4th Grade explores new perspectives: Rachel, Leah, Bilhah, and Zilpah
On Monday and Tuesday, 4th Grade redefined heroes: A hero is somebody with a big purpose. A hero tries to overcome obstacles, usually with their special inner qualities. Everyone has opportunities to be a hero — we just have to see that opportunity, and act on it well. (We checked: Yep, Jacob from the Torah is a hero.) Students also defined more things that they think of in a hero: for example, a hero might also be a role model, might save the day, might help people altruistically, it might be very subjective, and so on.
Then, we went on to learn and discuss one of the most complex family structures in the whole Torah. We watched the following video, looking for all the things that were unfair in it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y8l4RILn-Y There was plenty to choose from! Most notably, we were dismayed that this video tells us the story only from Jacob’s perspective. Like, Jacob’s story has women in it, but only to tally up their babies that they’re having with Jacob. The Torah doesn’t say what cool dreams Rachel or Leah had on their journeys. It doesn’t say what Bilhah or Zilpah liked to do (other than having babies), or even if they liked having babies for Rachel and Leah. Bilhah and Zilpah don’t even get any lines. We know basically nothing about these characters as people!
We discussed: how might this story be different, from different perspectives? After all, these women aren’t just babymamas with drama, they’re interesting people in their own right. What if Rachel and Leah were telling the story — would they talk about how they felt about their dad’s trick? What if Bilhah and Zilpah were telling it — do they maybe want to focus on something other than babies sometimes? What were these people like, what did they do all day, what might be in their stories?
Students chose a character, to film a trailer for a new movie that would tell that character’s story.
Questions for families:
Whose perspective was your trailer about? (they’ll probably need help with the names, but they’ll likely recall which characters they thought were interesting.) Tell me about your film. (warning: some films were serious, and some were hilariously silly.)
Pick a person you know in real life, today. How can we try to take on their perspective? What skills do we need, to do that? If we succeed, what cool new stories might we discover?
Can we be heroes, too? Have we ever faced an obstacle, do we have any special inner qualities to help us? Can each person in our family be a hero?
