“I’ve been an educator for over 15 years and homework goes against everything I believe in”

Reading Is the Way to Relaxation [War Diaries / Issue 920]

Thank you, Esther Mandel, for making me belly laugh over Shabbos, something we all need to relieve anxiety!

I wouldn’t necessarily use “kitchen avoidance” for my avoidance of the war, but I was in stitches when I read your line about how reading a frum book about a woman saying Tehillim for a missing child or a hero chased by a Nazi/Arab isn’t relaxing, and that sometimes reading a random story that takes place in Japan is helpful since it isn’t remotely similar to one’s life.

I feel so similar in this regard! I have a lot of the “saying heartfelt Tehillim and worrying about everything and everyone” in my life, and reading a cookbook about marinating your tuna steaks while you drink a cup of wine sounds very enjoyable.

When your life looks like this: You just attended a brachos party for a chayal in your community who is in the hospital and going through many surgeries, while sitting across the table from a woman whose soldier son was killed on October 7 and she is wearing a necklace with his face engraved on it; a while later you sat in that same room again to hear a brother of a hostage speak while your husband went to the shloshim of a chayal from your community who was killed; a couple of weeks earlier you made food for and went to shivah for another chayal in your community and cried as you hugged his mother; you davened Kabbalas Shabbos in a shul your community built in honor of a chayal who was killed and left behind four small kids, while you keep your ears tuned to any noises in case they are sirens.... Then sometimes you just need to sit down with a book not remotely related to your life at all and fall into the pages, then come out and say more Tehillim for Am Yisrael.

Sara Bilmes

Mitzpeh Yericho

Some Kids Need Assistance [POV / Issue 919]

I was eager to dive in to the article where Family First contributors gave their opinion about a parent’s role in their kid’s homework. Finally, a little validation for an overwhelmed-by-homework mom!

But the responses left me deflated.

The overwhelming consensus was that homework is for the kids, and that parents should take a giant step back. One reader even described the parents’ role as, “to smile and look pretty.”

Hey, I want to smile and look pretty.

But that would leave my daughter stranded. And parenting doesn’t always look pretty. Most of the time, we need to get our hands dirty, forgo sleep, and skip the skincare routine in order to get to carpool on time.

My daughter used to home with hours of homework.

Blissfully unaware, I’d leave her to her own devices.

“Doing your homework, sweetheart?”

She’d groan, grab a phone, and schlep her books to her room. I’d hear her on the phone with friends and feel glad that she wasn’t carrying the homework burden on her own.

But she wasn’t. She couldn’t.

Slowly, she sank. Her grades slipped.

Her principal was concerned. She recommended a top-notch Chumash tutor who would pull my daughter out of class thrice weekly. The sessions were expensive, but we knew she needed the help. We gave the tutor our credit card number — and put in extra hours at work.

Then the principal offered recommendations for a homework helper.

“It’s not a parent’s job to do homework,” she told me. “We don’t want homework to get in the way of your relationship with your daughter. A homework helper would ease the pressure.”

That was sweet of her — but homework isn’t the only thing that causes pressure. Financial obligations cause pressure, too. We were already paying for the professional tutoring at school — there was no way we’d be able to swing the nightly homework helper’s fee, too.

So we settled into a new routine. In the early part of the evening, I serve supper, do homework with the little ones, and then start baths and story time. Once that’s all out of the way, I sit down for seventh grade Chumash, parshah, American history, and biology.

I try to keep it chilled, mindful of the principal’s warning about preserving my relationship with my daughter. But as the time passes, and I’m worn out, it gets harder. By the time we’re finished, I can’t even think about laundry and packing lunches. But — ha!  — no one else is going to do it, so I get on it.

My homework help is paying off. Her grades improved dramatically. Shouldn’t I keep at it, shouldn’t I help keep doors open for her, shouldn’t I make sure she’s picking up on these reasoning skills, these writing skills, and these executive functioning skills?

She can do it.

She just needs help. One respondent in the article wrote, “I have students who will tell me that they couldn’t study for a test because their mothers were at a simchah the night before. But it isn’t their mothers who are taking the test, I remind them. Their mothers already did their time in middle school. A seventh or eighth grader should be capable of doing her own homework and studying most of the time. If she isn’t, then something is wrong.”

Hmmm. So something is wrong here.

I’m piping up here on behalf of the mothers and kids who have something wrong. Because there are kids who struggle a bit, but who are willing to try, if only an adult is there to help out.

This is what homework looks like for us.

