High School Crisis

there have been many successful people who have droped out of school

there have been many successful people who have droped [sic] out of school

I think that I would ask for a definition of the word “many” in this context.

Nonetheless, yes, there are people who have been successful despite dropping out of school – but those people are the (exceedingly rare) exceptions and not the rule.

The Wolf

intellegent,

Why do you assume that everyone is ashkenazi? Do you think the Rambam pronounced it “kesuba”?

Most ashkenazim I know in Israel, use the Israeli (sephardi) pronounciation for conversation and switch to ashkenazi pronounciation for tefilla.

I can’t see why you have your knickers in a twist over someone using the sephardi havara for a comment on the YWN coffee room.

By the way, when you say “shabbos” do you put the accent on the first syllable or the second? One is correct and one is incorrect regardless of whether you are ashkenazi or sephardi.

wolf

Albert Einstein

Billy Joel

The Wright Brothers

Tom Cruise

and a ton more

The nature of spoken language is that of constant change. As has been mentioned here, regional dialects are different from each other and interactions with other regions accelerate changes. There is no way around it. There are many different dialects , even in davening among seemingly homogeneous groups. A Californian-born yeshivishe person sounds different than a Brooklyn-born yeshivishe person. Al achas kamah v’chama among populations from very different backgrounds.

Therefore it is pointless , even ridiculous, to discuss the “correctness” of one dialect over another, or one “havara over another”. All, every single one of them, from Teimani to Unterland,from Brooklyn to Buchari is legitimate, that is the nature of spoken language. And yes, even “litvishe yeshivish ” and “dati leumi” are equally legitimate. Ooo or eee, sss or ttt, ohhh or oyyy or aiii, they all count. Daven the way you daven, it is ok.

To illustrate the point, the gemarah in brachos requires the elongation of the “dalet” (do you say “daled”? It is “dalet”, but that’s ok!) at the end of the word “echad” in shma. It is a time-honored tradition to attempt this. However, no Ashkenazi or North African is capable of accomplishing it, as the dalet begins and ends abruptly, and what is actually elongated is the kumatz of the chet, as in “hashem echaaaaaaaaaaD ! So we are fooling ourselves into thinking that the dalet is elongated. There are dialects which pronounce the the dalet as a vibrating “th” sound, which can be elongated. So are ashkenazim reciting shma incorrectly? No, because dialects change and there cannot be a single unchanging one, nor has there ever been.

To the language experts out there, I apologize for using incorrect terminology, I myself am not a linguist.

brooklyn19,

Albert Einstein dropped out of high school after he wrote his first scientific work, but later attended college. I don’t think his “dropping out” is comparable to what we’re discussing here, because most of those dropping out of yeshiva don’t plan to attend college. Even if they did, most colleges today require a high school diploma or GED.

Orville Wright did not finish high school; Wilbur did but didn’t receive his diploma. However, it may be harder to succeed today without a high school education than it was 100 years ago.

While Billy Joel and Tom Cruise have had successful careers without finishing high school, I don’t think most yeshiva students are interested in these types of careers (as tzippi noted).

Brooklyn,

As someone already pointed out to you, Albert Einstein did go to college. In fact, he earned a PhD from the University of Zurich.

The Wright Brothers did not complete high school — that is a fact. Nonetheless, they lived in an age when completing high school was more luxury than necessity. Many people in the 1880s and 1890s did not complete high school; they were often forced to go looking for work to help out the family. That reality, however, does not exist today. You really can’t use The Wright Brothers as a comparison. Were they alive as teenagers today, you can bet your bottom dollar that they would complete their high school education.

Billy Joel and Tom Cruise have a fairly unique quality — they have been blessed with very unique talents. Not any shlub off the street can walk into a studio and open a $100M movie based on name recognition alone. Not any shlub can announce a concert at Shea Stadium and sell out the tickets 45 minutes after they go on sale. The fact is that these people (like many professional athletes) have such unique skills that they don’t need an advanced education to make a ton of money. But the fact of the matter is that the reason they can make so much money is because their skills are exceedingly rare. You can’t tell the average kid “it’s okay to drop out of high school like Celebrity X,” because the average kid doesn’t have the God-given unique talents that Celebrity X has.

That being said, let’s talk about what the more typical kid might find. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, here are the usual median weekly earnings of people in the US by education for Q3 2008:

Less Than High School: 471

High School Diploma: 618

Some College Education: 725

Bachelor’s Degree: 1020

Bachelor’s Degree or more: 1131

Advanced Degree: 1333

I have data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics going back to 2000, and the relationship between education and salary always holds. The more education the average person has, the more they earn.

Is it possible for a person with little or no education to strike it rich? Absolutely. But in just about every case, you’ll find that the person either has an incredibly rare and valuable skill or is incredibly lucky (and won the lottery). For the other 99.99999% of the population, you need an education.

The Wolf

lol still – Albert Einstein was an odd-ball. he didn’ finish high school but yes he was to college.

and anyway my brother has a law degree and he never completed high school either. don’t ask how!

so now that i finished hs there is no reason for me to finish college?!?

I mean if I want a learning husband I cant expect to take from my parents forever, rite?

Wolf,

Be careful with those statistics. They don’t necessarily imply causality. Part of the difference is that more capable people CHOOSE to get more education.

But please don’t misinterpret me as saying that education isn’t worthwhile. It’s a tragedy when a young person forgoes an education. In fact, there is tons of evidence that eduacation does increase lifetime earnings, albeit to a slightly lesser extent than those statistics suggest.

i hold that statistics dont affect us yidden.

BLAHBLAH,

I’m calling your bluff. You don’t really believe that.

I believe that you wear seat belts in the car, which has been proven statistically to greatly improve your chances of surviving an accident.

I believe that when you go to the doctor, you follow his/her advice, which is largely based on statistical studies.

Saying “statistics don’t affect us yidden” is similar to saying “physics don’t affect us yidden.”

The Wolf

hey i agree that a normal education is necessary! but don’t go saying that it’s impossible to become a somebody without it. lol i’m in college now – if i thought i had a fighting chance without it, i highly doubt i’d take on all this work.

hey i agree that a normal education is necessary! but don’t go saying that it’s impossible to become a somebody without it. lol i’m in college now – if i thought i had a fighting chance without it, i highly doubt i’d take on all this work.

Unless you have some rare and valuable skill, it is just as impossible as winning the lottery. IOW, it’s possible in theory, but I wouldn’t advise relying on it in practice.

The Wolf

BLAHBLAH:

So you don’t hold of a Rubah Dlesah Lkaman?

You are against numerous Gemorahs that do hold of it.

pardo my ignorance but what is Rubah Dlesah Lkaman

thanks for your understanding