Intellectual Challenge.

I was listening recently to This American Life, an excellent radio show that is also podcasted. The episode was entitled "Save the Day" and was about people who seem to swoop in and rescue or handle certain situations. The last segment was about the University of Montvallo's annual Life Raft Debate. The premise is as follows:

In the Life Raft Debate, we imagine that there has been a nuclear war, and the survivors (the audience) are setting sail to rebuild society from the ground up. There is a group of academic-types vying to get on the raft, and only one seat is left. Each professor has to argue that his or her discipline is the one indispensable area of study that the new civilization will need to flourish. At the end of the debating, the audience votes and the lucky winner climbs aboard, waving goodbye to the others.

Each debate includes a historian or English professor, or an Art Historian, or something like that, and they all try to convince the audience that their discipline is most important for the future. There is also a "Devil's Advocate" who argues that the audience should reject all of the presentations.

In the radio program, the Devil's Advocate--and English professor--won. He pointed out that the speakers, in an effort to "win" eschewed real argument, and simply relied upon fluff and funny presentations. He implored the audience that what was needed, because this is a college, after all, were arguments that provided intellectual challenge, and not just gimmicks that made people laugh, even if the latter did help the contestants win. His speech was so effective that the audience did reject the gimmicks and voted for the Devil's Advocate.

What does this have to do with Kadima? Some tend to focus on whether our kids are "happy" at school, rather than whether they are happy and learning. We sometimes forget that Kadima, at bottom, is a school. Kadima is not about entertainment, it is about educating our children; it is about challenging them, teaching them, motivating them, and developing them--all within in an environment permeated with traditional Jewish values. Kadima is not a day care center, or a day camp; Kadima's core job is to teach and to challenge our kids intellectually and spiritually. This means that sometimes kids will have difficulties and tough days; but the great thing is that Kadima's teachers don't desert the children in their time of difficulty; on the contrary, the teachers guide the children through the challenges. What was once hard becomes easier; yet, it becomes easier not because we have changed the task or lowered the goal, but because we have taught our kids how to master the challenge.