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Ofcourse –
Principal: Whohoo!
Teacher: What’s up, Rebbetzin?
Principal: I’m going to throw out Chani Greenberg?
Teacher: Um…why?
Principal: Who needs a reason! That’s the secretary’s job.
Teacher: Didn’t see it in her job description.
Principal: SO?
Teacher: You’re drunk, Rebbetzin.
Principal: Excuse me! My contract says I get one carte blanche expulsion per month. Last month was…
Teacher: Rivky Schwartz. For…
Principal: Existing! In a black skirt! That on a taller girl would have been too short! PRUTZA! We must be vigilant!
Teacher: Yeah…why did you put that in your contract?
Principal: The sheer RUSH! The tears! The raw feeling of power! Come on, does anyone go into teaching for the money? I mean, someone at my AA meeting just said the other day…
Teacher: Oh yeah…how have those been going?
Principal: The road to recovery is a long one. So I made up with my sponsor, if I ever feel stressed, instead of reaching for the bottle, I’ll ruin a young innocent soul instead, as a healthy outlet.
Teacher: Ahha…how’s that been working for you?
Principal: Let’s find out – because I need a drink NOW! Now, get me Greenbergs parents on the line! And put on the tape recorder, I may need to listen to this later. Oh, I simply can’t wait. Maybe I should call my sponsor, she’ll be so happy to know how good I’m doing…
Teacher: Yes. I know. Healthy outlet.
……..
Does anyone really believe that? Nothing? Zero? Zilch?
Schools are not always right, nor just. But there always is a reason; they don’t pull kids out of a hat. It may not be a good reason. And I think the debate thus far has been about that. Does anyone else accuse schools of randomly throwing out kids? There is more to the story. May not mean the school was right. Could be the school was very wrong. But they didn’t throw her out because of a teachers game of truth & dare gone wrong (“Throw out Chani Greenberg!” “But she’s the nicest girl!” “then tell me where you got your shaitel done!” “Never!”) But there’s more.
Moq, you cant be responding to my posts. I havent said that there are no valid reasons for throwing kids out of schools, Im saying that therapy doesnt yield anything but minimal results, so a school having money or lack thereof for therapists has little bearing on a kids behavior and whether he/she stays or goes.
WIY:
So what type of child are you suggesting to throw out?
a) The one who sells drugs
b) the one who gets Gimmels (or even fails), and sits out seder for 30 minutes (of a three hour seder) drinking coffee
c) the one that was found with a cell phone (Kosher) in class
d) The one found on the street talking to his sister (CV)
You talk about “bad” students, and then leave it undefined. Please define a “bad” student.
Interesting points everyone. However, the question isn’t why the kid is thrown out as much as how did the parents and/or yeshiva let it get to that point? Regarding the parents, there are many sad reasons why they don’t see it. But the teachers? You want to say that they’re underpaid and under educated? How much the Rebbeim get paid or if it’s on time is a separate issue. But when they choose to go into “chinuch”, they know they wont be getting six figures. (or close to it) As far as education, as a parent, I don’t expect them to have a masters or a phd, but one thing I do expect is that they should have compassion. Don’t treat a kid differently just because he’s not a top student. I expect them to be smart enough to see a problem as it’s developing. If they can’t handle it, notify someone else who can. Instead what do they do? Kick them out of class everyday, have them write “lines”. 1000 times, I will not…yeah that works. When I was in high school thirtysome yrs ago, I wasn’t doing well in gemara and I went to the Rebbe “crying” out for help. His response? “You don’t really want to learn, you wanna, wanna learn”. End of discussion. No suggestions, no nothing. He didn’t have to be paid any better or have a better education to have tried to inspire me even a little bit more (no that line wasn’t enough) No that didn’t cause me to go off the derech at all but I always remember his lack of compassion.
Ofcourse –
I was responding to this post
He he. Were you never witness to a situation that if you tried explaining it to someone, would be beyond belief? I have. You obviously havent. They happen every day though, both good and bad. Never say never
I guess I’m basically saying never.
