I am not sure where this long thread has meandered, but I am posting to the title.
A lot of the derech deviation issues on the teenage level have to do with stupidity, shmiros haloshon, and gaiva from OTHER people who think they are on the derech.
Specifically, and simply, yeshivas are heavily geared to reward people who are exceedingly left brain hemisphere oriented. The logical, sequential, orderly thinking part of the brain. Included are those who are very good at “parroting” information. And the more exact, the great the reward given to that kind of learner. And rightfully so!
However, those learners who Hashem created right brain hemisphere oriented, or heavily dominated by that portion of the brain, excel in abstract thought, creative thought, deep thought, spatial thought..etc…and the more they are influenced by that portion of the brain, they more thay are left out of the curriculum and suffer boredom and find it painful to sit a whole day.
Such students would do better in Montessori type projects (for gifted) where they work with projects and not passive lectures.
The second group of teens I just mentinoed, then become labeled with “he is one of those kids”. They get lost in the mix. They are not looked at with a sense of esteem. And the wander until they cant put up with it anymore.
In fact, right hemisphere learners frequently do better on IQ tests.
In our community, from what I have seen, those who are not equally balanced, but lean more to right hemisphere thinking, are being done an injustice since the curriculum is not geared to their success. This is followed up by ignorant adults who label the kids as not being as Jewish as they should be…and on and on.
This is what happens when standardized education is not employed, nor people who are properly trained as educators. Being an expert at knowing limud Kodesh does not necessarily an educator make.
And the whole community, by and large, goes with the flow, and those good, smart kids are left out by us…and when the leave the rest of the way, chas veshalom, we scratch our heads and ask what their problem may be.
Their problem is us.