In honour of Mati starting "real" cheder
So stressed about Mati's starting school. Just as if it was mine! During the holidays she had time to forget the vowels and even the sofit... crazy! we went over her Yiddish book over Rosh Hashana and it seems she still doesn't "get" that a letter = a sound and that several letters = a word. This year will be "real" business, letters and all very seriously not like the year for the kids under 3... BH she has a lot of advance, but she needs to keep it.
Weird fact: it seems in France the Chabad do "hachnassat cheder" at... 5, and during this HC they LEARN THE ALEF! so very late! I can't believe my girl "reads" better than a 5 yr old chassidish BOY and already did so before her birthday months ago, and if it's about knowing just one letter, probably at 2.5!
I was aware that in gender separated kindergartens the girls don't begin the letters before 5 or 6, and that in non charedi schools kids as a whole don't, but this?? This puts a new spin on why SHE got the "best tefila" award in a mixed gender, Chabad, up to 6 group this summer...
Once again I must thank Hashem for leading us to this rare school!
I'm also thankful that she got to be with gan alef (first cheder grade) while in ganone (pre gan), and learned so much. Guess what, the school grew so much that now they are clearly separated! She was in the last year to benefit from that!
Interesting cheder facts:
Before the so called Haskala, some chederim accepted girls! Then it became taboo/assur, though nowadays some girls and mixed schools bear the name "cheder" in charedi circles. One example I find online, a "girl cheder" in LA described as "tiny, mamish hamishe school for the takee mamesh frummist".
Look here at Note 29 http://books.google.com/books?id=3RYl3YsJuYgC&pg=PA169&lpg=PA169&#v=onepage&q&f=false and also http://www.berdichev.org/education_for_girls.pdf for more about girls in cheder.
Some places had a "girl cheder". In a few places where the boy cheder worked even in summer, so did the girl cheder! Like apparently in Vilna in the beginning of the century. Girls learned really a lot there: "Rochel sent Laya to a girl's cheder (literally a school room) that was taught by an elderly rabbi. Obviously, the little boys may have been too much to handle for an old man, but the placid little girls would be much better behaved. Grandma went to school for perhaps a year, since that was all her mother could afford. In that year's time she was able to learn how to read and write in Yiddish and to read Hebrew as well. She latter was able to read Yiddish newspapers and novels. She also composed letters to her mother and much later to other relatives. She was complimented on her beautiful handwriting and was very proud of her accomplishments."
Funnily in the same text it speaks of half sheitels! and here I thought it was new!
In Eastern Europe there were at least occasionally girls’ hadarim or girls who attended boy’s haderim, before separate sex education had become such a defining point for Haredi Orthodoxy [Stampfer, 1992; Greenbaum, 1999]
It's all cultural! "Ishiya the Melamed was a moderate and quiet man. He always was ready to teach Torah to someone who was interested, even without pay. Never in his life did he raise his hand to strike a pupil. When the boys misbehaved and acted wildly, it was enough for him to scold: "Shaygetz!”(Gentile!) “Mechutzaf!” (Insolent!) Az Ponim!” (Impudent!) Since he did not hit his students, an exception among the Rebbes, he was not accepted by many of the parents. Both the parents and other Rebbes not only did not think that the strap caused harm, but exactly the opposite! This was the proven and traditional way to inculcate the pupils with the fear of heaven..." (Ostryn, Russia, beginning of the century)
Greenbaum Avraham's "Girls Cheder and Girls in Boys Cheder in Eastern Europe before the First World War" is definitely a book I would love to find!