Q&A: Core Curriculum
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Core Curriculum
Question
What do you think of the framework?
https://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%9E%D7%AA%D7%95%D7%95%D7%94_%D7%91%D7%A2%D7%9C%D7%96
Answer
I’m not familiar with the details, but I doubt whether such a framework would be properly implemented without regulation by the Ministry of Education. Even in institutions that are under regulation, the education and learning are not exactly impressive. See what is generally going on with secular studies in Haredi education of all types, including the “recognized but unofficial” schools and El HaMaayan.
I know the institution in question well; members of my family study there (I mean the boys’ schools, of course).
If we’re talking about English, for example, then at age 12 they study the ABC for the first time, very superficially, without any real practice. Half the class can no longer even recognize the letters themselves in the following year, at age 13.
Usually the teachers themselves don’t know more English than the students do (they didn’t take matriculation exams, of course). They open the textbooks and read with the students—this is A, this is B, and so on.
At age 13.5 they move up to yeshiva ketanah, where of course there are no core curriculum studies at all, so they don’t study English.
So officially, it is considered as though they study ‘English’ in school; in practice, by age 13–14 most of them do not know the ABC. At age 25, after marriage and kollel, someone who wants to can turn to academic studies, and there he will learn English at the matriculation level literally starting from the ABC.