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Aries, I respectfully disagree with you regarding the need to learn and drill such needless information. It does have use. What if she grows up to be a teacher, to teach those purposeless topics! That’s exactly what the original teacher, who taught the teacher who taught the teacher who taught… had in mind! – A JOB!
Girls should learn these skills. As far as classes that would get them ahead in college, they don’t have to go to college. As far as getting skills for a job, they don’t need to do that either. Their husband should do that. Girls should learn homemaking skills, boys should learn skills for a job, both should get married younger, and bring holy neshamos into the world.
OneOfMany, just saw an earlier post. I didn’t realize you were the first one to mention apple-swans. Still have no idea who you are but I’m really curious…
2sense, I can’t tell whether you’re joking or not, but I’m sorry to say that most people don’t fit that cookie cutter.
kapusta, I don’t know who you are either, but it’s fun to think we might know each other. 🙂
OneOfMany, you would be surprised to know how much kids learn when they are NOT forced to. Once you are on your own you can read, speak to other people, choose your own topics and subjects, join groups, lectures, shiurim, classes etc., that you are interested in and garner as much information as your brain can take in at any given time. And this information gets stored away for later use as well.
So just to reiterate. Different strokes for different folks, so fitting in one period a day or a week, for teaching practical or fun life skills, which help kids who are NOT so academically inclined to shine, or just gives those who are a rest period for their brain is a good thing and nothing to put down or make fun of. It is only a small part of what I am sure is a very thorough program.
I was. Were you?
Maybe we worked together! 😀
What color were the sweatshirts your year? Mine, they were black. (Is this cryptic enough?)
I don’t think we ever got them… who was Chessed or GO your year? (or if you could figure out another way to get the message across without direct names… Was Eddie there all four years?)
Hmm…I don’t remember Eddie. (I remember Desmond, though.) Probably not. Was R’ Weinberg there while you were?
Guess you’re younger… Are you (or someone in the “group” related to someone -actually two someones- well known? (Or was everyone in the group related to someone well known? Lol)
Which group? The one that was here a few months back? I knew a few of them…I’m not (related to) the person (I think?) you’re talking about.
Were you there the year we expanded to next door?
I think I am too…what’s this “group”?
Ha, I’m not that much younger than you. 😉
I replied but it didn’t get through. The group is what you mentioned before. No idea who you are…
Ever google the “letters”?
If you figure me out, let me know. 🙂
Home Economics is very important in a girls education. There is nothing wrong with learning rambams, rashis, ba’al haturims, and all the other mefarshim. However, from personal experience, as someone who had zero experience in the kitchen before i got married and just about zero home economics in school, I would’ve appreciated learning baking/cooking basics. Or quick and easy recipes for the many of us working women who have very little time to put up a big hot supper (as opposed to macaroni, eggs, sandwiches, etc…). Or not just cooking/baking, what about laundry tips?
I think its a great idea to give some sort of psychology lesson in how to deal with kids, how to be a good wife, good mother…
Not everyone is cut out to be a chef, but we all eventually have to use this skill. As opposed to many other subjects that will never again be thought about once the test has been handed in.
The yeshivos have Home-Ec also. We called it Sholom Bayis Class.
I learned in yeshiva how to make barbecues;
how to do chazara on shabbos so that you can put the cholent back on friday night after you eat some;
how to order pizza;
and how to drink until you don’t mind some shrill voice yelling at you to get a job or get the baby, or whatever its yelling.
I’m also not getting through. I wasn’t in that group – I really have never posted here before. But one of them actually showed me the thing with the thing when it first went up. 😛
I probably shouldn’t…I seem to be irking the mods. TIF is definitely something I don’t wanna mess with. 🙂
high schools in israel/jerusalem r a big issue because you get to be either “in the box” or “out of the box”
BH i found one that i would consider best of the worst it is called:Ali Be’er (kook)
it doesnt end too late
they have a ton of hashkafa and in 12th they have shlom bayit classes because they want to make sure the girls get them
starting in 10th grade they have like AP classes just when you finish in 12th you dont need much more studying
they choose what you can pick according to the girls needs
this year they had
1.phsycology and science
2.graphics and design
3.acounting
After reading that article in the Jewish Press, I am going to open up a high school which will focus on making the girls look like models so they will get a shidduch.
Classes will be in hair styling, make up, fashion, and two hours of gym a day. Then instead of “wasting” twenty thousand (or more) on seminary, get a nose job, botox, and lipo instead!
To those of you who claim that you hated extra curriculum classes in high school and that it was a waste of time- tell me, what 15 year old is interested in learning ANYTHING. Are you telling me that you would have rather been leaning every Rashi in the Torah? How is that going to make you a model mother? I would have loved to learn cooking, sewing etc…. It would have saved me tons of $$ on alterations. As a jewish mother, you always need to add a hem, add a button etc. As for all the Rashis and Rambams I learned, I don’t remember any of them.
