For my first encore...

[johnny_blade]

Daf left to finishing to finishing Moed: 30
Today's quote: "I know that there are people out there who do not love their fellow human beings, and I hate people like that!" --Tom Lehrer

Don't worry, this post is presidential-politics free (the subject is actually a line by Tom Lehrer on his "An Evening Wasted With Tom Lehrer album). I actually wanted

Comments

A couple of things

[joshbrown]

First of all, about relying on Artscroll gemaras - there was someone at HaKotel who (so I was told) made his חברותא צעיר take a neder (yes, a real neder) not to use them. That is one or the problems with yeshivas today - they really don't teach kids how to learn. And you know what, I agree with him, but never had the guts to force my chevrutas to make nedarim. But I never allowed them to show up for night seder with them in hand

Re: A couple of things

[johnny_blade]

I'm not saying that I'm 100% against them (your father's case is a classic example of where they are very useful), I'm just against having any boys that I will (hopefully) have growing up to rely on Artscroll gemaras as I have

Faulty premise

[anonymous]

The poll question has a few pretty big flaws with it. First, while people who don't like it have an image of how it would look improved, but those differences aren't the same between the people. Second, each city and denomination does their jewish schooling differently. Some are more structured, while others more open.

Nisan

Re: Faulty premise

[johnny_blade]

True, but can you or anyone else name a school that doesn't need major improvements?

That's what I was trying (unsuccessfully) to find out.

I'm you're wife, therefore everything I say is right :-P

[anonymous]

I agree with you that the education system is sub-par, but I'm not completely convinced that focusing so much on translation will make it any better. In high school we had chumash 5 times a week plus bekius 2 times a week. There was some minor focus on what the pshat and rashi words meant, but most of the emphasis was on what the whole idea meant. Even with all of that, I still don't think that we ended up learning all 5 books of Moses. And if we spent even half of those classes just focusing on translation, we would have ended up learning even less of the stories in the Torah.
You write about skill vs. knowledge, but in order to get more of that skill, you have to give up some of that knowledge time. Like I said, I definitely see your point, but I don't see of any way sensible way to change it. Oh, and like the subject says... I'm you're wife, therefore everything I say is right :-P