the Yeshiva?

This is the sixth article in a series about dormitory education. The previous article showed how Yeshivot and youth groups could have a detrimental effect on Jewish traditional concepts.

We assume that the home environment is better than that in the Yeshiva. In other words, the family has something positive and worthwhile to offer the children and that the child learns how to maintain his family tradition. There is no doubt that the family is sometimes a negative element in the spiritual, mental, emotional, and even physical, development of the child. In such cases a dormitory environment or possibly even a foster home may be less detrimental to the child. However, it is wrong to determine how to raise children based upon circumstances in families which are less healthy, or in which the parents have less of a desire or ability to raise the children in a traditional or proper manner.

Furthermore, it is not proper for some laymen to decide whether any given family is "healthy." Rarely are the parents themselves involved in these discussions or the decisions. Schools and institutions take matters into their own hands and place children into their own institutions. They sometimes use stealth or backhanded tactics to remove children from parents.

Only a specialist should determine these issues, with the cooperation of the parents.

Schools or school personnel cannot always assume that a child should be removed from a home based on his or her own testimony. Statements made by children must be verified by experts.

Under the current circumstances it is often assumed that if a child complains, then the parent is doing the wrong thing, or is not aware of the proper way to handle issues. It is also assumed - often based only on the child's testimony - that the child should be removed from the family and raised by the school or by its proxy. It is erroneously felt that the school or its authority will raise the children in a better way than his or her own parents.

This very strange series of assumptions all too often leads to dire results.

The next article in the series shows how similar issues may arise in Kibbutz education.