Name Withheld

Parents Should Be Parents [POV / Issue 919]

I’ve been an educator for over 15 years  — a classroom teacher for 12 years and a resource support teacher for four years — and homework goes against everything I believe in. My students work as hard as they can in my classroom; I demand nothing less. It’s precisely because of their hard work that I strongly believe students don’t need to do more schoolwork when they get home.

Children need to run around outside, engage in sports, play board games, and connect with their parents. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I have yet to find a child who connected with their parents over homework.

Rav Mattisyahu Salomon z”l openly spoke about his views on homework, stating that school is a place of academic pressure and the home should be their safe haven. How can the home be their safe haven if the pressures of school follow the child home and force their way into the most important and fundamental relationship they have — the one with their parents?

When my children come home from school, they don’t need me to be their teacher. They desperately need me to be their mother. I couldn’t help but notice a few parents in the article suggested hiring a rebbi to do their homework with them. Honestly, I’d rather put my money into after-school activities such as organized sports, music lessons, gymnastics, ice skating, and sewing.

Even on a teacher’s salary, my husband and I gladly paid for all the extracurricular activities listed above, and it built more character, stamina, responsibility, and grit in our children than any homework can ever provide.

As much as I despise homework, I value respecting the rebbi and teacher more. I strongly encourage my children to do their homework, but I will not do it at the expense of our relationship. If my children feel motivated by the homework and do it willingly, then I applaud their efforts. If my children are exhausted, and they just don’t want to do more schoolwork, that’s when I say enough is enough. You already worked hard today. You don’t need to work hard at home, too.

Instead, we play a ton of board games together, go to after-school activities, read, schmooze, and yes, they have a healthy dose of technology time, too!

I know my view on homework is the minority opinion. What about the children who need extra review? How will children learn proper study habits? How will they retain the information? How will they learn a proper work ethic? I think these are all excellent questions, and I won’t pretend I have all the answers.

However, I do think with the right adjustments, all these skills can be addressed and taught in the classroom, within the eight-hour school day. Let’s encourage our teachers to have built-in studying time for tests and quizzes. If a few students didn’t understand the material, instead of assigning more work that night, try spending another period reviewing it the next day in class.

I know teachers are pressed for time. There is so much to cover, especially in a dual curriculum, but I encourage our educators to find a way to teach these fundamental student skills in the classroom. I know I did.

Let’s allow educators to be educators to our children and parents to be parents to our children.

Rutie Zuckerman

Chicago, IL

Ask a Rabbi [Inbox / Issue 919]

Your article about hirsutism was of interest to me, as I have suffered through for many years. One of the letter writers wrote about three-day Yom Tovs. I used to dread a three-day Yom Tov months in advance, and spent most of day three locked in my room.

This year I decided to call an anonymous halachah hotline and shared my struggle. “Is there anything I can do?” I asked. The rav heard my dilemma, he heard my misery, and he answered me in a way that completely changed my Yom Tov. It was such a hard question to ask, it felt so humiliating. Whether you ask your LOR or you find another rav to ask anonymously, the halachos around this embarrassing situation are worth looking into. Of course, as with every sh’eilah, sharing your experience and suffering is important for a rav to understand the implications and give a psak accordingly.

Name Withheld

One Size Doesn’t Fit All  [Inbox / Issue 919]

I wanted to respond to the letter writer who mentioned that ERP (exposure and response prevention) therapy was “pure torture” for her, and suggested other therapies such as IFS, EMDR, hypnosis, and somatic work for OCD instead.

In my experience, ERP is generally more effective for most people with OCD than some of the other therapies listed and is backed by more evidence in terms of effectiveness. (It can be very difficult for some clients, and certainly other therapies should be tried in such cases.)

It’s important to note that sometimes ERP is experienced as too difficult not because the therapy itself is “torture,” but because it is practiced in a way that is too forceful for the client, or with exposures that are too difficult for the client’s current level of anxiety. That’s why creating a hierarchy and starting with exposures that aren’t too difficult for the client to tolerate is important, as well as using a therapist who is compassionate and collaborative.

In addition, there is a subtype of OCD that is trauma-based, and in such a case, ERP might not be the best approach, at least until the trauma is addressed.

Medication is often an important part of treatment as well.

Recently, I came across a therapy for OCD called inference-based cognitive behavioral therapy, which is gentler than ERP and does not involve exposure. This helped some of my clients who have had difficulty tolerating exposure therapy. The I-CBT website has many free, user-friendly resources for people who want to explore this approach.