And as far as if therapy works…I think there’s the good, the bad, and the ugly …if you find a real decent one, I’ve seen them work wonders.
Gavra –
I don’t know what anyone else’s opinion is, but I think acceptance is very different from expulsion. You can only expel when the child is destructive – that is, the drug dealer (etc.). Acceptance policy is based on the school’s snit, and that’s a different thread, but once you take a child you are indeed responsible for them unless they are hurting other children in a real way. Expulsion is the nuclear option.
Two man rule and the like.
Moq,
I didn’t resent the klai kodesh or their lifestyle. As long as I was able to work, I truly felt great pride in being able to provide for my children’s education by paying full tuition. I mentioned details about our lifestyle to illustrate that, despite our best efforts, there was nothing we could trim in our budget that would allow us to continue to pay full tuition on my husband’s salary alone (which was about 80% of the base salary kollel members and rebbeim received).
What I did resent was that when I asked for a tuition break after losing my job, my kids were threatened with expulsion. In my opinion, kids should not be kicked out of school because their parent lost a job.
I mentioned that klai kodesh did not pay tuition because this increased financial pressure on the school. Since 2/3 of students paid no tuition, the operating costs of the school had to be paid by the parents of the other 1/3 of the students, along with community donations. Because the school was so small, they could not benefit from the same economies of scale as larger schools. Nor did they have the same access to quality teachers as schools in larger communities do.
These financial pressures are unique to small Jewish communities, and can make tuition there an even larger burden than in mid-size communities.
Moq, do you know what “working with the school” means? If you complain to a school they tell you to take your kid out!!!
Now lets get a little more serious. Do you see how everyone defends the schools and the system? This is how molesters get away with abusing children. The schools can’t be wrong! The Rebbeim can’t be wrong…….the system can’t be wrong. WE should believe them, WE should trust them, WE should support them.
Well WE have tried for years and it hasn’t worked. THEY have gotten more ridiculous and more out of control with THEIR demands. AND NO, we can’t allow it to go further and keep supporting their nonsense. AND yes I believe yiddishe momma because they act first and ask questions later if they ask questions at all because they don’t want to know the truth they would rather listen to the loshan horah of all the other parents who claim THAT child is a bad influence on MY child. AND yes I know this for a fact after advocating for many students.
But as I said before, the yeshivas themselves have an achrius to EVERY child and THEY should have caught the child before it got to the point where THEY could label them bad and a bad influence. WHY didn’t they catch them earlier? Why are the other parents blaming the child and not the yeshiva? Why should the child have to go elsewhere instead of the Yeshiva addressing the child’s needs and making sure that other children don’t go down that path as well. Why should that poor child be the korban because the school neglected to address the child’s needs and issues.
AND why oh why do YOU ALL keep labeling these children “bad” as if they were killers and rapists? Are they “bad” because they speak to the other gender? They are “bad” because they listen to english music? That makes them worthy of being kicked out and shoved off the derech? Where is YOUR Yiddishkeit? Where is YOUR ben odam l’chaveiroh? You would strip these kids of Torah and Mitzvos rather than work with them?
If you want to protect YOUR angels from these children then volunteer to work with children who have issues. Maybe they have a sick parent at home or maybe they lost a parent. Maybe they have a dysfunctional home where there is no shalom bayis, or maybe their father lost his job and there is no income and there is a lot of stress. Maybe the Rebbe makes fun of him or he just can’t chap the math and they can’t afford a tutor so everyone picks on him and makes him feel stupid. Did any of you ever think of the underlying pain these children carry that make them “bad”???????? Do you ever wonder why regular normal kids turn sour?
Honestly, they are carrying a baggage load of pain with them. Maybe try to open your eyes and realize that and be grateful its not YOUR kid. Then do something to help them rather than help to destroy them.
