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Anyone happier in public school? (you can go amother)
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would you shun a community member for sending to public school?
yes  
 21%  [ 41 ]
no  
 78%  [ 151 ]
Total Votes : 192



amother
Teal


 

Post Fri, Aug 28 2015, 6:55 pm
naturalmom5 wrote:
How dare you do that
Those girls have to be assimilated into the Borg collective


It is scary that they don't realize it. Limiting intellectual curiosity doesn't allow examination of the system.
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tichellady




 
 
    
 

Post Fri, Aug 28 2015, 6:59 pm
amother wrote:
Why do you think I only taught at one school? This is sort of my point. What gave you the idea I ONLY taught at one school?

Don't you want your own daughters to be able to reason and see beyond what they are told?


This was also true at my MO school. The secular subjects were interesting and challenging, Jewish studies was spit back and turn off your brain time.
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m in Israel




 
 
    
 

Post Sat, Aug 29 2015, 2:33 pm
amother wrote:
Coming from a public school educated perspective the girls are not taught to think at all! They can only spit back what was learned by route. They are good girls but not original thinkers. They can't synthesize. They must be handed exactly what they are expected to parrot back for the test. I suppose this is what frum society needs to anchor the girls to the roles set forth for them.

This is contrasted strongly to the way the boys are educated. While they lack secular education they are taught to do hard thinking at a young age.


This may be your experience (and you say it comes from more than one school, so I guess it exists in wherever you live), but I am another BY educated poster who strongly disagrees with your assessment. In the BY high school that I went to there was a tremendous focus on critical thinking, even within the Limudei Kodesh departments. Most of our tests in the "major" subjects (chumash and navi, for example), were far from "spit back". We were expected to make connections between concepts, and draw conclusions. We were expected to compare and contrast different meforshim, and find proofs or problems with different positions. All of these types of "critical thinking" skills were taught in most of my friends' BY's as well, and they really have nothing to do with the quality of the secular studies departments, which often leave what to be desired.

In my school they happened to also encourage questions in terms of hashkafa and Yiddishkeit, but even schools that don't encourage questions about their religious beliefs can still teach thinking skills. I have both a Bachelors and a Masters degree and could hold my own in college discussions in all my classes, in addition to doing quite well on tests. (I also think I can debate topics pretty clearly and logically hear on imamother, FWIW Wink) I worked in the NY city public school system for almost 10 years, in fairly good school districts, and I didn't find that their classes focused on critical thinking any more than my BY classes did. In many ways they did provide a better education than many BY's and certainly many boys' yeshivas, but I wouldn't say that was due to more of a focus on critical thinking!

We happened to have had a fairly decent limudei chol department, and it was certainly considered quite important (this was an OOT BY), but it was not what you would get in a top-level public school simply by virtue of the much more limited time that we had to spend on it. Even so, I believe we were very well grounded in both math and ELA skills (the school actually offered a number of AP courses including AP Calculus), as well as basic sciences and social studies (history, government, economics). However we had virtually no "extras" beyond that (like music or art), and there were only AP or other college level programs offered in very specific courses and even in those availability depended on the year (how many interested students and the availability of qualified teachers.) There was also not much available for those at the "edges of the curve" in either direction -- very few remedial or TAG type of programs available. So I can understand where the concept of getting a "better" education in public school comes from.

Even so, I strongly agree with the earlier poster who said it is easier to "make up" a mediocre secular education than it is to "make up" the loss of a Torah/Yiddishkeit based environment for all those years in school. This is not only about which is more important, but also about the difference between teaching material vs. teaching a "way of life". I would hope that the environmental lessons in a good frum school are just as significant as the academic ones -- and that is something that is very hard to recreate. Can your child go to public school and still be a good, frum Jew? Yes, of course. But I also believe that there is no question your child will be at a huge disadvantage in terms of achieving that goal. It is heartbreaking that the "system" has come to the point that parents are struggling with this decision -- and I don't have solutions.
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Sanguine




 
 
    
 

Post Sat, Aug 29 2015, 3:48 pm
A religious school certainly encourages thinking but it's not totally free thinking but that's what most dati people want. It's not a bad thing to teach your children (and have their school teach them) your Hashkafa. I want my kids to be DL like me cause that's what I believe is the right way to be. The world isn't closed to them and they may choose a different way to be but I certainly didn't want their school presenting all the options to them and have my 15 year old come home saying he wants to be a Catholic cause he learned about it in school and 3 of his friends are and it makes sense. A 3 year old just learns the rules of Shabbat - no turning on lights, no ripping, (no carrying when I was a kid). As you get older you learn more about your religion and learn to appreciate that it's more than a list of rules. We want the school to everyday strengthen our beliefs. Kids do tons of questioning and learning. And I want their teachers (who they look up to) to be there to answer their questions. They're the "professionals". I don't want to present my kids with the whole world and let them choose everything. First let them learn well (LEARN, not spit out) all our religious views and why. There is so much for them to learn about our beliefs.

The argument about who knows more Yeshiva kids who went OTD or more PS kids who stayed dati is silly. Nothing is 100% so what's the point of telling one more uppper story?
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amother
Red


 

Post Sat, Aug 29 2015, 5:10 pm
I actually appreciate the anecdotal stories, I find them insightful (obviously not empirical).

I think though that OTD vs not OTD is not my only concern. I know many women who are not OTD, but they just don't think deeply and I get the impression they were not encouraged to. I feel like that's a loss of potential even in their yiddishkeit.
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amother
Tan


 

Post Thu, Sep 03 2015, 2:43 pm
Barbara wrote:
Why is there no way to supplement your children's limudei kodesh? Are you and your husband so uneducated that you are unable to teach them?

Now, I want you to respond to the following 3 questions, without googling:

The formula C2H4 can be classified as
(1) a structural formula, only
(2) a molecular formula, only
(3) both a structural formula and an empirical formula
(4) both a molecular formula and an empirical formula

Given the balanced equation representing a reaction:
4Al(s) + 3O2(g) → 2Al2O3(s)
How many moles of Al(s) react completely with 4.50 moles of O2(g) to produce 3.00 moles of Al2O3(s)?
(1) 1.50 mol
(3) 6.00 mol
(2) 2.00 mol
(4) 4.00 mol

What is the percent composition by mass of oxygen in Ca(NO3)2 (gram-formula mass = 164 g/mol)?
(1) 9.8%
(2) 29%
(3) 48%
(4) 59%

Questions selected at random from June 2015 chemistry regents exam.

If the answer is "we can get a tutor" then the answer to limudei kodesh is also "we can get a tutor."

I can answer without googling. Yay me. I am a graduate of TAG in far rockaway- "the bais yackov of Long Island" class of 2000. Does that prove anything either way?
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amother
Teal


 

Post Thu, Sep 03 2015, 3:50 pm
amother wrote:
I can answer without googling. Yay me. I am a graduate of TAG in far rockaway- "the bais yackov of Long Island" class of 2000. Does that prove anything either way?


My sister went there. She is a scientist and could probably answer those questions. She can't do basic math without a calculator. That is scary.
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farm




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Sep 03 2015, 4:13 pm
amother wrote:
My sister went there. She is a scientist and could probably answer those questions. She can't do basic math without a calculator. That is scary.

?
Questions 2 and 3 require mathematical computation so I am guessing if she could answer those questions she is better at math than you think. Not sure what that has to do with this discussion though.
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