Sometimes people ask about the relationship and similarities/differences between school and learning with TorahTutors.org. Like everything about our learning, these answers are highly individualized! Some of our students attend Jewish day schools or supplementary schools and come to us for support or enrichment; others attend secular schools or no traditional school at all, and TorahTutors sessions represent a large piece of their Jewish learning.
For this week’s Tuesday TorahTutor tidbit, we’d like to give a shout-out to one student for whom TorahTutors learning is interwoven with school. Her parents and teachers realized that some of her Jewish studies classes simply couldn’t meet her needs, and we matched her with a great tutor available during those class periods to learn with her independently – from across the world!
She has been studying Parshat Shemot, which, as it happens, is this week’s Torah portion, and we wanted to take the opportunity to share a slice (or rather, a tidbit) of what she and her tutor have been able to accomplish.
Since her TorahTutors sessions are taking the place of school classes, the tutor was asked to design worksheets and assessments to generate grades. Here are just a few questions from her assessment – real Torah, from real TorahTutors sessions:
- About whom is it said: “and the land was filled with THEM” (Shemot 1:7)?
- About whom is it said: “and SHE opened and she saw the boy” (2:6)?
- Who said to whom: “for the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women” (1:19)?
- Who said to whom: “and where is he?” (2:22)?
- Identify the shoresh (Hebrew root) of vayasimu (1:11) (and a great many more!).
These basic questions represent a valuable process of developing text skills, on par with any high-level text-based Jewish Studies classroom. Plus, she gets 100% attention that allows for greater engagement, broader discussions geared especially to her, and maximum use of time.
(Can you answer them? Look up the verses – and see what else you notice, while you’re there.)
We are so proud of this student’s learning and of her tutor’s dedication, and we’re grateful we could be there for her to provide her learning needs!
