High School Crisis

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  • #643321
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    there have been many successful people who have droped out of school

    #643322
    Feif Un
    Participant

    My brother learned in Chaim Berlin for high school. In 11th grade, he wanted to drop out of English classes, and learn the entire day. R’ Chaim Segal zt”l told him NO WAY! He said it is very important to get a high school diploma, and he had to finish up his secular education in the yeshiva. He told him, after you finish up those classes, you’ll be able to sit and learn the entire day. Until then, work hard at your secular education.

    #643323
    WolfishMusings
    Participant

    there have been many successful people who have droped [sic] out of school

    I think that I would ask for a definition of the word “many” in this context.

    Nonetheless, yes, there are people who have been successful despite dropping out of school – but those people are the (exceedingly rare) exceptions and not the rule.

    The Wolf

    #643324
    intellegent
    Member

    SJSinNYC,

    It’s true, but as far as I know, it is definitely not the correct havara for ashkenazim. I think it only became popular since the Hebrew language came about. That’s why, I think it is incorrect to be using that havara for lashon kodesh. If you are speaking the language (which is NOT Lashon Kodesh) then use the correct accent. But really, I don’t think it makes sense to use it when davening/learning

    #643325
    dd
    Participant

    intellegent,

    Why do you assume that everyone is ashkenazi? Do you think the Rambam pronounced it “kesuba”?

    Most ashkenazim I know in Israel, use the Israeli (sephardi) pronounciation for conversation and switch to ashkenazi pronounciation for tefilla.

    I can’t see why you have your knickers in a twist over someone using the sephardi havara for a comment on the YWN coffee room.

    By the way, when you say “shabbos” do you put the accent on the first syllable or the second? One is correct and one is incorrect regardless of whether you are ashkenazi or sephardi.

    #643326
    oomis
    Participant

    The proper pronunciation for Hebrew is “t” not “s”, and it is the way the language was more likely spoken in the days of the Beis (or rather, Beit) Hamikdash. Does anyone really think that the Ashkenazic pronunciation, which is only a few hundred years old, if that, is more choshuv than the original spoken Ivrit? Regional dialects are just that – regional. Some people say “ee” for what has always been pronounced as “oo.” Yeshivish people say Toyrah, for Torah. Litvaks and Galitzianers also have different ways of pronouncing the same word. What’s the difference, as long as it is all directed towards Yiddishkeit?

    #643327
    brooklyn19
    Participant

    wolf

    Albert Einstein

    Billy Joel

    The Wright Brothers

    Tom Cruise

    and a ton more

    #643328
    Joseph
    Participant

    The closest dialect to the times of the Beis Hamikdash is probably the Teimani.

    #643329
    yros
    Member

    people notice the successful ones not the unsuccessful ones. i think that most people w/o a high school diploma can’t get too far in the business world

    #643330
    intellegent
    Member

    dd,

    I don’t think everyone is ashkenazim. But right now I am speaking about ashkenazim, not sphardim.

    oomis1105,

    Why was that more likely to have been spoken that way in the times of the bais Hamikdash? Were some dikduk rules made up later on? Also as some previous posters mentioned, different shvatim had different pronunciations even in the midbar . In that case there is no one correct pronunciation.

    Joseph,

    I think I remember that temanim are supposed to pronounce gimmel and dalet differently with a dagesh kal.

    #643331
    blue shirt
    Participant

    The nature of spoken language is that of constant change. As has been mentioned here, regional dialects are different from each other and interactions with other regions accelerate changes. There is no way around it. There are many different dialects , even in davening among seemingly homogeneous groups. A Californian-born yeshivishe person sounds different than a Brooklyn-born yeshivishe person. Al achas kamah v’chama among populations from very different backgrounds.

    Therefore it is pointless , even ridiculous, to discuss the “correctness” of one dialect over another, or one “havara over another”. All, every single one of them, from Teimani to Unterland,from Brooklyn to Buchari is legitimate, that is the nature of spoken language. And yes, even “litvishe yeshivish ” and “dati leumi” are equally legitimate. Ooo or eee, sss or ttt, ohhh or oyyy or aiii, they all count. Daven the way you daven, it is ok.

