Educational Philosophy

Building the Foundation for a
Life of Independent Torah Study

Summary

Yeshivat Yesodei HaTorah is a unique yeshiva for highly motivated high school graduates, providing a systematic approach to learning, and employing a curriculum designed by leading educators in Israel and the United States. Students will become independently skillful b'nei Torah through a skill-centered curriculum utilizing a goal-oriented and student-centered approach.

Yeshivat Yesodei HaTorah offers a genuine, skill-centered curriculum designed with the active input of important and knowledgeable educators. Not only will students gain an appreciation for Torah learning and living during their year in Israel, they will acquire the skills needed for a lifetime of independent Torah study. Yeshivat Yesodei HaTorah will focus on classic texts rather than more recent secondary sources, thereby familiarizing students with Torah works of unquestioned primacy and centrality.

Promoting a Lifetime of Torah Study:
The case for a skill-based post-secondary program

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Rabbi Scott Kahn
Rabbi Pesach Wolicki

Background: A Brief History of the One Year Program Yeshiva

In the early to mid 1980s a new and welcome development occurred in the Jewish education of Orthodox teens, when it became the accepted practice for many students to spend a year of study in Israel after high school. In earlier years, beginning in the mid-1960s, only exceptional or highly motivated students would attend yeshivot in Israel following high school graduation.

In these early years, the students spending the year in Israel generally attended established high level Israeli yeshivot. For example, Yeshivat Kerem B'Yavneh - a prominent hesder yeshiva - was the first to provide a foreign students program for American high school graduates. These institutions were well suited to the highly motivated students who came from the United States. The students arrived already equipped with the basic skills that they would need to study in these prestigious institutions. They could read a page of Gemara, look up a halacha, learn basic rishonim, and generally understand the world of Torah. As such, the curriculum and structure of the high level yeshivot were well suited to their needs.

In these institutions the focus of the day's study is on the Gemara that is being learned. A majority of the morning is spent studying with a chavruta. Students are assumed to possess the skills to acquire basic comprehension and deeper understanding from a text, without needing a teacher's personal guidance. During this time, the chavruta prepares for the shiur which consists of the rebbi expounding the Gemara and providing even deeper and often original insight. The afternoon and evening consists of mostly independent study or optional lectures. Students themselves determine on which subjects to focus their time and energy. Again, the assumption is that each student has the ability to make an informed choice and to prioritize his learning.

This system is ideal for the advanced yeshiva environment catering to the highly motivated, knowledgeable, and skillful student.

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The Problem: A New Kind of Yeshiva Student

As more and more students began spending a post-high school year in Israel, new programs were developed. A new market of students, less motivated, less knowledgeable, and less skilled, needed to be served. Institutions were opened that catered specifically to these "second tier" students. The goal of these yeshivot was to inspire these less religiously or less academically motivated students while giving them the yeshiva experience as well. The curriculum for these yeshivot would often include more class time and less independent study - the students were not as capable of independent learning - and would be taught at a more elementary level to accommodate the students' less advanced skills.

While these programs accommodate their students by moderating the demanding environment of the advanced yeshivot, they do not successfully meet numerous basic needs and priorities. We surmise that their failure is the result of both misunderstanding the long-term needs of students, and a lack of academic seriousness in building a curriculum.

For the vast majority of students attending one year programs in Israel, this year is the only time in their lives during which they will learn Torah full-time. Most students do not pursue careers in the world of Torah; most will not be staying in a yeshiva or kollel for multiple years. In this light, it is safe to assume that whatever textual skill level is achieved by students by the end of this year will remain - at best - their skill level going forward into their lives as adult members of the Jewish community. The acquisition of significantly new textual abilities later in life is rare indeed.

As such, it is essential to view this one year in Israel as the primary - and perhaps the only - opportunity to impart textual skills that will foster the ability to learn central Torah texts independently. Having acquired proficiency in the reading of texts, the student will forever be a more independently educated ben Torah. Only with the attainment of such competence will the student be able to consistently enhance his Jewish education through constant, lifelong learning.

The existing one year programs do not take this approach.

The curricula of these yeshivot emphasize the transmission of content - all too often from secondary texts - instead of the acquisition of skills and the deepening of understanding. Moreover, rather than focusing on and evaluating the outcome they expect from the student in order to inform goals, learning targets, assessment, and daily learning plans, they focus on the subject matter. If the teachers in these programs would be asked what they teach, they would likely discuss the content of their shiurim, rather than emphasizing the needs of their students.

