Why do we need a Jewish remedial school?

NICOLA MILTZ

The Jewish community is stepping up to the plate in a bid to cater to wider educational needs. Jewish children with learning difficulties are being noticed. So much so, that at least two new remedial initiatives will be opening in January.

For years, Jewish children with remedial needs were forced to look outside the community for help, relying on world-class, private, multi-cultural institutions – often with huge waiting lists – for additional learning support.

Parents with children requiring remedial schooling, found that traditional mainstream institutions were neither equipped, nor terribly interested, in fulfilling their children’s special educational needs. Many left to navigate the remedial landscape on their own in order to fill the gap where mainstream Jewish education fell short.

The very first Jewish remedial school, King David Ariel, will open in January 2018. This is the South African Board of Jewish Education’s (SABJE) answer to the problem.

SABJE general director Rabbi Craig Kacev says: “The Board has tracked the number of students going to remedial schools over many years and there has been a slow increase over time of parents choosing to send their children to remedial schools.”

The numbers vary from year to year, he said, but: “Enough children have been moving into the various remedial schools” to persuade the board that opening a remedial school is “viable and necessary”.

He said SABJE did its own study “which went into numbers, forecasts, capital and operational costs over an extended period” and concluded that “the investment was appropriate, needed and important for our community”, said Kacev.

The question is why there are so many Jewish children needing remediation and is this just a Jewish thing?

Johannesburg psychologist, David Abrahamson, said: “There does seem to be a disproportionate number of Jewish children attending remedial schools in Johannesburg. However, to date, there does not seem to be any credible research that suggests that Jewish children are more likely to experience learning difficulties compared to other ethnic and cultural groupings.”

He says this could be due to a “cultural dynamic”.  He went on to explain this: “Jewish people seem to place considerable value on education and educational achievement. In turn, Jewish parents are generally very sensitive and alert to developmental delays and academic difficulties that their child may experience.”

Principal of Ariel, Sally Ann Knowles, said: “I have taught in a variety of schools for over 20 years and barriers to learning present in all grades and across all schools, worldwide. In my experience, the value of early diagnosis and intervention… is of paramount importance.

“King David… is well versed in the value of early intervention strategies and is thus proactive in scaffolding the needs of those children requiring additional support. Perhaps this proactive stance has led to the perception that this is a ‘Jewish thing’.”

Other remedial schools, she said, were “doing a remarkable job” of addressing the learning needs of their pupils. Their long waiting lists and results, testify to this. “To put it quite simply, some of them do not have the capacity to keep up with the demand.”

What differentiates King David Ariel from other remedial schools, she said, is its mandate to serve the Jewish community in particular. Also, “to provide our pupils with world-class remedial interventions while offering all the additional benefits of a King David School”.

Yeshiva College is launching the Yeshiva Extension and Support (YES) centre. It is a standalone body that offers children, in a mainstream environment, the opportunity to get integrated support on campus.

Said psychologist Sheryl Cohen, who has helped on Ariel and YES: “When Jewish values are an integral part of a family’s way of life, then moving a child out of a Jewish environment, is a loss.

“It’s a loss for the parents who want to impart upon their child the richness of a Jewish life. It’s a loss for the child who often enjoys the sense of belonging that comes with a Jewish school environment.

“Ariel has changed the map! Offering a fulltime Jewish remedial school, allows each child the educational support that they need, while at the same time, giving them a strong Jewish identity.”

While YES is not a full-time remedial school, like Ariel, Cohen says: “The aim of the YES centre is to support weaknesses by way of during and after school therapy, while allowing children to enjoy and thrive in a mainstream Torah school environment… the main aim being to facilitate progress from the therapy room into the classroom.”

It is not as if there are more Jewish children requiring remediation, it’s that more teachers, parents and professionals are becoming aware of the need to recognise areas of weakness and remediate them, says Cohen

“More research is available to assess children’s developmental needs and as such, more treatment options are available.”

Said Cohen: “In the past, children with learning difficulties (LD) were often labelled as “Lazy and Dumb” (LD). Today, with early intervention, these children have a completely different school career.

Abrahamson says that the mainstream education system can be “hugely problematic”, in that it is mostly “standardised and uniform”.

“Every child, no matter what their ‘individual shape’, has to somehow fit into the system.

“Round, oval and triangle pegs are being squeezed into square holes because we only have one educational ‘shape’ to fit all the different shapes that are our children. If you don’t fit the shape, you struggle.

“In turn we see so many children requiring hours and hours of extra lessons instead of playing in the afternoon. We also see a staggering number of children taking medication to lower anxiety and sustain attention, because of what the system demands of them.

“This is the reason why it has become so important to offer a remedial school environment.

“Children with learning difficulties are of average to above average intelligence. However, there is a significant discrepancy between their cognitive skills, which makes it difficult for them to succeed academically.

“Once these discrepancies are identified, remedial schooling assists to close these cognitive gaps to enable children to reach their full potential. What often astonishes people is how these children achieve, once these gaps have been closed.

“Remedial schooling and the children who attend these schools, are still often stigmatised. The fact that the children attending King David Ariel will share facilities, have joint sports teams, will celebrate chagim and special events together with the mainstream children attending King David Victory Park Primary School, will, I believe, go a very long way to de-stigmatise remediation.

“Maybe even more importantly, it will give children with barriers to learning, a very powerful message that they are in no way inferior or different to children in mainstream schooling.”