And finally, there are just so many men who can sit in Kolel for x amount of years and be supported by the community. That’s how it was done in past generations. After x amount of years a married man with x amount of children would give up his seat to a younger man and go out to make parnasah for his mishpacha and in that way, he managed to afford schar limud and other necessities. It is only in the past two generations where the seichel went sour and EVERYONE was pushed into staying in kolel so no one can afford to pay tuition or support yeshivas. So who exactly is supposed to do it? Grandparents are not only supporting themselves but are paying rent and food plus insurance for their kids that are learning and for those who are not and can’t afford it. So do you expect grandparents to pay tuition, rent, food, and insurance for children and grandchildren? How many families do you think one set of parents can support? How many tuitions can one family afford? How many children should one family have?
Of course there will always be kollelim and always should be, but that doesn’t mean that every yeshiva bochur has to be in kolel, nor does every kolel yungerman have to be there for 10 years, nor does it mean that every kolel man who has children should expect the Olam to support his family. There comes a time when a man has to be mepharnes his own family. Or there comes a time where the Rosh kolel has to determine which are the mitzuyanim and should stay on for the community to support and which should get up and support their families. If a kolel man does not have an agreement of support with another person it is just not fair to expect Hashem to handle it for him, because as we can see, the schools are complaining that people are not paying the tuition and the tuition is so high because people are not paying the tuition so it is raised so those who can afford to pay, pays more. It has been spiraling out of control and it is now collapsing onto itself.
As far as sending kids to a school who’s hashkafus are geared to the family. It does start out that way. But many, many schools keep moving more and more to the right to outdo the next school. The rules get tougher and tougher in mid stream because they want to be more BY than BY or be more mehudar than the most mehudar so they keep raising the bar until the kids are choking from the pressure.
If you have a kid in such a school who is introducing kids to movies and non Jewish music that can also be grounds to throw him out. Now like I said it depends on the school and the homes that the kids come from and what type of Hashkafos the school is geared towards.
So you are allowed to be a Rotzach to keep a chumra/point of Hashkafa.
I know you don’t see it that way, but the scores of OTD children who have been told they are not “good enough” tell another story.
My philosophy: Kids have two feet one of each are planted firmly in the two most important areas in their lives the home and the school. Together this makes the foundation the child builds on to become a healthy and successful human being. If a crack develops in the footing of either foundation his entire being starts to crumble and fall. During the growth, education and maturing processes he may lean more strongly on one foundation or another, but as I said if either one develops a crack or becomes unstable, the child’s entire future is at stake.
If you are lucky enough to sit behind your picket fence and not as yet have been challenged or tested by the Eibeshter don’t be so quick to throw stones. You really don’t understand the flip side of the coin. You have not as yet gotten your hands dirty, you have not as yet seen the reality of the system, you are babes in the woods. You have not been touched by the ugliness of the truth. But c”v and I say this with all my heart, you should never know the ugliness of the truth, if you ever do get your hands dirty either by those closest to you or by means of a friend’s child, neighbor’s or relative’s then you will understand better what we are talking about.
We had a young girl in the neighborhood. She had just barely entered her teenage years. She was caught in town sitting in mixed company at the Pizza store. The yentas in town couldn’t wait to run back to the school and spill the beans. The “school” decided that she was no longer “x material” and it would be best for “HER” to go to a certain out of town yeshiva. This was decided by Rebetzin”x” the guidance counselor. Well that decision led to her downfall. Not only did she turn OTD and a drug addict, she went completely dark. From pink and bright she went black and dark. From smiles and bitachon she went cynical soulless. She was only 14! She lived on the streets with no one to turn to.
The mixed company she was speaking to at the Pizza shop showed her compassion and gave her an attentive ear to listen to her tzores since her mom died. Her school DID NOT give her the compassion nor the attention she needed neither since her mother died nor while she was on death watch. Neither the mechanchim, the administration, nor the students surrounded her with the love and support she needed. Not one teacher invited her home for shabbos, took her out to dinner or thought of a way to give her a break from her pain. NOT one asked her how she was doing or what they could do to help. She didn’t want to unload on her father or siblings because they too were in tremendous pain. So instead of allowing her the sin of unloading on this group of mixed company, they took a normal young sweet girl in pain and threw her to the wolves. They shoved her off the derech and they took every ounce of emunah and bitachon that she clung to away from her. And that’s not all. She is now B”H in her twenties but that is only by the grace of G-d. We almost lost her at least 10 times that I know of over the years to overdoses. She has been used and abused and the achrius belongs to the school and the Rebbetzin who was so quick to throw her out because she spoke to boys.
