Zahava Stemp

Learning and Cognition

Final Paper
1/6/13
For my groups interviews, we decided to explore the topic of Maaseh Avos
Siman LBanim. This is the concept of looking at the lives of our forefathers and
viewing them as role models for our own lives. In order to reach this concept of
Maaseh Avos Siman LBanim, we probed our interviewees to think about the way the
avos acted, ultimately discussing the story of Akeidas Yitzchak. Our goal was to find
out what our interviewees would have done if they were in Avrahams position. We
wanted to see if there were any parallels between Avrahams life and their lives. We
wanted to discover if they were able to recognize the great actions of our
forefathers, specifically Avraham, and use his actions as a guide for the way they live
their own lives. In our analysis, the two major concepts we used were scripts and
schemas. We noticed how the interviewees script of the Akeidas Yitzchak story
progressed with each interview. In terms of schema, we picked up on the
interviewees schema for tzadikim/Avraham, schema for Hashem, and schema for
the concept of Maaseh Avos Siman LBanim. We chose to interview a third grade girl,
Talia, and a sixth grade boy, Davi. We felt that rather than interviewing two children
who were the same age, it would be interesting to see how their knowledge would
differ from a third grader to a sixth grader.
We began by our interviews by asking the interviewees if they could name
the avos, which led us to a discussion of what they knew about them and specific
stories about them as well. Once they began to discuss the story of Akeidas Yitzchak

and the details they knew about it, we went inside the pesukim and began to go
through the story as it is written in the chumash. After that, we asked the
interviewees why they think Avraham listened to Hashem and if they would do the
same thing he did. This brought us to our concept of Maaseh Avos Siman LBanim.
We taught them that this concept means to look at our avos as role models for own
lives and learn from their actions. In our final interviews with each of the
interviewees, we probed them on these same concepts to see if they truly grasped
and fully understood the ideas.
After interviewing and analyzing, our observations were quite interesting,
but not necessarily shocking to any degree. First, we will look at the different
aspects of Talias interviews. In the first interview, Talia has a script of Akeidas
Yitzchak, but it is underdeveloped. She is missing main characters and props, and
she is not exactly sure of the ending of the story. In the re-interview, Talia has a
better developed script. She has more characters and props, but she is still unsure
of the ending. In her final interview, Talia has a complete script, for the most part,
including most characters and props. For schema of tzadikim, there is no mention of
that in Talias first interview. In her re-interview, Talia explains that Avraham is a
tzadik. He does mitzvos, and he is happy to follow Hashems orders. In Talias final
interview, she used the same terminology that she used in the re-interview, but she
also adds that Avraham was a leader and was in charge. For schema of Hashem,
there is no mention of Him in the first interview. In the re-interview, Talia explains
that Hashem is important and one of a kind. She went on further to explain that
people today believe in Him, and Avraham believed in Him as well. We must obey

His commandments, and Avraham and Yitzchak were happy to listen to Him. In her
final interview, Talia uses that same terminology she used in the re-interview, and
she also adds that if people do not listen to Hashem, they will be punished. The
entire concept of Maaseh Avos Siman LBanim did not seem grasped throughout all
of the interviews.
Davis interviews were different from Talias interviews, as we had expected.
In his first interview, Davi has a very clear script for Akeidas Yitzchak. He has roles,
props and scenes. He even knows some midrash, which is beyond the text itself! His
script for Akeidas Yitzchak is so well-developed that we did not even focus on it in
the rest of the interviews. For schema of Hashem, there is no mention of Hashem in
the first interview. In the re-interview, Davi explains that Hashem does things for a
reason, and we must trust Him and believe in Him. In the final interview, Davi
explains that he himself always believes in Hashem and explains that Hashem is
special. For schema of Maaseh Avos Siman LBanim, there is no mention of it in
Davis first interview. In the re-interview, even before we teach him about the
concept, he has some sort of idea about it. He cannot put a title to the concept, but
he was definitely touching on the exact idea of Maaseh Avos Siman LBanim. After
more discussion within the re-interview, Davi is able to give the schema a name, and
he is able to see the connection of it to multiple stories. In the final interview, Davi
clearly explains the concept of Maaseh Avos Siman LBanim. He even tries applying
the concept to his own life! He takes it a step further and ultimately connects his
schema of Hashem to the concept of Maaseh Avos Siman LBanim. We facilitated

