Learning, Spirit and Lifesaving Advancement: A Day at Yesodos

yesodos tlsBy: Shimmy Blum
“What’s your favorite subject?”
Yossi pauses to think, slightly blushing. “I like to read…I like to color…I love Mishnayos.” His classmates quickly join the debate, each one listing the subject he loves most. Mishnayos is by far the most popular pick, but Chumash, math, science and other subjects receive honorable mention too.

Glancing around this 4th grade class, it is easy to see why they’re all so enthusiastic. The class is very small, with just six or seven boys, but two professional rabbeim are there throughout the class. While Rabbi Kranz delivers an enthusiastic lesson, replete with singing, Rabbi Marder is sitting near the desk of one boy, helping him fill out a worksheet. During the afternoon hours, a similar scene takes place with secular studies.

This is Yesodos, where no effort or resource is spared so that every talmid shines despite significant academic, social and/or behavioral challenges. This goes on during a full schedule, from 8:30 am through 4:30 pm each day.

When you combine all the rabbeim, teachers, therapists and other special- education specialists, Yesodos has over twenty faculty members for approximately thirty talmidim.

Walk into Rabbi Rothenberg’s 3rd grade class, and you see everything the boys are learning…alive. Near the rebbi’s desk are a bundle of wheat, still in the delivery box from the farm; a grater; and a sifter. The talmidim are excited to share which one of the lamed tes melachos each one relates to. In front of the class is a big computer screen, with a menu of educational songs and audio-visual presentations that frequently blare through the speakers.

From class to class, it is striking how enthusiastic each boy is about being there – and how well he knows everything he is taught. It is all the more amazing considering the challenges each one has, which would make learning torturous in any other setting. Most of these boys couldn’t succeed in any other Lakewood mosad, even with self-contained classes or other special-education resources. Yet at Yesodos they are at home and know their stuff.

In the eighth grade classroom of Rabbi Anemer, the longest serving Yesodos rebbi, talmidim are eager to show their fluency in Perek Eilu Metziyus. The brain picking questions by Rabbi Tesser, the Menahel, do not make them flinch. Rabbi Anemer’s professionalism and enthusiasm are evident when you just observe his interactions with talmidim for just a minute. “We had a siyum last week in Glatt Bite on the Daf we finished,” one talmid says with a smile. That helps too.

No aspect of the curriculum in any class is standard, and no two classes have the same curriculum. How does Yesodos do this?

Rabbi Tesser – a seasoned special education guru in his own right – works closely with Mrs. Friedman, Yesodos’s onsite behavior and curriculum consultant, and individual rabbeim and teachers, to perfect each class’s program according to each boy’s needs.

Mrs. Miller, the school’s Kriyah specialist, is there full time, all week, learning with boys one on one. There is also a daily schedule of onsite physical therapy, occupational therapy and speech therapy – held in Yesodos’s resource room, computer room and gym. An organized schedule ensures that each boy gets a generous amount of the help he needs most. There is a plethora of exciting educational material that talmidim can spend “free time” on, as well as the school’s own weekly “Yesodos Press” publication, which is mostly typed by the boys themselves. “When a boy progresses in any challenging area, even physical and occupational, it helps them behave better and focus better in class,” Rabbi Tesser explains.

Walk through the halls, near the dining room, and you see a huge billboard filled with pictures of smiling talmidim and rabbeim, posing near everything from fire trucks to sports fields. These are archived from their monthly trips to museums, government buildings, airports and more, as well as their special mesibos and siyumim.

The combination of professionalism and spirit makes for miracles in the halls of Yesodos each day, despite the school’s current desperately inadequate trailer quarters.

“Boys who couldn’t focus in class for three minutes in the beginning of the year now easily sit and learn for half-hour at a time,” says Mrs. Schiffer, who teaches the youngest grade. The constant, lifesaving progress is what motivates her throughout the year.

What is the goal for the class by the end of the year?

Mrs. Schiffer thinks hard but can’t come up with answer. “There’s a different goal for every boy,” she says.

Yesodos in a nutshell.

We can all have a part in this project, which is literally saving the children of our friends and neighbors. Are we ready to step up to the plate?

Donations can be made online here. For more information, please contact [email protected] or 732-730-1221.

 

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2 COMMENTS

  1. R’ Tesser is amazing. I once observed a class he was giving a few yrs ago, in a self-contained class. The students had vastly different challenges, to put it mildly, and still, every kid was locked in to the lesson, for about 40 min straight. He is an amazing chinuch talent. May the boys in that school grow & grow till we all see Nachas from them.

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