She is OK now, if you can call it that no thanks to anyone connected to this neighborhood. She doesn’t live here. She is connected to Hashem in her own way at this point and she is alive, B”H. She is a work in progress and as far as I know she is working very hard to fight off her demons and stay away from substances. But basically, her childhood was torn from her. Her relationships with her family was torn away from her. Her life as it should have been was torn away from her. Her health was torn away from her. She was just a kid, a yesoma without a mother who was in NEED of compassion and attention. Where were THEY? Why couldn’t THEY step up to the plate and do THEIR job? Why did they sacrifice this child? There is no excuse for this tragedy, NONE at all. There is NO MARGIN FOR ERRORS when it comes to the welfare of children.
And that is why I will fight tooth and nail for these kids YOU keep labeling “bad”. Because YOU have no hasagah of what you are talking about.
Aries,
That story is so sad, and unfortunately not atypical.
I can say that the old Rebetzin in Bais Yaakov of Monsey understood that and took in my sister who was definitely not your “typical BY girl” and helped her through challenging years. Even when my sister flaunted authority and wore blue nailpolish or no socks/stockings.
I know that the Rebetzin is sitting in olam haba smiling down on all of us. She did so much right in her life.
Please read aries2756’s post above. Expelling a child from school is dinei nefashos. No principal should ever expel a child without losing sleep over it for many nights.
The callous and uncaring tone of the original poster (and others here) made me sick.
I once posted a story about R’ Shmuel Berenbaum zt”l:=, which I heard from my Rosh Yeshiva.
A boy in the Mir got into gambling, and built up debt to some shady people. To try and pay it off, he got other bochurim involved in it. My Rosh Yeshiva, who was a bochur at the time, went with a few other guys to R’ Shmuel to try and get the guy kicked out. R’ Shmuel screamed at them, and refused to kick him out. R’ Shmuel took the guy under his wing, and helped him out. The guy is now a well-known talmud chacham.
aries2756, terrible story, but I have some questions. Did the girl hide her pain behind a facade of gaivah and chutzpah? If so, send her to a school where the teachers are trained social workers who know how to see through her and deal with her. I understand the pain and pride of a teenager, but don’t blame the teacher for not being omniscient. No frum teacher would turn away a yesoma who is sincere enough to show her pain and ask for help.
Another thing: Where was Dad? Where were her sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, grandparents? Why didn’t they send her for therapy? If the school was so cruel, why didn’t they switch her to a school that allows these things you don’t consider bad? Why do you blame only the school?
dd-
Agreed.
– Someone who brought shmutz magazines to the dorm (now a well-known rov who many of you have heard of)
– Someone who cut yeshiva to go to ballgames and movies (now a superb yeshiva ketana rebbi)
– Someone who participated in all of the above activities (a serious learner in a well-known kolel)
WIY:
Many yeshivos have someone like that (or worse, if rumors are to be believed; I am at least Choshesh for them ); you are not unique.
Why did you not go to the Hanhala?
P.S. to quote myself:
So the child is not “bad” (i.e. distributing drugs or porn)
If the Child is “distributing drugs or porn”, he is a Rodef.
That wasn’t the point of contention.
Unless you assume everyone who doesn’t learn the full three sedarim is distributing porn?
GAW, I would seperate the kid dealing drugs vs dealing porn.
Neither is good, but drugs is something that needs a much harsher way of being dealt with, like rehab.
A kid who distributes porn once or twice can be rehabilitated in school, possibly (situation dependant of course).
SJS:
Possibly agreed, depending on the exact situation.
WIY: Are you making the “slippery slope” argument?
Then even worse than dealing drugs,
tzeitel’s been arrested
and
Motel studies dancing
And Tevye’s acting srange
Shprintze’s got the measles
and Bielke’s got the mumps!
it can lead to “men and women dancing”! 🙂
I think the main point is the school has to be vigilant and if they see that someone is bringing others down they have to try to work with him and if he refuses to improve, well then he doesn’t belong in that school should be transferred.
