A few weeks ago I broke the 10,000 mile mark in my driving to the Torah Umesorah convention and I do not regret a single mile. It is hard to explain the excitement I feel when I first enter the convention center that hosts 1,500 educators. Living in far off Atlanta GA makes the scene even more impressive and inspiring.
One of the highlights of the convention is the opportunity to network with other mechanchim who are facing similar challenges and inquiring as to how they have been responding. This year our Rosh HaYeshiva asked me to investigate the best practices regarding encouraging bachurim to come to davening. Although we have moved our start time from 7:30am to 8:00am, there are still a significant number of students who have trouble attending on a consistent basis. The convention provides an opportunity to canvas similar Yeshivos and find out their approaches to this challenge. Here is a summary of my finding.
- Daily detention – Students who miss shachris must spend the first break in a classroom with the Rebbe
- Special shiur –A special shiur is given once a week to the Yeshiva on the importance of Teffila
- Fines – Collect ten single dollars from students in the beginning of the year. When they miss remove one dollar from the envelop. After consistent attendance add the dollars back
- Essay – When students miss a number of tephillos they must listen to a 45 minute shiur of their choice and write a one page essay on the shiur
The only commonality between these ideas was that not one was actually effective! It was quite amusing to watch the faces of the senior and expert Rabbeim when I asked them this question. Their smiles inverted and out came the age old Jewish sigh. Although I left the convention without a clear idea of how to handle this challenge, I did feel comforted that everyone else was in the same boat.
This past week our Menahel took his class on a senior trip and left yeshiva from Wednesday evening until Monday night. I did not count the number of students that took advantage of his not being there on Thursday morning for shachris, but there were many empty seats in the Bais Medrash. After a basic inventory I realized that although most shiurim had large numbers of missing students, my entire ninth grade was present!
As we sat down to learn I reflected on my recent trip to the convention and the frustration the Rabbeim felt trying to motivate our students to consistently come for davening. It was this sense of perspective that motivated me to spontaneously announce we would be going on a trip for fruit smoothies and for a stroll in the park. I explained how proud and impressed I was by their collective behavior and off we went.
We have not figured out how best to deal with the bachurim who missed davening that day, but the faces of my talmidim when I made this announcement revealed that I had stumbled upon a way to deal with those students who do come. They felt proud of their new identity as a class that takes davening seriously and I am confident this ounce of prevention will provide a pound of impact!
My good friend Rabbi Yechezkel Freundlich has begun a wonderful project of videoing short presentation on parenting based on the Parsha. This week (click here to view) he makes a point that is quite relevant to this discussion. He points out that many people are familiar with the Rashi that describes how exacting Hashem will be when He must punish Klal Yisrael. Rabbi Freundlich reminds us to look a few pesukim earlier where Rashi uses the exact same language with regard to rewarding the Jewish people. He reminds parents to put careful focus and thought into rewarding children for their good behavior and not just into their punishments.
Maybe at next year’s convention I should survey the mechanchim on how best to reward those students who consistently come to davening?
