Dear Shalom,

I appreciate Lookjed offering the opportunity to discuss issues raised in other forums. While I read R. Sinensky’s article when it was published on the Lehrhaus site, [www.thelehrhaus.com], I think that the appropriate forum for a discussion of concerning this issue is within the context of Lookjed.

I have long advocated and practiced having day schools engage in adult education. See the last paragraph of my article published over 25 years ago.

[rayanotyaakov.files.wordpress.com]

I believe that in addition to the technical issues that R. Sinensky raises, there is the additional dimension whereby when parents are exposed to the teachers of their children in an ongoing educational setting, they will develop more respect for these individuals, the school, and the profession in general.

However, what I discuss in the first part of my article has also been a concern, and something that R. Sinensky seems to assume, but does not confront. The perspectives of the members of day schools typically reflect diverse points of view Hashkafically and even Halachically. I have believed that this results in confusion and a lack of positive spiritual growth on the part of many students, and may explain why, when many of them attend an Israeli institution for one year or more, they are impacted more significantly. As opposed to many day schools, the Israeli institutions are often more ideologically informed and therefore consistent in their approach and presentation. If one were to ask a number of faculty members who work in a day school to make presentations to the parent body, without developing and then assuring that a specific religious perspective is being encouraged by such presentations, will the very interests that ideally such programming would hopefully address, be productively advanced? In my opinion, this is an important dimension of any such discussion.

Sincerely,
Yaakov Bieler
[rayanotyaakov.wordpress.com]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/18/2017 08:19PM by mlb.