I can agree with that, depending on what you mean “bringing others down” (if he is a Madiach, of course he should be removed. If he is telling them they don’t have to wear a straimel, not so fast).
If parents found out that hypothetically the school wont do anything about kids who are negatively influencing their children and their childrens friends they will take their kids out of that school.
And Chazer is cheaper (I know that is harsh; it depends on what you are getting at).
WIY, when I was in HS, one of my friends was going down a bad path. She wasn’t doing anything terrible yet…but she was getting worse and worse.
Finally, she hitched a ride in the back of a van (seats taken out) with a guy I knew did drugs (I wasn’t sure if he was using at that point).
I went to her father. Her father and I were very close and I knew he could handle hearing it and would react appropriately. My friend asked me point blank if I had told her father and I said yes. We are still super close to this day.
its not a big deal that he switch yeshivos
I guess we will have to agree to disagree.
Being thrown out of yeshiva (however you want to sugarcoat it) tells the child he/she is just not good enough, and pushes the child directly into the Yeter Hara’s path.
Now I don’t think a Straimel is worth it. Perhaps others feel it is Y’Hareg V’al Y’avor.
I guess we will have to agree to disagree.
Far more worrisome and likely more often it is not a case of drugs, porn, talking/hanging our with boy/girl. Consider the following scenario, names and places deleted to protect the victim and the abuser. Say there is a 16yo girl, doing something ok in all innocence but it appears to the not fully informed yenta that chaos and mayhem are afoot. The false report gets to the Menaheles’s ears,the student is called to the kangaroo interrogation and sent home. The Menaheles has listened to lashon hara, and acted to the child’s detriment and endangermment. The 16yo knows this, because that this is an elementary lesson in lhr that was taught to her well over the years. This telegraphs a message to the child that only the strongest will not succumb to. Does this happen. You bet.
Case two: Parents of perfectly comported young lady happen to live in a large spiffy house above the Jerusalem average standard, and horror of horrors, the own a car, and are anglophones to boot. Poppa teaches in a yeshiva and mother works. The young lady is one day summarily kicked out. Poppa calls in but is stonewalled. After a week of banging on doors, he is admitted to a meeting where the headmistress pantomimes indicating her solid information that they own a TV (they don’t), and she doesn’t budge. Miffed, Poppa starts pulling strings, and thankfully he has connection to some muscular Rabbanim that force the headmistress to back down. 16yo readmitted armed with the realization that THE BIG REBBITZEN acts on innuendo. Weeks later, the 16yo’s 3rd grade sister ( same institution)) is summarily kicked out. Again, outside forces must be brought to bear on the school. 16 year old learns and indelible lesson that her superiors engage in lashon hara and have a flair for nekama. 3rd grader gets an early lesson in tzaddik ve’rah lo. There are of course two sides to every story, but clearly, there are people is positions of authority that can be hazardous to our childrens neshomos.
A yarmulke is not yehareg v’al yaavor either. How would you feel if your kid’s classmate talks him into throwing it off? That’s exactly how a chassidish parent would feel about a kid who tells other kids its ok not to be chassidish and you don’t have to wear a streimel.
msseeker:
I would not be happy about it.
I would expect the teacher to explain why it (yarmulke, straimel) is important.
I would probably send the child to the principal.
I would not remove the child from the school.
What we can learn from ALL these posts is that we can’t make blanket statements and that ALL cases need to be dealt with on an individual basis. Even though there are rules and even though the rules were put there for a reason.
WIY, as a kid, you should not have shouldered the responsibility of such a situation, however YOU should have been taught WHAT to do in such a situation and NO maybe it was not YOUR responsibility to go to the hanhalah but maybe it was YOUR responsibility to discuss this with your shul RAV and ask a hypothetical question such as “Rebbe, what should a bochur do if they are worried about their friend who is displaying inapproriate behavior like showing other kids inapproriate magazines?” That RAV should have guided you. Maybe he would have spoken to your friend. Maybe he could have reached out to him and helped him. Maybe he could have advised him that he would be kicked out of school if he continued doing what he was doing or that he himself would speak to his parents and menahel without ratting you out. That is what kids are supposed to do, hand over their issues to an adult and obviously the boy in question also did not know how to do that.
