[Avodah] Public school or non-Orthodox day school?

[Jonathan Baker]

> R' Daniel Eidensohn asked:
> > Is it was preferable to encourage a person to stay in a
> > non-Orthodox day school or let them go to public school. 

R' Harry Maryl's:  (aren't a lot of those -es names patronymic in origin,
e.g. Isserles - Isserl's [ben Yisroel]?  So what's Maryl's?  Ben Meir?)
 
> On the one hand they teach a view of Judaism that from an Orthodox
> viewpoint is considered to be heretical. The accept documentary
> hypothesis which denies that the events at Sinai ever took place.
> They say instead that it was written much later in various different
> periods in Jewish history. However they do, say that biblical narrative
> was divinely inspired. 
 
> On the other hand, Solomon Schechter schools teach Mitzvah observance.
> While they dispute Orthodoxy?s interpretation of Halacha in some
> instances, they agree to their binding nature generally.

Rn TK disagrees:
 
> Rather, as bad as the chinuch might be in public school, the
> education in a non-O day school is /even worse/.  In public school
> he won't  learn anything about Judaism at all and will be left a
> tabula rasa, for his parents or outside tutors to fill in later.  

> In the non-O school he will  learn all kinds of sheker, which will
> be exceedingly difficult to eradicate from  his mind later on. Much 
> harder to write on a palimpsest than on a  tabula rasa.
  
[anecdote about fault-finding and the Avos, also OT as literature]

I think there are other factors at play here.  You're both focusing
on the intellectual components of the Jewish Studies curriculum.
But what about the morals one learns in any Jewish school vs. a public
school?  

A fellow I know went through a messy divorce, when his wife stopped
being religious.  She had custody initially, and put the children into
public school.  For one year.  This really messed them up.  Part of it
may have been the shock of going from a religious school to a public
school, but they fell in with bad crowds, they were totally unprepared
for the social atmosphere there, they were exposed to the whole sex-and-
drugs thing that too many public-school kids engage in (not that the 
yeshivas are free of such things, but at least it's known to be against
the moral structure of the school, and is far, far less prevalent).  Not
to mention the whole anti-intellectual thing that rules in America.

They both had to go to special yeshiva programs, after their father
regained custody, to re-enter the religious community and re-adjust
their moral sights.

These kids are not stupid, but putting them into public school really
screwed up their relationship with Judaism.

Now, if you're asking about whether or not to start in public school
or a "community school" - well, you have to look at the situations
in each town.  I wouldn't presume to say "this is absolutely wrong for
every child everywhere".   For instance, from Park Slope, parents send
their kids to Yeshiva of Flatbush or the community school Hannah Senesh,
which is run by an Orthodox woman.  One person (the Israeli gabbai) sent
his boys to Harry Halpern, a Schechter, initially because they taught 
Israeli pronunciation of Hebrew, but soon found that they were not a good
program, not equipped to handle brighter kids.  At Senesh, however, the
only real problem seems to be encouraging the girls to wear yarmulkes and
tefillin after bat-mitzvah.

But switching in the middle?  Unless you're going to a special high-
intellect high school, such as some kids do coming from Ramaz into
Stuyvesant or Bronx Science, where there are substatial communities of
kids from serious Jewish homes, as well as other morally- and intel-
lectually-concerned households, it seems a major test for the children.

--
        name: jon baker              web: http://www.panix.com/~jjbaker
     address: jjbaker at panix.com     blog: http://thanbook.blogspot.com