Thus, these institutions regrettably have Gemara curricula comprising loosely supervised morning seder chavruta learning, followed by a shiur consisting mostly of the rebbi explaining the Gemara. This system assumes that through the daily chavruta time spent by the students working on their skills, they will gradually learn how to learn. The leaders of these institutions ignore a fundamental educational fact: teaching and learning are not the same. Merely teaching information does not assure that students are learning.

Concerning knowledge and understanding, moreover, the choice of content reveals a lack of attention to texts whose primacy in Judaism is unquestioned in favor of secondary or tertiary texts. For example, in many yeshivot, one finds students who have never been exposed to the basic writings of the Rambam; instead they learn much more recent and less central works of Jewish thought. While these later works may be important and inspiring, they should not be studied at the expense of central texts.

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The Solution: A New Kind of Yeshiva

Our institution solves these glaring problems by raising expectations and outcomes of a one-year program by providing a comprehensive curriculum based on student needs (with measurable goals) for specific knowledge, understanding, skills, and products. Research in curriculum development has established the "backwards design" as one of the most effective methods of increasing student learning. Thus, given an expected outcome of students being capable of reading and understanding Gemara, having grown more in the physical and spiritual observance of Judaism, and acquiring facility and adeptness in navigating Jewish texts, we have decided upon specific goals and learning targets to meet this outcome. We determine how to measure the success and failure of these goals and learning targets, and then design the specific lesson plans accordingly.

Regarding knowledge and understanding, we focus first and foremost on primary texts of unquestioned centrality. Given the limited time that these students will be learning full time, it is essential to expose them to these texts, and help them understand their importance. Additionally, what is true of knowledge and understanding is also true concerning skills. Students of Talmud gain valuable skills that are transferable to all Jewish texts. No doubt, a student able to study Gemara will be capable of navigating the basic commentators on Chumash and investigating a halachic issue. Generally, one who has the ability to learn central texts can learn secondary texts as well; this is not true, however, in the reverse.

The art of Torah research is taken for granted in most yeshivot. Yet because students so often lack basic Torah research skills, even individuals who have the knowledge, understanding, and skills to learn Jewish texts, frequently cannot develop a cogent analysis of a given topic.

It is our belief that the existing yeshivot either assume that students will acquire these crucial skills on their own, or have simply not thought about the issue. We recognize that research skills are vital to enabling the student to progress in his studies, both during his year in Israel and in the years that follow. Imparting this ability is a central tenet of our program.

Educational research has also suggested that, on average, only sixty percent of allocated time for learning in schools is actually spent learning. Indeed, much time is wasted in chavrutot during independent learning time, as these students lack the knowledge, understanding, and skills to prepare properly. Unfortunately, the most opportune time to develop skills, namely when the students are in small groups, is rarely supervised. We utilize workshops and supervised independent learning - in which the teacher is fully engaged - in order to avoid wasting this remarkable opportunity for skill transmission.

Other yeshivot emphasize comprehension of the content of the Gemara during shiur, not mastery of its form. Without adequate skills, comprehension of the text is merely a simple recall of what the rebbi explained. Comprehension of one sugya without well-honed textual decoding skills does little to better equip the student to independently learn new material. A well-balanced curriculum including learning targets for knowledge, simple and deep understanding, skills, and products is necessary to meet the educational needs of most students attending a one-year program. Our program successfully addresses these needs.

Yeshivat Yesodei HaTorah has demonstrated remarkable success in addressing all the issues outlined above. Our student-centered curriculum, small shiurim, and constant awareness of specific educational goals have made Yesodei HaTorah an exemplary yeshiva, acclaimed by serious educators as a unique, impressive, and successful program. As the yeshiva continues to grow and flourish, we will continue to ensure that Yesodei HaTorah remains the most educationally serious and responsible institution available to those post-high school students coming to Israel to study.

In sum, it is an unfortunate feature of the existing one year programs that there is little evidence of well thought out educational purposes and objectives in the creation of their curricula. We have established a yeshiva that is student-centered. Clear educational objectives with measurable outcomes are dictated by the need of post-high school yeshiva students to become independently learned members of the Orthodox community.