I also think that it is crucial for schools to begin teaching kids to feel pride in being jewish. Our grandmothers didn’t have a proper jewish education and yet they didn’t perform mitzvos so robotically. They had heart, something today’s generation is missing. Let’s not lose sight of what’s important.
To those of you who claim that you hated extra curriculum classes in high school and that it was a waste of time- tell me, what 15 year old is interested in learning ANYTHING. Are you telling me that you would have rather been leaning every Rashi in the Torah? How is that going to make you a model mother? I would have loved to learn cooking, sewing etc…. It would have saved me tons of $$ on alterations. As a jewish mother, you always need to add a hem, add a button etc. As for all the Rashis and Rambams I learned, I don’t remember any of them.
Did you even bother reading any of the responses on this thread before coming up with this scintillating argument?
Also, your second post contradicts your first. The reason the Bais Yaakov movement was started in the first place was to combat the problem you are addressing. And their solution was to introduce learning, not housewivery.
The original beis yaakov’s most certainly did teach bnos yisroel housewivery.
I said that their solution was to introduce learning. How does that contradict?
Ditch the apostrophe.
Balabusta: You seem to be subscribing to the mentality that Jews in Europe were malachim and the alter heim was gan eden. Maybe the yiddishe grandmothers were like that, but what about the hundreds who never became yiddishe grandmothers because they went OTD?
OOM – and the learning they introduced was not rote memorization and the like, or even an appreciation for the complexity of torah. It was seeing how to take hashkafas hachaim out of the torah. The main meforaish S.Schneirer used for chumash was R’ S.R. Hirsch’s pirush.
And who said that contemporary Bais Yaakov schooling comprises of rote memorization, or is preoccupied with developing an appreciation for the complexity of Torah? I for one had an overwhelming majority of “hashkafas hachaim” type classes. And how does instituting home ec classes and the like instead of those onerous classses where you do nothing but memorize zillions of Rashis and spit back endless “mi amar el mi”s fit into your point?
Incidentally, I do think it would be a totally cool idea to teach the Nineteen Letters at high schools. Do they, at any?
Mine was going to at one point, I think.
Do they have a Home Ec class? 😛
OOM first of all, calm down. I am entitled to my own opinion, as is everyone else in here. My posts do not contradict each other- it is the overwhelming pressure and stress of having to know every chazal and meforsh that drives people to resenting yiddishkeit. I remember people just breaking down in tears from the stress of never-ending tests, quizes and assignments. The girls were worn down, sleep deprived and just plain DEPRESSED from all the useless memorization. One girl was so stressed, she stated out loud, “I wish I could commit suicide”. So tell me, is this what Sarah Schenirer had in mind?? This is counterproductive to teaching love of Torah.
I would love to see more emphasis on Hilchos Shabbos and Hilchos kashrus, something every jewish mother needs to know. Your average high school class has chumosh and novi 6-7 times a week each, while Dinim is only 2-3 times a week. How come girls aren’t learning basic halachos till its drilled in? There is so much to learn, yet they are focusing on the wrong subjects. Halacha is something that pertains to everyone’s day to day lives. When a milichig spoon falls into the fleishig pot, every girl should know immediately what the halacha is, without having to call their LOR.
Of course you are entitled to your own opinion. And don’t worry, I don’t harbor any ill will toward you. I just have some pointed opinions on this subject is all. Sorry if I’m coming off a little strong. 😛
If you’ll allow me, I have one more bone to pick with you…you (and a lot of others here) talk a lot about all the demoralizing “memorization” that goes on in girls’ schools. I have two comments on this:
1. Knowledge isn’t imparted meaningfully through rote. If you feel that all you are doing in school is memorizing, then either the school is going about it all wrong, or you aren’t really interested in learning. Unfortunately, us girls have a predilection . It just seems so much easier to speed through the stuff, repeat it 20x in a sing-songy and presto! You’ve got it down pat. But then, of course, it’s never that easy. You get bogged down, the little rhymes get all mixed up in your head, and the house of cards comes tumbling down. Because that’s what you’re building – a flimsy house of paper. For the lucky ones, this comes right after the final. But either way, you’re putting a lot of meaningless, stressful effort into something that’s bound to fail you. And here’s the best part – it’s really so much easier to learn things the right way – “kasvem al luach libecha.” It’s more enjoyable, fulfilling, and takes much less time. And no, it does not take one extra ounce of glorified braininess. All it takes is dedication and presence of mind – which are perhaps even rarer commodities.
2. We girls are very big drama queens. Put us in the slightest amount of discomfort and we begin contemplating suicide. Gets us out of lots of pickles. This defense mechanism also functions as a handy excuse as well. Something is slightly inconvenient, so we exaggerate the aggravation so it becomes this unmanageable burden that we can of course excuse ourselves from. And of course, it also doesn’t help that we exacerbate the pressure by trying to cram everything in in entirely the wrong way.
All in all, our discomfort isn’t really a good reason to stop at anything. The trick is to get people to ditch the “tangible benefit” argument – it’s all rainbows from there.
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