ZDad: each Yiddishe neshama is too precious for us to assign casualties as “par for the course”.
If you check out the Unidy campaign linked to the article about Malky Klein
you’ll see that unfortunately this mindset of having to fit in by being “on-track” academically is effecting girls too, who have NO CHIYUV TO LEARN. In our efforts for academic excellence and competition – praiseworthy traits in general – we have failed some of our trees, in the mistaken notion of cultivating the forest.
Every mechanech knows that some bochurim can’t / don’t want to learn Gemara, the question is at which point must we admit defeat and offer alternatives, or scale it down.
We the parents are equally to blame by wanting our kids to fit in perfectly, so until OUR mentality changes, the Yeshivas’ hands are basically tied.