In addition, I wanted to mention that therapies that focus on helping someone validate or reassure themselves, so they don’t need to seek these things outside themselves, tend to work for some people, but for others, feed into an avoidant attachment style in which self-sufficiency for one’s emotional needs is used defensively. I’ve found that clients who experience images generated in their imaginations as vivid enough or real enough to feel comforting or helpful do well with hypnosis, IFS, inner child work, etc.

However, many clients with OCD who struggle with this wouldn’t necessarily find these interventions to be anxiety reducing.

One size doesn’t fit all, but luckily there are many approaches that can be tried!

Mirel Goldstein, MS, MA, LPC

Shop in the Corner Store [A Better You / Issue 919]

In a follow-up to your piece on budget grocery shopping, here’s an additional tip that works well for us: Shop at a smaller corner grocery for your weekly grocery orders. Once every few weeks, go to a supermarket and shop with a list specialty items, because supermarkets are designed to make you throw more things into your cart.

Good luck,
S. M.

The Other Side of the Window [Windows / Issue 919]

In response to the piece about a still-single woman buying a gift for her friend’s new baby and how it highlights for her just how much her friend has that she would love to have, here is a letter from her “friend”:

Thank you so much for that onesie in honor of the birth of my third daughter. This gift means more to me than any other gift I received. I know you gave it with blood and tears, and I feel it.

I admire you so much. You have the middos of Rachel Imeinu and Aharon HaKohein. You supported me through my engagement, and danced up a storm at my wedding. You offered your opinion on my maternity clothes, and sent me such nice mazel tov texts when my simchahs came. You ask me to send pictures of my kids because you know I love to send them. You’re always so genuine in your joy and care for me.
We’re naming my baby tomorrow. Should I text you the name?

I wish I knew better how we should schmooze. I want to share my life with you. My ups and my downs. Although I do have my share of challenges, I know you are battling more. It must have been insensitive when I griped or complained about these issues to you. I want to keep our relationship close, and closeness comes from sharing. I wish for you to feel the same with me.

I know your wedding will come, and I will be your proudest and happiest friend there. Until then, you’re in my heart, mind, and prayers.

Lots of love,

Your Friend on the Other Side

Homeopathy Debunked [Inbox / Issue 918]

While I wholeheartedly agree that conventional medicine can be severely limited, I was disturbed by a recent letter that implied that homeopathy was a research-based alternative. The letter writer bemoaned that “alternative medicine modalities, many with numerous science-backed successes like homeopathy, are dismissed despite rigorous scientific research supporting its safety and effectiveness,” and, “contrary to popular belief, therapies like homeopathy are supported by credible peer-reviewed studies that demonstrate their efficacy.”

No, they aren’t. Quite the opposite, in fact.

With a quick Google search, you can find research that claims to support the efficacy of homeopathy. But just a bit of digging will show you the research was produced by practitioners of homeopathy — people highly biased to prove it works.

If you’re going to look for more objective studies, let me help you out. A 2015 study by Australia’s National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) concluded that “there are no health conditions for which there is reliable evidence that homeopathy is effective.”

An article from the National Library of Medicine, an official website of the United States Government, titled Randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trials of non-individualised homeopathic treatment: systematic review and meta-analysis concluded that there was significant evidence of publication bias in favor of homeopathy.

In other words, the very few studies that were done did NOT prove efficacy AND they found a strong bias to only report the studies that show that homeopathy works.

An article in the well-respected Journal of the American Medical Association said, “Statements and methods of alternative medicine — as far as they concern observable clinical phenomena — can be tested by scientific methods. When such tests yield negative results, as in the studies presented herein, the particular method or statement should be abandoned.” In other words, in this particular study, homeopathy was NOT proven effective.

By necessity, I’ve had to quote only the briefest lines from these reports, but any reader can look up the full articles. While I don’t discount the many honest, well-intended people, including the letter writer, who claim they or their child was helped with homeopathy, the placebo effect is real and powerful, with fMRIs detecting actual changes in the brain as a result of treatment with a placebo. There are many branches of science investigating how we can harness this power to heal ourselves more effectively.

While I’m not naive enough to believe that I can “convert” believers in homeopathy — and they will no doubt have an endless list of reasons why mainstream science denies their claims — my hope is to reach those people who may believe the letter writer and invest time and money (often quite a lot of money) in an elusive cure. As powerful as the placebo effect is, there is a limit to what it can cure. Those turning to homeopathy are in danger of delaying crucial mainstream interventions at serious risk to their health.

I’m open to believing there are a plethora of effective alternative medicines out there, but homeopathy isn’t one of them.

Wishing all of Klal Yisrael only the best of health, and healing from our True Healer.

Francesca Zuckerman

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 921)