Is a school that accepts everyone the answer?

Bnei Berak 10

Thu, Nov 24 2022, 11:02 pm

amother Eggplant wrote:

R' Chaim Kanievsky said he went to a school with a mixed crowd and it was good enough for him and for the Brisker Rav's kids. Turning kids away because they aren't the right type is gaiva.

Reb Chaim זצוק"ל was a child a long time ago. There was no media no TV no internet. Impossible to compare today and those times.

Rappel

Thu, Nov 24 2022, 11:34 pm

We have a small community school, and the class itself - not the school - ranges in religiosity, culture, location...

I can't tell you how happy it makes me.

The school itself is a Talmud Torah, and strongly encourages Torah values. In that context, I'm very happy that booth my son and my daughter have a variety of healthy, fun friends to meet. They are at the age that the values they decide are important still come from home, so I can tell them that a ben Torah takes care of others and speaks nicely. Everything else - in the category of ninjas versus Supers - doesn't bother me enough to worry.

amother

Cinnamon

Fri, Nov 25 2022, 12:18 am

I grew up in LKWD and moved to an OOT diverse community BY for HS

The dynamics of the more "open" or "modern" families in OOT and in town are very different.

In OOT the scale is so different. So in a class of 25 you have maybe one or two from very dysfunctional families or one or two from very "rebellious families". The rest will have various levels of frumkiet and exposure, but its not in the "ex-yeshvish" rebellios way you find it in many in town communities.

The scale difference means that the kids from the more problematic homes get pulled up by the majority who are from wholesome homes with varying standards.

In Town the numbers are huge, so in a school with 5 parallel classes of 30 you will have a much larger number of dysfunctional homes, and then you have a large number of the "ex yeshvish" element, and they often become clicks and can really pull others down with them.

The real problem is that people are so obsessed with image in town that they really only want what is considered a "good" school even if the personal standards they hold is much lower then what the school is asking for, and they tell themselves that everyone is like them, and then you have half the class that is "faking it" and the other half of the class is genuinely where the school presents itself and you just end up with a big mess, that makes the school even more paranoids and harder to get into

My Lakewood solution would be a fake public school system - like BY in Israel. According to the area you live you get assigned a school ( will also solve the traffic issue).
That would ensure you get a balanced mix in each school and everyone would get in.

For HS it wouldn't work , but should work on elementary level.

Bnei Berak 10

Fri, Nov 25 2022, 1:39 am

amother Cinnamon wrote:

Divide into areas only creates balanced mix if the area is balanced. What if the rich or the poor or disfunctional live in a concentrated area?

amother

Nemesia

Fri, Nov 25 2022, 2:15 am

amother Eggplant wrote:

R' Chaim Kanievsky said he went to a school with a mixed crowd and it was good enough for him and for the Brisker Rav's kids. Turning kids away because they aren't the right type is gaiva.

How "Diverse" could BB have been in those days?

Also, diversity then and now are worlds apart.

Now it means different internet standards, exposure to all types of marriages etc.

Then it meant wearing a different colour shirt?

Or father working?

amother

Dimgray

Fri, Nov 25 2022, 2:24 am

amother Nemesia wrote:

Bnei Brak only became overwhelmingly Charedi in the 1970s. Mixed meant mixed.

Bnei Berak 10

Fri, Nov 25 2022, 4:56 am

amother Dimgray wrote:

Bnei Brak only became overwhelmingly Charedi in the 1970s. Mixed meant mixed.

Which doesn't mean they were mixed schools. DH (who is into Chareidi "history") says Reb Chaim surely was in a Chareidi school but they were those more modern/light ones and close in hashkafa to DL and those who come from more strict homes.
The more secular society is getting extreme so is charedim getting more extreme too.

amother

Clear

Fri, Nov 25 2022, 5:01 am

amother Eggplant wrote:

R' Chaim Kanievsky said he went to a school with a mixed crowd and it was good enough for him and for the Brisker Rav's kids. Turning kids away because they aren't the right type is gaiva.

