chaya13

Rav Willig spoke as a close personal friend and local Rov. Rav Ausbund did not give any haskomos to YU or their shitos – very much the opposite. Trust me, my husband and family knew him well. What we can learn from the relationship that Rav Ausband and yblch”t Rav Willig had is that you could befriend and even become bffs with someone who you don’t agree with hashkafakly. My husband watched them interact and dance together by Rav Willig’s grandson’s chasuna a few nights b4 the petirah, and he shared this with me already then. Rav Ausband actually sat at a table with the Willig children and grandchildren and they hung on to every word he spoke. yz”b

Schools do not insist on meds, they insist on an evaluation and if the evaluation recommends meds, some schools will insist that the recommendation be followed so that the learning of the other kids in the class is not inhibited. By all means, if you don’t like the system, create another one, but you can’t put a kid in the current system without giving him the tools he needs to be successful within the system that you have placed him.

The way I was attacked for my post and accused of not having credentials without you even knowing who I am, is very telling. My point wasn’t to deny that there is an issue with bullying, of course there is. My point was only to caution that in my experience, there are parents who themselves ruin their children by referring to incidents that don’t come close to bullying as bullying. This too could do detrimental damage to a child socially. Again, I am not G-d forbid denying that bullying exists and that it is terribly damaging, I am only cautioning readers not jump to conclusions in other instances, as that could also damage their child. If it is real bullying, in our school we do everything possible to put an end to it as should every institution.

As a the wife of a rebbe of the graduating class in a prominent yeshiva and myself a long time mechaneches I’d like to respectfully tell you that the letter writer is right on the mark and the rest of you are totally off.

1. The idea of rewarding people for their IQ has 0 to do with kinas sofrim, and let’s face it that’s what most awards are for. If effort and persistance were being rewarded I’d be all for it but even then we would need to measure the effort put in relative to the student’s own ability in that regard and not someone else’s. For example a student capable of 90% effort who puts in all 90% should get the award and not the student capable of 100% effort who puts in 95%.

2. As far as students learning to live with being second fiddle, trust me, these students who are not at the top have been learning this important life lesson day in and day out for many long years (e.g. when the teacher is asking questions in the class or returning tests etc) by the time they graduate and they do not need that one last big slap of busha in the face by graduation.

3. The awards don’t serve our awardees well either. They (and their parents)are blown up into baalei gaava who think way too much of themselves.

My husbands yeshiva has done away with awards and instead chooses a few wholesome all around solid bochurim to speak.