ENGLISH SHOULD BE OPTIONARY

@GH it is bain hazanim, the trolls come out in the big way

One should note that most graduates of frum schools that minimize secular studies end up with sufficient skills, including English language, to find employment and in some cases to end up becoming quite successful. Of course, it could be explained by the low standards of instruction in government run schools (at least for the non-elite students) in the cities where most Orthodox Jews live. Historically, westerners who pursued a “classical” course of study studying their classics in Greek and Latin (we prefer our classics in Hebrew and Aramaic) were able to achieve in many areas, suggesting it is the rigor of the curriculum that matters more than the substance. English is useful since it is the language of business and government in much of the world, but especially in America, there has always been great tolerance in its misuse, especially since America has always welcomed (or at least, tolerated) immigrants, and since American culture has always been welcoming to the “Horatio Algers” working their way up the economic and social ladder.

OP’s English needs a lot of help. I’m referring to basic spelling and using nonexistent words.

In school I remember getting very good (well perfect) scores in math and science. I had classmates that said the same thing, it’s useless and you’re never going to use it and received bad grades. During the events of 2020-2023+ those same people were in every corner of the internet, news, and society pretending to be experts. I learned that some things you do end up using and needing, at least for yourself.
But then again, I am talking from a public school perspective and in a society that doesn’t follow any moral codes where people will shout all gossip and lies about things they don’t know as though they know. I hope if you don’t know something, you say you don’t know. That needs to be mainstreamed into American culture.

ENGLISH SHOULD BE OPTIONARY for you
ENGLISH SHOULD BE OPTIONAL for Jews who think they’re so much smarter
ENGLISH SHOULD NOT BE OPTIONAL for the rest of us

Dear Jdf,

Hear! Hear! I am completely blown away by how many people’s life focus is legend, lie, and myth.

Sefer Pele Yoetz, Perek Cetibah:

An unmotivated Jew who has not learned the skill of writing correctly in Hebrew AND IN THE LOCAL LANGUAGE, he will be covered with shame and disgrace.

==================================
Rabbi Mordechai Gifter:

“We teach general studies*, and they should be studied properly.
One should try to excel at whatever he does.”

SOURCE: Rav Gifter: The Vision Fire and Impact of an American Born Gadol
(chapter 23, page 288) by Rabbi Yechiel Spero, June 2011, Mesorah Publications,
ISBN-10: 1422610977 & ISBN #: 9781422610978

Did I hear my name???

Rabbi Yochanan (tractate Sanhedrin, page 17A) taught that:
The members of Sanhedrin must know all 70 languages.

PS: The study of languages is SECULAR STUDIES.

It would be beneficial to include subjects beyond just English, like commerce, finance, and other practical skills that can assist those pursuing a parnasah.

@PineLakePark
Here in Connecticut the law requires every high school student to have a full semester course in Personal Finance.
Not only have I taught the course, but wrote a curriculum which I have licensed to several towns as well as private schools and a Yeshiva High School.

@CTL
can you provide some google suggestion (or direct, if moderators allow) towards your much-needed resource?
Not a school (homeschooler / complicated situation)

Thank you very much in advance

Financial literacy is indeed important, but is hardly achievable without basic English and math 🧮 skills. And a job that provides finances to manage.
My suggestion would be to first test a kid or adult for their level using assessment sites, such as IXL, and possibly remedy using khan academy

Rbzs, you are the lucky one. Most of is here not just dissecting, but butchering sentences daily

@Daniela
My Personal Finance Course, written for high school students, is not an on line course.
As it is licensed to schools at a per pupil charge I regret that I cannot provide it to you, nor an on line link.
One warning, avoid the Prager U on line course that is out there. It is not very good and full of political bias.

BTW, my course was written specifically for Connecticut anc deals with its tax laws and wages.

Pekak,

“OP’s English needs a lot of help. I’m referring to basic spelling and using nonexistent words.”

That was part of the joke.

Dear Always and Dear Avram,

“We have found ways to deal with these issues already. ”

“I wish it were so.”

I couldn’t decipher which issues are still prevalent. Is this a specific reference that I am missing? It seems like a vague problem to me………

The gadlus of this post is that the poster only made a few glaring errors; his post wasn’t full of misspellings and non existent words, because that would have made the joke too obvious and wouldn’t have started this ranting secular studies vs Torah only discussion. The Torah only crowd has been largely silent, showing that without secular studies, we are more than capable of reading things well and can see when something is clearly a joke.

@Daniela
Yes, much of what you mention is covered in my course, however it is designed to work in a class of at least 12 students.
Without giving away too much, each student reaches into the hat and draws a pre assigned persona. This gives age, gender, marital status, dependents, education, renter, owner, live with family, profession, wages, etc.
We explore the banking system, loans, mortgages, all types of banking and investment accounts, leasing a dwelling, buying a dwelling, application process, credit ratings abc reports, credit cards, consumet protection laws, taxes, retirement income, etc.
Without a mix of statuses and class participation the course does not function. It is not suitable for homeschooling with few students.

Nom, i put it that way because that’s usually how these debates unfold, and this thread is a joke anyway.

Rav Belsky was neither; he had a nuanced shitah.

He held of high school english for the majority of talmidim, but for a minority which clearly demonstrate their ability and desire to learn all day, he would argue with parents to convince them to let their kids drop out of high school english, though I’m not sure at what grade he would allow/encourage it.

For the majority, he was against college, saying that high school was enough, and would discourage most from going, but would send a minority to jewish college programs.

So there were 3 levels:
Most overall should go to high school and not more; some should skip that, and others should even go to college.

I’ve mentioned before that I tend to attempt to diagram (RBZS calls it dissecting) some really egregious sentences from these pages over the years. It’s a pity schools no longer teach it. Students could have a greater understanding of sentence structure and syntax.

FWIW learning proper sentence structure will be a thing of the past once AI is more commonly used.

@EEEE
I examined the available sample pages of Lifeprep concerning Financial Literacy and find them better than nothing, but not much.
The quality of the teacher is key to this having practical value. As an on line self study course it is sorely lacking

Reading WSJ articles on related topics and, especially, comments to these articles, might be useful to some. It is usually clear how to separate posts by seasoned professionals from ignorami. Anyone who reads this forum could do that.

Avira > poster only made a few glaring errors; his post wasn’t full of misspellings and non existent words, because that would have made the joke too obvious

This is in the eye of the beholder. My first reaction was: this is funny, but overdoing it a little…

> The Torah only crowd has been largely silent,

Shtika k’domya maybe? Or, probably, most did not see it much different from what they usually read in letters from the schools?

a story – not 100% related, I once used a early prototype for text-to-speech software to call my Teacher in Lakewood on Purim. The voice was quite robotic, but people did not know yet that such thing exists. Rebetzin picked up the phone. My robot was able to maintain a conversation for a couple of minutes. When I got bored of that, I explained the trick to her and asked how she did not find this person strange. She said “we have all kind of people calling any day of the year, I stopped wondering”.