This is not an analogy by any means! Rav Chaim Kanievsky attended Yeshiva Tiferes Tzion until he was an adult, then Lomza Yeshiva. Mixed meant it had child prodigies who were sons of gedolim as well as children of holocaust survivors who sold oranges for a living. There was nobody watching cheerleading on TV or doing anything else at home that the chazon ish, who founded the school would have considered a negative influence. Those who are familiar with the chazon ish know he would have shut down the school in a heartbeat.

Yeshivas Tiferes Tzion was founded in November 1935 at the initiative of the Chazon Ish. It began with only seven students, but by the end of that first winter there were 30 talmidim, including the Chazon Ish’s nephews, Rav Chaim Greineman, Rav Nissim Karelitz and Rav Chaim Kanievsky. Many of the yeshivah’s alumni went on to become renowned rabbanim and Torah leaders of our generation. Rav Michel Yehuda Lefkowitz was a maggid shiur at Yeshivas Tiferes Tzion from 1940 to 2011.

About the only type of kid Rav Chaim would agree that a school should turn away would be one exposed to things that would negatively impact his peers.

amother

Opal

Fri, Nov 25 2022, 5:12 am

Quote:

I went to a school like that and only gained, and I’m a big proponent of the positive. However, and this is major, times are very very different now. I think it’s not so simple anymore, even OOT.

I grew up OOT and loved it and I'm raising my kids OOT and it's not so simple.
When I went to a community school growing up the differences between my family and other families was much more glaring and easier for me to understand as a kid. ie - the mother doesn't cover her hair, the girls wear pants...
Now my son is in a class with a kid where the father learned in yeshiva for many years, the parents dress "the part", but the family has no problem going to a mixed water park on vacation. Try explaining that to an 8 year old kid.

(And I'm not trying to sugarcoat my childhood, there were still things that were hard. But when my parents are asked how they raised such "good" children OOT 30 years ago, they answer it was much easier back then!)

amother

Pewter

Fri, Nov 25 2022, 5:14 am

amother Clear wrote:

More so than Lakewood but not in the OP sense. I know many girls that were told to go elsewhere because they are not the “type”. one girl did get in, but only after a major donor put tremendous pressure on the school.

I hear so I’ll take tag out of the discussion and leave it as just darchei. Although I think the pple tag doesn’t want to take really don’t belong there as they are just too extreme to the left to make sense. It’s still so diverse.

amother

Clear

Fri, Nov 25 2022, 5:31 am

amother Pewter wrote:

The girls I know of were all fine normal girls who just didn’t fit with the image the school wanted. This is going back several years. Some are married to fine boys who are kovea itim today.

amother

Starflower

Fri, Nov 25 2022, 5:34 am

I don't know how it would work in Lakewood. But Baltimore has 2 girls schools. Bnos is smaller (only 2 classes with an approx of 40 girls total per grade). Bais Yaakov is huge for Baltimore standards (7-9 classes per grade with approx 140 girls per grade). Both schools take a diverse student body. The classes are not made by neighborhood or good girls vs bad girls. It's a mix. Yes the kids are exposed to some things I don't love, but as a whole it really works. I grew up in Baltimore when there was only Bais Yaakov--and a modern girl in my class landed in the right crowd and became "frummer". She married a guy who learned in kollel. So it goes both ways.

keym

Fri, Nov 25 2022, 5:35 am

Bnei Berak 10 wrote:

Divide into areas only creates balanced mix if the area is balanced. What if the rich or the poor or disfunctional live in a concentrated area?

This. Exactly.
I don't see it as being particularly practical because Lakewood is so so huge.
Arranging a public school district type system just means there will end up being "more yeshivish" "not yeshivish" "more money" "less money" districts.
And people will absolutely choose where to buy or live based on the neighborhood schools.
I grew up in a large OOT city with a huge public school district and 100% people choose where they live based on the district school.

Chayalle

Fri, Nov 25 2022, 5:45 am

amother Pewter wrote:

I think it works in some places. Look at darchei )and tag)in far Rockaway. The parent body is very diverse and they are amazing schools.

They have classes by neighborhood, so there is definitely social engineering going on. My niece moved last year, and her daughter had to switch classes to be in her new neighborhood class.

amother

Gladiolus

Fri, Nov 25 2022, 5:49 am

amother Starflower wrote:

I grew up in Monsey, and I went to BY. I moved more to the right of my family because of this. I know other girls like me.