S/o chareidi education - getting thrown out for challenging

amother

Peach

Thu, Sep 20 2018, 10:30 am

leah233 wrote:

I had plenty of questions as a teenager. Not every teacher gave good answers but no one ever gave me a hard time for asking them. (At least one well meaning teacher did tell me that it isn't good for me to be such a philosopher)

However, there is a big difference between asking a question and challenging. Those who ask questions want answers. Those who challenge don't necessarily want them. Frequently they are just looking for a fight/ to make their point. If a girl if asking too many challenging questions and the school doesn't feel she is looking for an answer anyway I understand them telling her to go to a school better suited to her.

This has nothing to do with BY. Most societies won't keep a member who is always disturbing meetings with adversarial questions.

Asking a lot of questions is not the sign of a kid who is looking for a fight, even if to some it appears that way on the surface. I was that kid that everyone thought was looking for a fight, but I wanst. I was looking for answers and never got them. I continued my quest to find answers as an adult. The answers to the questions I used to ask are difficult and I can't blame a fresh out of sem teacher who can't fathom the question to understand a questioning student but I can blame her for assuming the worst about me.

Chayalle

Thu, Sep 20 2018, 10:38 am

amother wrote:

This. I was similar to this in many ways, and my questions were for real. I was lucky enough to find mentors in seminary who were able to answer some of my questions.

amother

Emerald

Thu, Sep 20 2018, 10:57 am

Chayalle wrote:

I'm going to assume that you switched your daughter to a new school for a variety of reasons, not one annoying teacher.

DD had one teacher in school who was ultra-RW, the type that made blanket statements that are not necessarily Halacha but her own personal hashkafa.

I don't consider this teacher to be representative of the whole school. I also talk to my girls about things she says, and clarify to them what our family's personal Hashkafa is on the subject.

I tell my girls that it's good to have a teacher like that, so you get a really broad viewpoint on alot of things - prepares you for life, you will encounter such people. It's good that she says what she says, and that we discuss it at home.

I wouldn't switch my girls out of a great school just because of her.

My daughter was a bright observant early teen, so of course she already knew that other people have different hashkafos. I agree that having a teacher with a different hashkafa can be a valuable opportunity for me, as a parent, to clarify how and why our family hashkafa is different. It can also be a chance for a teen to learn about another view that, while different from her family's, may suit her own personal derech better. My daughter and I, as well as my other children, were accustomed to having these sorts of conversations and continue to do so.

The problem was that because the teacher didn't like my daughter's question, she started giving my daughter a difficult time and singling her out for criticism. It started making her very uncomfortable. This happened about halfway through the school year and I wanted my daughter to switch to another class but she didn't want to. I wouldn't want to work for a boss like that, so I didn't want my daughter to spend several hours a day with that kind of teacher.

I'm posting as amother, so posters here would have to take me at my word. But I can assure you that my daughter was a great student, well-liked by both teachers and peers. She was especially known at her old school for volunteering to put away the benchers after lunch and writing thank you notes for the custodians. My daughter had been thinking about switching for other reasons, but this experience solidified her decision to switch to a more MO school. She has the same sort of reputation at her new school, but is more comfortable speaking up in class and has found more friends like her.

So I don't assume that every student who was discouraged from asking questions or pushed out for doing so was a "troublemaker".

amother

Olive

Thu, Sep 20 2018, 11:51 am

In my kid's case it was not just a certain teacher. The principal got on board and teachers talk to each other. Not only does the child feel it but so do her peers,and, eventually their parent's.basically, a kid can get ruined if it's not handled properly.
They kept saying shes a very good kid, but " this" and "that" are problems.
There are people who are thinkers, analytical kids whom the school system ( mostly in larger frum communities) not only doesn't cater to,they are downright terrified of them!

amother

Emerald

Thu, Sep 20 2018, 12:14 pm

amother wrote:

I was concerned that this would happen to my daughter as well, and this was part of the reason I sought out another school for her. I'd rather have her leave when she was still eager to learn than wait till she was completely uninterested and perhaps acting out.

thunderstorm

Thu, Sep 20 2018, 1:33 pm

I never had issues in highschool. But in Bais Yaakov Intensive Seminary , I questioned the kolell lifestyle asking valid questions (as it was a time I was deciding how I want to live my life) and my teacher would constantly knock me down and make me feel invalidated. It's not surprising that this same highly regarded rebbitzin accused me of cheating on her test because I answered the same exact answer as my classmate (who I happened to have studied with for the test). She just thought I was this awful person because I questioned her lifestyle and wanted honest answers because I was confused.

amother

Mustard

Thu, Sep 20 2018, 9:50 pm

thunderstorm wrote:

Did you find intensive in general to be against girls questioning their hashkafos? Or was it this one teacher? I’m wondering whether it is a school culture as a whole to discourage questioning (I actually liked your example of kollel lifestyle because it isn’t outright questioning Judaism) or one particular teacher in which case you can just pose the questions to the next teacher.

I actually went to an extremely right wing, yeshivish, kollel minded seminary in Israel - our principal would preach Torah Torah in class but if I ever questioned her privately she never pushed me away and actually tried to logically reason with and convince me. And she was willing to compromise. So again I was shown that questioning is fine. No anger or hostility

thunderstorm

Thu, Sep 20 2018, 11:14 pm

amother wrote:

This teacher likes to have class "discussions" so it came up then. I would say that this teacher was the only one that gave me a hard time. But the truth is I never asked the same question to other teachers since it didn't come up. I've asked tznius questions etc to other teachers and I was given satisfactory answers or we just agreed to disagree.