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Forum -> Chinuch, Education & Schooling
Is there a high school out there...? (coup de masses and s/o
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amother
Indigo


 

Post Sun, Jan 31 2016, 9:09 pm
There were some threads about the recent mishpacha article discussing the 'jobs' high school girls receive and how biased they are, as well as how this labeling negatively affects so many girls.

As a BT, I was shocked and appalled that such a thing could take place. Sadly, I wonder how I can still be so surprised with everything else I've learned and experienced, but that's another thread.

But of course, I want to protect my daughter and set her up for a lifetime of success in every way - and I do not want to smile and be a good tuition paying sheifula for a wretched school who would do such a socially and emotionally stunted thing.

I was wondering if anyone could recommend a right wingish bais Yaakov high school that is NOTHING like this. In Brooklyn.

Tia.
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amother
Blue


 

Post Mon, Feb 01 2016, 10:33 am
Bump... As I am interested too!
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amother
Indigo


 

Post Mon, Feb 01 2016, 3:17 pm
Bump
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amother
Puce


 

Post Mon, Feb 01 2016, 3:20 pm
I was the most serious, geeky, bookish, shy, stuck in the mud kid in my entire Brooklyn high school, and in a very obvious effort to bend over backwards and "allow everyone to shine", the principals made me color war captain.

I did *not* appreciate it.
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tigerwife




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Feb 01 2016, 5:33 pm
To be honest, in high school I was a bit out of the box. I was a good kid but I never got any official 'jobs'. However, I loved the extra-curricular and volunteered for a lot. I ended up being very involved in school and 'shining', even without my teachers' approval.

So really, I would say a lot of your daughter's experiences will depend on her personality. If she waits and waits for someone to notice her, well, she might wait a long time.
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sequoia




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Feb 01 2016, 6:00 pm
How does this work in BYs? Teachers and principals "assign" kids to activities? So students don't decide for themselves what clubs and extracurriculars to participate in? Very strange...
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amother
Dodgerblue


 

Post Mon, Feb 01 2016, 6:14 pm
When I was in Prospect, everyone checked off the 12th grade jobs they were interested in at the end of 11th grade, and they were assigned by class vote, not by school administration.
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amother
Cerulean


 

Post Mon, Feb 01 2016, 8:17 pm
amother wrote:
When I was in Prospect, everyone checked off the 12th grade jobs they were interested in at the end of 11th grade, and they were assigned by class vote, not by school administration.


And who got to go to the bais Yackov convention? No nice, rule fillowing regular girls my year, just the ra-ras.

And who got to speak at graduation? Popularity contest. Not the girls with the best grades.
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mummiedearest




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Feb 01 2016, 8:51 pm
well, when my class was up to those, a few friends and I took the least recognized job and turned it into a well-known one. we requested this job. since no one had ever bothered doing anything with it before, we got to build up the image completely. we had a blast, and the principal cheered us on the whole time.

I don't know much about the high schools now, but a little creativity goes a long way.

and seriously, is the bais yaakov convention that much fun?
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Mama Bear




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Feb 01 2016, 9:20 pm
There are no jobs in my graduating school. There's no GO, no yearbook, no play. Just regular old school. we did have an 8th grade yearbook and I knew all my life that I would be editor, and then guess what, we didnt have a yearbook that year when I was I n8th grade......
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DrMom




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Feb 01 2016, 9:33 pm
What kind of "jobs" are we talking about?
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iluvy




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Feb 01 2016, 10:00 pm
amother wrote:
And who got to go to the bais Yackov convention? No nice, rule fillowing regular girls my year, just the ra-ras.

And who got to speak at graduation? Popularity contest. Not the girls with the best grades.


If you're still talking about Prospect, the valedictorian was the girl with the highest gpa. The other two speakers were voted by the grade -- I believe it was called a keser shem tov award -- and it was not a shallow popularity contest, but a recognition of girls who were sincerely respected and valued by the rest of the grade. One in particular my year was absolutely not part of any of the popular groups.
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amother
Gold


 

Post Mon, Feb 01 2016, 10:00 pm
It isn't only about "jobs".
There are other ways for the hanhala to make a girl feel noticed and appreciated.
Or not.
I'll never forget when it was my turn to give a dvar torah before davening. And I really put my all into it. Finally, I would show everyone that I have some brains.
The principal took a look at my dvar torah before I read it aloud (all of a page and a half) and told me to "only read half of it, because we're short on time."
Never mind that it would mean an unfinished thought, or a concept that wasn't wrapped up.
She made it quite clear that nobody would be listening anyway.
19 years later, it still hurts.
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amother
Magenta


 

Post Mon, Feb 01 2016, 10:02 pm
amother wrote:
When I was in Prospect, everyone checked off the 12th grade jobs they were interested in at the end of 11th grade, and they were assigned by class vote, not by school administration.

Sorry, bad idea IMO.
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amother
Sienna


 

Post Mon, Feb 01 2016, 10:06 pm
sequoia wrote:
How does this work in BYs? Teachers and principals "assign" kids to activities? So students don't decide for themselves what clubs and extracurriculars to participate in? Very strange...


Welcome to the world of Bais yaakovs (At least brooklyn ones). We did not have any clubs or extrucurriculars. But in twelfth grade we got "jobs".
I will try to list the jobs I can remember.

