*This is the post I wrote about two months ago, but waffled on the propriety of making it public. Going back to it from this distance, I think it is well within appropriate limits, and I feel as strongly about the content.
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This week my children's schools held Parent / Teacher meetings. I heard everything I expected to hear, and more so, and I am terribly frustrated.
For reasons not pertinent to this posting, one of my children is at a school that I feel is terribly unable to serve him properly. No obfuscation: my son is too good to detail, a teacher's dream. But now several of his secular-studies teachers are finding that because of a school philosophy coupled with a lack of space, capital, equiptment, time, etc., these teachers see his year being wasted, while my son sits through (or walks out of) classes far below his level. I don't want to go into details that I see will spin out of control, but let me say that I don't think his is an isolated case in any way.
The administration, while somewhat sympathetic to my distress, feels that this lack of secular stimulation is a minor problem, because he is doing so well in his religious studies. I have two major grievances with this response:
1) They strongly advertised the school as college-preparatory, with a serious secular program. I am only asking for what was already promised.
2) I disagree with the underlying premise, that it is acceptable, and even preferable, to minimize secular aptitude. My feeling is the Creator, with Ultimate Vision, gave my son this gift. So he should waste it? What a loss! And don't tell me (as several administrators did) that he can get more advanced secular studies later - we all know what a tremendous opportunity we have to learn while we are still young, how difficult it becomes later in life.
This lack of appreciation for the gift of intellectual resources makes me think of the old joke of the man in the flood. For those of you who don't know it : A deeply religious man is trapped in a flood, his house surrounded by several feet of water. Neighbors drive up in a truck, "Come with us to safety." "No need," the man replies, "G-d will save me." The water rises, the man goes up to the second story. A rescue party on a boat comes to the window. "Come with us to safety." "No need, G-d will save me." The water continues to rise. The man is able to climb out to the roof. A search party in a helicopter fly over him. "Come with us to safety." "No need, G-d will save me." The water soon rises above the house, and the man drowns. He reaches heaven and asks G-d, "I trusted in you completely, why didn't you save me?" "What do you mean!?! I sent you a truck, I sent you a boat, I sent you a helicopter...!"
Unfortunately for my son, this year, there seems to be no punch line.
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