So this is one thing we need to understand KIDS do not get involved in dark issues for no reason. They don’t change from innocents into know it alls without cause. The schools have a responsibility to NOTICE this.
In answer to msseeker, no she did not hide her pain nor was she a baalas gaivah, and she didn’t want to burden her family with more pain because she felt they were already carrying more than their fair share. She innocently (truly) just vented to kids who cared enough to listen and that was both boys and girls who meant no harm, they just cared.
B”H to the Monsey BY principal and all those like her who understand that a yiddish neshoma is just that no matter what they are doing, they are Hashem’s children and they are worth the effort!
I am in no way saying to allow any child to do whatever they want and to hurt another child whether emotionally, physically or academically. But accomodations can be made without throwing a child out. Schools can ask for volunteers in the community to come and help out with kids at risk. You would be surprised at the many volunteers, parents, mechanchim, and social workers, etc. who have experience in the field either because of work experience or because they have already been there done that and weathered the storm. There are many people who are willing to save another yiddishe neshoma and see them succeed.
There are many mechanchim in one’s own yeshiva who are better suited to speak to and deal with kids in pain. Kids don’t necessarily open up to just anyone, but kids will open up to those they feel truly care and they feel they can trust. And if all else fails, then and only then should other accomodations be made for them. But Yeshivas cannot say THEY have no achrius to these kids that they helped to raise.
WIY -While it’s true that there are cases that children should be thrown out like the case that happened to you in school. But how does that defend your starting this blog? Are you aware that 99% of the time the reason kids are not accepted or thrown out is because of things that aren’t as severe as you mentioned? Why do you keep insisting innocence for all yeshivos? Are you aware of what R. Krause said recently? I was recently involved in a case were the yeshiva didn’t accept children at first. They asked a “Rov” who said they shouldn’t. To their credit, they decided to ask a Odom Godol, who said they should.
EDITED
mseeker, BTW, the school stopped sending spies out on the avenue after this incident.
GAW, perhaps that partially explains why we have a less than 1% OTD rate while yours is…?
Have not been able to read all the above posts, just one qs?
Has anyone botherd to mention what the chazon ish writes? u need a sanhedrin blishkas hagazis to throw someone out. Has anyone seen the sanhedrin or even a yeshivas beis din??
Personal story: i was in a yeshivah and someone made trble, i was called in and told “u did it” i said i dint, the menahell replied “ur a liar” long story short i was not kicked out but went a month without sleep, a while later i recieved a letter from a boy who already left the yeshivah asking for mechilah he lied and told the menahel i did it to save his friend… i begged the menahell then to believe me to no avail, i said do u have witnesses?? this menahell is no longer living, but he met me by a wedding yrs later and i totally ignored him.
HB, I believe you!!!
WIY -Why aren’t you talking about kids not being let into school? This is the prevalent problem nowadays. Also, in the case I was talking about, actually it was the kids being thrown out, just the yeshiva worded it as not being let back in. This is semantics -so it doesn’t sound like the yeshiva is throwing them out.
WIY, don’t you admit that the Yeshiva has an achrius in his upbringing and they should have noticed the signs on this kid that he was going sour and that there was something up with him? Why does the Yeshiva have to wait until he is in trouble and making trouble so they must kick him out, and not have caught him when they could have helped him and avoided the whole issue to begin with?
“you can wipe out a whole class of kids in a short amount of time”
“I dont have any solution and if you have one please provide it.”
Based upon this, even the most insulated communities in Yerushalayim and Bnei Brak are lost causes, unless you close them off and make everyone pass thru a metal detector to enter.
Only solution:
Set up a frum community at the base of the highest mountains of the world.