    To illustrate the point, the gemarah in brachos requires the elongation of the “dalet” (do you say “daled”? It is “dalet”, but that’s ok!) at the end of the word “echad” in shma. It is a time-honored tradition to attempt this. However, no Ashkenazi or North African is capable of accomplishing it, as the dalet begins and ends abruptly, and what is actually elongated is the kumatz of the chet, as in “hashem echaaaaaaaaaaD ! So we are fooling ourselves into thinking that the dalet is elongated. There are dialects which pronounce the the dalet as a vibrating “th” sound, which can be elongated. So are ashkenazim reciting shma incorrectly? No, because dialects change and there cannot be a single unchanging one, nor has there ever been.

    To the language experts out there, I apologize for using incorrect terminology, I myself am not a linguist.

    #643332
    tzippi
    Member

    Brooklyn19, Billy Joel’s up there with my favorite Jewish singers (whoops, wrong thread 😉 but seriously, the general studies dropouts are not aspiring to those kinds of successes.

    #643333
    anon for this
    Participant

    brooklyn19,

    Albert Einstein dropped out of high school after he wrote his first scientific work, but later attended college. I don’t think his “dropping out” is comparable to what we’re discussing here, because most of those dropping out of yeshiva don’t plan to attend college. Even if they did, most colleges today require a high school diploma or GED.

    Orville Wright did not finish high school; Wilbur did but didn’t receive his diploma. However, it may be harder to succeed today without a high school education than it was 100 years ago.

    While Billy Joel and Tom Cruise have had successful careers without finishing high school, I don’t think most yeshiva students are interested in these types of careers (as tzippi noted).

    #643334
    dd
    Participant

    Plenty of people succeed without a high school education. For example, there’s Chris, the nice young man who fills up my car at the local Esso. (He’s single too, if any of you need a shidduch.) There’s also Maria who cleans our home on Tuesdays and Fridays. (She’s married though, with children and grandchildren.)

    #643335
    WolfishMusings
    Participant

    Brooklyn,

    As someone already pointed out to you, Albert Einstein did go to college. In fact, he earned a PhD from the University of Zurich.

    The Wright Brothers did not complete high school — that is a fact. Nonetheless, they lived in an age when completing high school was more luxury than necessity. Many people in the 1880s and 1890s did not complete high school; they were often forced to go looking for work to help out the family. That reality, however, does not exist today. You really can’t use The Wright Brothers as a comparison. Were they alive as teenagers today, you can bet your bottom dollar that they would complete their high school education.

    Billy Joel and Tom Cruise have a fairly unique quality — they have been blessed with very unique talents. Not any shlub off the street can walk into a studio and open a $100M movie based on name recognition alone. Not any shlub can announce a concert at Shea Stadium and sell out the tickets 45 minutes after they go on sale. The fact is that these people (like many professional athletes) have such unique skills that they don’t need an advanced education to make a ton of money. But the fact of the matter is that the reason they can make so much money is because their skills are exceedingly rare. You can’t tell the average kid “it’s okay to drop out of high school like Celebrity X,” because the average kid doesn’t have the God-given unique talents that Celebrity X has.

    That being said, let’s talk about what the more typical kid might find. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, here are the usual median weekly earnings of people in the US by education for Q3 2008:

    Less Than High School: 471

    High School Diploma: 618

    Some College Education: 725

    Bachelor’s Degree: 1020

    Bachelor’s Degree or more: 1131

    Advanced Degree: 1333

    I have data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics going back to 2000, and the relationship between education and salary always holds. The more education the average person has, the more they earn.

    Is it possible for a person with little or no education to strike it rich? Absolutely. But in just about every case, you’ll find that the person either has an incredibly rare and valuable skill or is incredibly lucky (and won the lottery). For the other 99.99999% of the population, you need an education.

    The Wolf

    #643336
    WolfishMusings
    Participant

    Oh, and one more point… Tom Cruise did graduate high school. He graduated from Glen Ridge High School in 1980 (age 17).

    The Wolf

    #643337
    brooklyn19
    Participant

    lol still – Albert Einstein was an odd-ball. he didn’ finish high school but yes he was to college.

    and anyway my brother has a law degree and he never completed high school either. don’t ask how!

    #643338
    anon for this
    Participant

    WolfishMusings,

    Thanks for correcting me about Tom Cruise. Actually I didn’t bother checking whether Cruise or Joel finished high school, because I didn’t think they are relevant to the discussion. Obviously I should have checked though.

    #643339
    bored@work
    Participant

    so now that i finished hs there is no reason for me to finish college?!?