Davi tying it all together. He came in with knowledge, and we helped him make
more sense of it all.
As mentioned above, in Talias first interview her script of Akeidas Yitzchak
was blurry, leaving out key characters and props. She is also unsure of the ending.
Interviewer: Do you know any stories about [the avos]?
Talia: Yeah. When Avraham, wait I think it was him..No, I dont know who it was.
Interviewer: Its okay if you dont know the exact name, do you recall the story?
Talia: Something to do with Yitzchak maybe? He made a thingyfire, squareyI
forgot what its called.
Interviewer: Thats okay. Just tell me as much of the story as you remember.
Talia: So I think it was Avraham giving his son to Hashem on what they use for
animals and for people to cook on.
In her re-interview, her script is more developed. She has more knowledge
of characters and props, but she is still unsure of the ending.
Interviewer: So it seems like pretty crazy. What did Hashem want Avraham to do?
Talia: Hashem wanted Avraham to kill his son.
Interviewer: And what is Avrahams response?
Talia: .
Interviewer: What does he say?
Talia: Yeah.
Interviewer: Did Avraham actually do it?
Talia: No. Well he does it, but then the malach tells him not to.

And Talia mentions later in the re-interview that, Yitzchak was happy he was
getting killed, because it was for Hashem.
In Talias final interview, she has almost all of the characters and props. She
even uses the words of the pesukim. Her script is basically complete.
Interviewer: Do you know any stories about the avos?
Talia: Yeah, the one that I told you about last time. When Avraham takes Yitzchak,
his only son, the son that he loves, and he is going to take a knife and kill him, to give
to Hashem as a korban. Then the malach came down and stopped him.
Interviewer: Do you remember the name of that story?
Talia: Akeidat Yitzchak.
For schema of tzadikim/Avraham, there is no mention of it in Talias first
interview. In the re-interview, she explains that Avraham is a tzadik and what that
means.
Interviewer: What do you think Hashem learned about Avraham through this test?
Talia: Um, that Avraham was..a tzadik.
Interviewer: So Hashem learned that Avraham was a tzadik. So what made him a
tzadik?
Talia: I dont know. He believed in Hashem.
Interviewer: And what do you think Hashem would have learned about Avraham if
he said, No, I dont want to do it?
Talia: That he didnt believe in Hashem.
Later on in the re-interview, Talia elaborates a bit more.
Interviewer: Is Avraham special in the story because he is willing to kill his son?

Talia: Hes special because he is a tzadik. He always does mitzvoth, and he always
believes in Hashem.
In her final interview, Talia uses the same terminology as she did in the reinterview, but this time she adds in that Avraham was the leader of the Jewish
people and that he was in charge. Clearly her schema for the avos in general is
limited.
Interviewer: What does this mean they are the fathers? How could they be my
fathers?
Talia: Fathers of the Jewish people.
Interviewer: So what does that mean?
Talia: I dont know.
Interviewer: Where did you hear that?
Talia: My teachers.
Interviewer: Do they say what that means?
Talia: They are special.
Interviewer: What do you think a father does?
Talia: He is in charge.

Later on in the interview

Interviewer: We know Avraham is our father, because why?
Talia: Because Hashem chose them.
Interviewer: Why did he choose them?
Talia: Because they are tzadikim.

Interviewer: What does that mean?

Talia: That means they are in charge in the used to be days.
Interviewer: Do you know what tzadik means?
Talia: No. *Here she recognizes that she does not know what a tzadik is. She
cannot verbalize it or elaborate on it.
Interviewer: It means someone who is righteous, does a lot of good things, and
cares for people. Why did Hashem choose these fathers?
Talia: Because they are special and are tzadikim.
Interviewer: Why do we want tzadikim to be our avos?
Talia: We want good avot, not bad avot.
Interviewer: Why?
Talia: Because they are bad. If you are one of the avot, youre a leader. Its like if
you are captain of the hockey team, and youre the captain. If the coach dies, you put
the captain as coach. The captain is the leader. That is why he is the captain. You
cant have just someone who wants to play hockey to be the coach. You have to see
how good he plays. You cant be bad and just do blah blah blah, and doesnt care and
yeah
Interviewer: How does that relate to the avos? You said something about
leadership.
Talia: If one of the avot is bad, then its like a captainlike what I just told you.
Interviewer: Why do I need good avos? I get it in hockey. Relate it to the avos.
Talia:

For the schema of Hashem, there is no mention in Talias first interview. In

her re-interview, she explains and discusses Hashem. At first I viewed he schema of
Hashem as underdeveloped, but I began to realize that this may just be the normal
schema of Hashem that the average third grader has.
Interviewer: So hes about to do it but then the malach tells him to stop. So what
would you do? If Hashem came to you and told you to kill your one most beloved
child and told you to kill him, what would you do?
Talia: I would kill him.
Interviewer: And why would you do that?
Talia: Because Hashem told me to.
Interviewer: So?
Talia: If a random person told me to kill my son, then I would not do it. But if
Hashem tells me to do it, then Ill do it.
Interviewer: Why?
Talia: Because Hashem is important.
Interviewer: So? Why is Hashem different than a random person?
Talia: Because Hashem is one of a kind.
Interviewer: Okay, so do you think Avraham wanted to do this?
Talia: No. He did it because Hashem told him to
Interviewer: But if Avraham didnt want to do it, as you said, they why did he do
it?
Talia: Because Hashem told him to.