WIY, ok lets start with this, we are of different generations and we have different life experiences so I will tell you off the bat that you have limited experience in what you are talking about.
“If a kid has access to this stuff he wont have any interest in Torah and Torah will not go in.”
Even this statement is false. There are many children from MO homes who have access to TV’s and movies who learn there full share of Torah, Gemorah, Mishanyos, etc. and continue on to yeshivos in E’Y, and guess what even go on to Kolel and become Rebbeim. Are you surprised? Yes even kids who watch TV and movies are Frum card carrying members of Jewish society and are completely shomer Torah and Mitzvos and even midos and maasim tovim. So lets get that straight from the beginning. Even many of today’s top Roshei Yeshivos watched TV as a kid and even dropped whatever they were doing to run home for their favorite shows. Are you shocked, don’t be. It was the way of the world.
In addition, it takes kids various amounts of time to go sour depending on their situations and you are wrong. The yeshiva can catch them if they care to and they can help and stop it in its tracks if they NOTICE and reach out to them. And it is NOT the TV, Movies etc that is ruining the kids, it is the dysfunctional home or the dysfunctional relationship the kid has at school. You have been brainwashed to think otherwise. I am not saying that a complete diet of TV or movies is healthy for anyone, but it is not what turns kids off to Torah. The problem with kids today is that they have not been turned ON to Torah to begin with and that’s where the Rebbe and the Yeshiva comes in. What are THEY doing wrong? or WHY did they not NOTICE that?
Had they chapped the child and TUNED them or TURNED them ON to begin with they would NOT be so interested in TV and MOVIES. Yes TV and movies are a distraction but they are also used because a child is BORED and needs to be entertained. If a child is interested in learning and enjoys it, or is excited by it or loves it, they would not be bored and in need of this distraction. Can you see that? They would be happy to prepare for the next day or even look something up to surprise and impress the Rebbe. Maybe even to chap another shiur in shul or with their father or chavrusa. That is what being TURNED on means. Are you aware that many homes have a TV but kids are so turned on to reading that they would rather read books than watch TV? Yeah, that happens too and that might be because their teachers TURNED them on to the power and the excitement of books! Or they would rather ride their bikes, roller blade, skate board, play basketball, etc.
You show a lit bit of naivity in your posts. And you show a lack of faith in the power of learning and in the strength and fortitude of the Toradik Jew that they can be swayed and persuaded so easily. What does that say about the chinuch that a child receives if it could be wiped out so easily by another child? It can’t be that strong or that great if a child cannot stand firm on that. And as I have said before, kids need to be instructed what to do if they are faced with these kinds of challenges. No they should not masser on a friend, but they should not carry these burdens on their tiny shoulders and they should not have to face such difficult challenges on their own. They should know from the time they are small that they always have someone to turn to whether it is a parent, a Rebbe in yeshiva or the Shul Rav. Why aren’t they taught that? Why weren’t you taught that?
And here is another question for you. Why is everything so black and white for you with no shades of gray? There seems to be something underlying in your conviction to this position.
msseeker:
Before you make a claim, show me the numbers.
WIY:
For your first point, is he really? Or is he just confused, having a bad situation at home, etc. and just needs some help?
Once again, if he really is a lost cause, and is hurting others, then OK. But then you are giving up on a member of Klal Yisroel.
For a suggestion: How about one class for the pure blood Ashkinazim, and another (with a fence in between, so they can’t play together) for those who are Baalei Teshuva, Americans, and Sephardim whose relatives may own a TV?
That might work. ;-(
The reality is that we the Jewish people were assigned Israel, in the middle of civilization, and not Tibet to develop as a nation.
Hence, total insularity is not an option.
RSRH and Josh and think you both hit the nail on the head!!! So to speak.
msseeker, who is WE?
I just want to make another point very clear. KIDS COUNT! they are not disposable. There is no room for negativity when dealing with children we must surround them with POSITIVE energy! The faster we learn that and understand that the faster we can change things and make a difference!
RSRH -While I agree with your post, I don’t agree with your generalization. I consider myself Yeshivish and I don’t think like that.
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