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Lets not forget driving in the mountains! As a member of Hatzolah, I have seen way too many accidents (especially at night) because people simply are not used to winding roads, roads that are slick (fog and dew) and certainly not used to winding, slick roads without streetlights. Please, please, lets teach EVERYONE to be 100 times more careful on these roads, especially at night. Lets not require Sullivan County to have medevacs on standby because of “the Jews”.
Lav Dafka:
Very true. And the kids definitely need to be taught that valuable lesson. They also should realize that its not always about being the best anyway. We always need to TRY our best in every area. And just because one student succeeds in academics, does not mean that they are succeeding in all areas of life….etc..etc…
The main point is: Lets TALK to our kids about this. Lets stop making believe that they are at the mercy of their feelings and insecurities. Lets teach them to recognize them and strive to overcome them. Lets work on giving them a healthy sense of self and recognizing when the Yetzer HaRah is trying to put them down and cause them to fail. Isn’t that Tikkun HaMiddos in its ultimate form?
And one more thing (see above):
This low self-esteem thing in children is blown WAY out of proportion. MANY children feel low self-esteem when they are at the lower end of the totem pole in a certain category. It is 100% normal. The remedy is not to tell them that its ok that they are failing and make them feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Our job is to take their feelings seriously and help them change themselves by giving them what they need to succeed( encouraging effort, tutoring, rewards…) .
Children are extremely perceptive. Sometimes when they are doing poorly they merely want you to stand up and say “Its not ok. How can we help you? Lets do much better on the next test”. Parents need to get MUCH more involved in doing homework with the children and being on top of their work. As a teacher, I am horrified at how few parents actually know what their son has for homework, when he has a test, etc…The kids know that you dont know what they are up to and if you dont get involved actively, they wont involve you-they will simply coast the year through. BE ON TOP OF YOUR KIDS! Its not the teachers responsibility. Its the parents’.
Editor:
The goal is for them to strive for excellence during the year; to put in the effort so that they WILL be recognized for it. Its true: graduations are painful to watch at best; but they are a necessary evil if we want to encourage our students to work hard. (Think Schar v’Onesh)
As far as the jealousy aspect…guess what? The kids are going to have to learn how to deal with feelings of jealousy all through adulthood. Now is a great time for them to learn a simple lesson. Work hard, do your best, dont goof off the whole year, have a good attitude, and you will be rewarded for it. I think it is a very liberal (dare i say almost marxist/communist) view to think that everyone should be equally rewarded for different efforts, achievements, and successes.
And even if they struggled all year and put in more effort than the valedictorian, they need to understand that that’s the way of the world. Life is not always fair – its an important lesson for them to learn.
There is a post on this thread that I think says it EXACTLY like it is. It is by “thinking out loud” and it is towards the beginning of the thread. I dont know who wrote it, but everyone should read it and reread it and rereead it again. It is the fundamental problem facing Klal Yisrael’s younger generation today. They are so fed up of black and whites and everything shoved down their throats, that they are not getting the very basics of many fundamental concepts in Yahadus. When are we going to wake up and see that all these blanket Takanos at best have some following like blind, confused sheep? When will start empowering our kids to understand what they are doing and why? There is so much more to be said here…