Interviewer: Okay so why would Hashem ask him to do it if He was going to stop
him with the malach? Why did he even ask him in the first place?
Talia: Because um, because He was testing him.
Interviewer: What do you mean?
Talia: He was giving him a test.
Interviewer: Like a test in school?
Talia: No.
Interviewer: So what does that mean He was giving him a test?
Talia: ..
Interviewer: Youre doing great.
Talia: .
Interviewer: Well what kind of test was it?
Talia: I cant explain. Like if he trusted in Hashem. If he trusts Hashem.
In Talias final interview, she uses the same terminology that she used in the
re-interview. She also adds the aspect of punishment with Hashem. She explains
that if we dont listen to Hashem, we will be punished.
Interviewer: Hashem asks Avraham to kill his son. Did he actually do it?
Talia: No.
Interviewer: Would you burn your favorite football? (*Here we tried making it
more relatable and meaningful to her)
Talia: I would do it.
Interviewer: Why? Your only one, favoriteWould it bother you that you dont
have the ball?

Talia: Kind of.

Interviewer: But you would still do it?
Talia: Yeah, because Hashem told me to.

Later in the interview, she continues

Interviewer: Well what do you think? Why did Hashem put it in the Torah for you?
Talia: Its important.
Interviewer: Why?
Talia: There is only one God, and we should listen to Hashem, and if we dont
something bad is going to happen.

For Davi, the first aspect that we noticed was that he knew the Akeidas
Yitzchak script very well. He knew the roles, the props, and the scenes. He was so
thorough in his first interview that we did not go over it in the other interviews.
Interviewer: So lets focus on one specific story about Avraham. Tell me all you
know about Akeidas Yitzchak.
Davi: On the way there to the mountain, at a certain point he, uh Avraham went
with Yishmael and Yitzchak, so Yishmael was not too holy to go, so he came with a
donkey, and he told Yishmael to stay like at this point with the donkey and not go
forward. And Avraham and Yitzchak went to the mountain, and Yitzchak was tied to
the straps, and Avraham took out his knife, and the angels started crying. And a
midrash says that when the angels started crying, their tears went into Yitzchaks

eyes and blinded him from a young age. And then he saw a ram, and Hashem told
him to take the ram instead of Yitzchak.
Next, we focused on Davis schema of Hashem. In his first interview, he does
not mention Hashem. In the re-interview, Davi begins to discuss Hashem.
Interviewer: So, what did Hashem want Avraham to do?
Davi: To test him to see if Avraham would actually listen to Hashem.
From here it is clear that Davi understands that Hashem does things for a reason.
Then the interview continues on, revealing more of his schema of Hashem.
Interviewer: Would you do it?
Davi: I would probably do it.
Interviewer: Why?
Davi: You should always trust in Hashem
Interviewer: So you would trust in Hashem, and you would do it. Do you think
Avraham wanted to do this?
Davi: I think he didnt want to do it, but he has to do what he has to do.
Interviewer: He has to do what he has to do. What does this mean?
Davi: He has to do what Hashem tells him to do.

Later in the interview, Davi applies his schema of Hashem to another story in Torah,
essentially explaining that we must believe in Hashem.
Interviewer: So why would Hashem ask him to do it if He wasnt going to make him
do it?
Davi: He wanted to test him to see if he would listen to Him.

Interviewer: Why is that important to Hashem? What does Hashem want?

Davi: If you dont trust Hashem, you are not really like a Jew. When Moshe splitwas going to go in the water, Nachshon ben Aminadav jumped in the water. He
believed in Hashem that he was not going to die.
In Davis final interview, he gives a very good explanation of Hashem, and his
schema of Hashem shines through.
Interviewer: And why do you believe in Hashem so strongly?
Davi: Well, I always believe in Hashem.
Interviewer: Why?
Davi: UhI dont know. Hes very special. Hes our big father in heaven. Avraham
did, Yitzchak did. Sometimes, if you kill somebody who is bad, and they have a
whole big army and they come after you, all you have to do is trust in Hashem, and
you will be safe. Then like in the Holocaust, they trusted in Hashem, and they were
very hopeful that they wouldnt get killed, but we lost six million
For the schema of the concept of Maaseh Avos Siman LBanim, Davi does not
mention it in his first interview. In his re-interview, before we even introduced the
concept to him, he taps into it. He knew how to describe the concept, but he did not
have a name for it.
Interviewer: Avraham had a long life, why include this story?
Davi: It should be a lesson to all of us.
Interviewer: What do you mean?
Davi: To listen to Him.