-GO heads obviously. somehow their job is prestigious though I'm not sure why. They sing songs at assemblies and hand out stuff ..
-Chessed heads. - also considered prestigious in my school. have no clue (and had no clue then) what they did besides making sure everyone did their weekly chesed commitment.
-yearbook jobs- editors and I can't remember who else because had nothing to do with yearbook at all.
- chagiga heads (they plan and execute the chanuka and purim chagiga)- basically just organizing and running party twice a year.
-shabbaton head- those in charge of the yearly school shabbos, either locally or up in the mountains somewhere in a camp or hotel. My school went every year to Camp agudah. The heads work hard and plan it before and during.
Production jobs. (not all schools do a production every year but mine did) so that's a lot of jobs right there- production heads, prestigious for valid reason. I recall them working very hard. Dance heads, choir heads, drama heads, song dance heads, props, scenery, lighting, technical, etc.. (those last 4 considered nerdy jobs)

I can't remember the rest.. but basically the way it went it my school, each girl got to choose I think 3 jobs they wanted most and then somehow it was decided what you get based on your choices.
However, GO, chesed and production heads were not like that. IIRC, at the end of eleventh grade, each girl in the grade was told to write down 3 (maybe more) they think should be GO. based on that PLUS staff input, it was decided.
I will say that at least my senior year, I was very happy with the GO choices. They were really fit for the job and girls that everyone really liked. Not the most popular rah rah girls. I was really happy for them.

Chesed and production I'm pretty sure there was no student input but those were chosen just by teachers.
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iluvy




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Feb 01 2016, 10:06 pm
OP, I enjoyed and related to the story, and I'm not going to try to refute it. But it and the reactions to it are only true on a certain level. I would compare it to stories about bullying and harassment in public school -- it happens, it's a problem, but it doesn't affect most people's lives in a significant way. I was not assigned the most prestigious job in high school; I was disappointed and felt overlooked; I moved on by the end of the period.

I definitely don't plan to worry about this when choosing schools for my girls. Instead, I will teach them to value and take pride in their own achievements and efforts rather than deriving self-worth from authority figures, and make their own opportunities rather than waiting for something to be handed to them.
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tigerwife




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Feb 01 2016, 11:28 pm
sequoia wrote:
How does this work in BYs? Teachers and principals "assign" kids to activities? So students don't decide for themselves what clubs and extracurriculars to participate in? Very strange...


No, no one gets 'assigned' to anything extra-curricular. But important jobs, like heading a shabbaton or directing a choir often got chosen by the hanhalah. Some people complain years later that they never got an important job, but IMO that's not a reason to discolor an entire HS experience.

Som jobs like GO had nominees chosen by teachers and then the students voted for the best pick.
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amother
Blue


 

Post Tue, Feb 02 2016, 12:13 am
In my school there were lots of jobs- all decided by the admin. (GO was technically an election but we all knew that it was semi-rigged as only they knew who got how many votes and likely if they wanted #2 to win, guess what, they did).
Jobs were given out different years. 9-10th grade got class presidents who did nothing really, but it showed approval from up on high and many wanted it for resume purposes. 11-12th had lots of jobs: production heads, chessed heads, chagiga, yearbook, shmiras halashon (they gave divrei Torah and introduced contests etc), yom iyun, class president (12th grade CP made senior trip plans)...
Yeah, you knew who was "approved". Some jobs are better than others- dance head vs 11th grade class president.
It was awful. And sometimes you didn't get any job even though 99% of your grade got something. At that point just add 1 more to chagiga and 1 to chessed and 1 to yom iyun. When you have 5heads, a 6th means nothing (and isn't really "too many") except to the girl who wasn't left out.
I was the nerdy girl left out. I was actually told that "others had to shine" even though girls with better grades etc got jobs, girls who were failing got jobs and girls who were in between did as will. I just had no big last name, no older relatives who went through the school or they "knew", not a $$$ person.

Sore spot.
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amother
Tangerine


 

Post Tue, Feb 02 2016, 2:24 pm
Move OOT
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Chayalle




 
 
    
 

Post Tue, Feb 02 2016, 3:42 pm
amother wrote:
In my school there were lots of jobs- all decided by the admin. (GO was technically an election but we all knew that it was semi-rigged as only they knew who got how many votes and likely if they wanted #2 to win, guess what, they did).
Jobs were given out different years. 9-10th grade got class presidents who did nothing really, but it showed approval from up on high and many wanted it for resume purposes. 11-12th had lots of jobs: production heads, chessed heads, chagiga, yearbook, shmiras halashon (they gave divrei Torah and introduced contests etc), yom iyun, class president (12th grade CP made senior trip plans)...
Yeah, you knew who was "approved". Some jobs are better than others- dance head vs 11th grade class president.
It was awful. And sometimes you didn't get any job even though 99% of your grade got something. At that point just add 1 more to chagiga and 1 to chessed and 1 to yom iyun. When you have 5heads, a 6th means nothing (and isn't really "too many") except to the girl who wasn't left out.
I was the nerdy girl left out. I was actually told that "others had to shine" even though girls with better grades etc got jobs, girls who were failing got jobs and girls who were in between did as will. I just had no big last name, no older relatives who went through the school or they "knew", not a $$$ person.

Sore spot.


I also thought the 9th and 10th grade reps don't do much...till I became the mother of one. Even I work hard! Every time there's an event, DD gets saddled with stuff she has to organize, give out, etc..and guess who gets to drive....and create labels for some give-out with graphics (I'm finding skills I didn't know I had) and prepare it for every single girl in the grade...there's lots of hard work that is hardly noticeable at the end.

Now the funny thing is, back in the day when I was in high school dance head was considered to be a good job....certainly clumsy me thought it was cool. But my DD (who has inherited DH's genes, not mine, in this area) is dance head and she does not consider it to be that awesome......apparently nowadays there are other jobs that are in. It's way more cool to get chosen for convention, for example.
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