    I mean if I want a learning husband I cant expect to take from my parents forever, rite?

    #643340
    WolfishMusings
    Participant

    That’s fine anon… we all make mistakes.

    The point here is that Cruise (and Joel) are the exceptions to the rule. They can succeed without a formal education because they have a skill that is exceedingly rare and valuable. Most people (by definition) don’t have a skill that is exceedingly rare and valuable. You can’t look at the exceptions to the rule and posit them as the rule, which is what BLAHBLAH and Brooklyn19 were doing. Unless you know someone has a particular rare and valuable skill, you shouldn’t be telling them “well Billy Joel succeeded without schooling and so can you.”

    The Wolf

    #643341
    dd
    Participant

    Wolf,

    Be careful with those statistics. They don’t necessarily imply causality. Part of the difference is that more capable people CHOOSE to get more education.

    But please don’t misinterpret me as saying that education isn’t worthwhile. It’s a tragedy when a young person forgoes an education. In fact, there is tons of evidence that eduacation does increase lifetime earnings, albeit to a slightly lesser extent than those statistics suggest.

    #643342
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    i hold that statistics dont affect us yidden.

    #643343
    WolfishMusings
    Participant

    i hold that statistics dont affect us yidden.

    BLAHBLAH,

    I’m calling your bluff. You don’t really believe that.

    I believe that you wear seat belts in the car, which has been proven statistically to greatly improve your chances of surviving an accident.

    I believe that when you go to the doctor, you follow his/her advice, which is largely based on statistical studies.

    Saying “statistics don’t affect us yidden” is similar to saying “physics don’t affect us yidden.”

    The Wolf

    #643344

    A neighbor sends her son to cheddar in Williamsburg where there are no secular studies. She hired a tutor who teaches this boy one-one-one, and turns out this young man (he’s about 15 now) is a genius. Unfortunately, probably 90% of his class will never find out whether they are budding geniuses as well.

    One more successful dropout – Bill Gates, but from college, not HS.

    There is something completely wrong with our “system” if we’re discouraging our sons from being educated. As I’ve told my BM age sons many times, after learning all day, college level coursework will be easy. And you know something, the boys who are doing CLEPs and TTI are acing their exams, ditto those doing college online. And that’s also why some yeshiva guys have gone straight to law school with only a BTL.

    #643345
    brooklyn19
    Participant

    hey i agree that a normal education is necessary! but don’t go saying that it’s impossible to become a somebody without it. lol i’m in college now – if i thought i had a fighting chance without it, i highly doubt i’d take on all this work.

    #643346
    WolfishMusings
    Participant

    dd,

    You’re right that the stats don’t prove causality. But there *is* a *very* strong relationship between the two factors (income and education) and it cannot be dismissed out of hand.

    The Wolf

    #643347
    WolfishMusings
    Participant

    hey i agree that a normal education is necessary! but don’t go saying that it’s impossible to become a somebody without it. lol i’m in college now – if i thought i had a fighting chance without it, i highly doubt i’d take on all this work.

    Unless you have some rare and valuable skill, it is just as impossible as winning the lottery. IOW, it’s possible in theory, but I wouldn’t advise relying on it in practice.

    The Wolf

    #643348
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    wolf

    your 1 for 2 i do wear a seatbelt but im not into the whole dr thing

    #643349
    gavra_at_work
    Participant

    BLAHBLAH:

    So you don’t hold of a Rubah Dlesah Lkaman?

    You are against numerous Gemorahs that do hold of it.

    #643350
    yossiea
    Participant

    If it was good enough for the Vilna Gaon, it should be good enough for us. He wrote that there is no Torah knowledge without general knowledge because you can’t understand the Torah without knowing general knowledge. He had his talmid translate Euclid into Hebrew. He wrote that if you are deficient in general knowledge, you WILL be deficient in Torah as well.

    #643351
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    pardo my ignorance but what is Rubah Dlesah Lkaman

    #643353
    gavra_at_work
    Participant

    Simplisticly, it is statistical proof.

    I have (attempted) to start a new thread going into additional detail

    #643354
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    thanks for your understanding

    #643355
    gavra_at_work
    Participant

    Always glad to disseminate Torah.

    #643357
    yros
    Member

    what does ruba d’lasa l’kaman mean

Viewing 35 posts - 51 through 85 (of 85 total)
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