Here, he completely caught on to the idea of Maaseh Avos Siman LBanim. Later on
in the interview, we gave him the title to his schema, but once we did that, for some
reason he couldnt understand how the schema applied. It was kind of weird.
Interviewer: Maaseh Avos Siman LBanim
Davi: Um, the doings of our forefathers is a sign for all generations after.
Interviewer: Yes. So now that you know this phrase, how do you think it could
apply to this story?
Davi: I dont know.
After we continued discussing the concept in this interview, he is able to connect his
schema to the title of the schema. He reached this point after we discussed different
stories about the avos.
Interviewer: We shared three stories about the the avos so now what can you tell
me about why they are special?
Davi: They learned lessons, and we learn from them.
Interviewer: And whats that called?
Davi: Maaseh Avos Siman LBanim.
In the final interview, Davi explains the concept of Maaseh Avos Siman
LBanim very clearly.
Interviewer: Do you know any stories about Avraham from when he was alive?
Davi: Yeah...well when he had like the three guests over, the angels.
Interviewer: So in the story that youre sharing with me, what made the avos
special?

Davi: Well as I said before, they always taught us lessons, lessons in life that we
should keep. Like Avraham, we should do hachnasat orchim and bikur cholim.
Interviewer: Any other lessons we should know?
Davi: To believe in Hashem, Akeidat Yitzchak. Always trust in Hashem. Always do
what Hashem says.
Later on in the interview, Davi tries to apply Maaseh Avos Siman LBanim to himself.
Davi: Hmm, Let me thinkit says to always trust in Hashem. So once I got money
that I earned, and I had to give ten percent to tzedakah. So I gave it to my schools
tzedakah box. I dont know where exactly the money is going, but I trust in Hashem
that it is going to the right place.
Finally, toward the end of the interview, Davi is right on target! He connects his
schema of Hashem to his schema of Maaseh Avos Siman LBanim, and he even
remembers the exact terminology of Maaseh Avos Siman LBanim.
Interviewer: You mentioned that Avraham believed in Hashem, and so did Yitzchak
and so did Yaakov. So how does knowing this help you?
Davi: Well, if I know that my forefathers do it, then I should do it. Like my father,
and my grandfather, and my great grandfather. We all believe in the same thing, and
I will pass it on to my children.
Interviewer: So we have a special name for that.
Davi: Maaseh Avot Siman LBanim.
Interviewer: Excellent! What does that mean?
Davi: The actions of the avot is a symbol for us. We should learn from everything
that the avot do.

With Talias interviews, there are definitely differences between the initial
interview and the two post-interviews. After examining her script of Akeidas
Yitzchak, her schema of tzadikim, and her schema of Hashem, we have seen that in
the initial interview the script is underdeveloped, with no mention of tzadikim or
Avraham. In the re-interview, she is able to express more, but her schema is very
limited. This remains the same in the final interview as well, without much change
from the reinterview.
With Davis first interview, he is basically stating prior knowledge for the
most part. He knows the script of Akeidas Yitzchak in depth, but there is no mention
of his schema of Hashem and no mention of the concept of Maaseh Avos Siman
LBanim (of course, because we hadnt mentioned it yet). In his post-interviews, he
truly blew me away with the amount that he grasped. His application of the
material was amazing. To me, it seemed as though everything that was mentioned
by him in the post-interviews was knowledge that he already had, he just needed a
bit of scaffolding to bring it out of him.
After completing this project, I learned so many things about Jewish
education and education in general. Firstly, although it is obvious but still
something that was important to see and recognize, there is a major difference in
how things should be taught in different grade levels. Having discussed the same
information with a third grader and a sixth grader, it was made so clear that they
learn differently, and should therefore be taught differently. It seems like such a
simple concept, but teachers must keep this in mind when it comes to lesson

planning. Another thing I learned was that as teachers, it is very important to

choose our words wisely. After doing the interviews, especially with the third
grader Talia, I realized that many of her answers were, I know this because my
teacher told me. Students, especially at a younger age, truly latch on to what their
teachers say. When teaching Judaic Studies, we must be so careful to choose our
words carefully, because whether they seem to be listening to us or not, to some
degree they hear what we are saying and take it very seriously. Lastly, as teachers,
we should never hesitate to teach our students the why aspect of things. We
should always attempt to explain things to them, whether they will fully grasp it or
not. Davi is in sixth grade, and it was obvious that his teachers explain why we do
this, why we learn this, why we think this. He, as a sixth grader, is able to learn but
also apply. Talia, even though she did not fully understand the concepts we tried to
teach, should still be introduced to the why. Even as young as third grade,
teachers should explain things to their students, not just tell them the facts. It could
make a real difference in the way that they learn.