Calling the smartphone issue a pandemic and saying that the mechanchos are not doing enough in this regard is in a way true, however since Covid the kids have become more reliant on their smartphones and having all their teachers principals constantly saying how bad it is and being all like you shouldn’t have a phone and what not isn’t helping because the are not interested in hearing that, they will not listen. What needs to happen is a new way of accepting this struggle and learning to work with it because working against it clearly isn’t working and won’t work because it is just annoying the teens and the they don’t want to listen to anything the mechanchos are telling them because they aren’t relating to the kids anymore and the kids know that. So we need to find a new way so to work with it so that the kids will listen and start respecting the mechanchos again!

The article was written by someone willing to put his name behind his perspective, while this detailed response – despite appearing quite familiar with the situation being discussed – was submitted anonymously.

Perhaps there is a simple explanation, but considering the questions surrounding the commenter’s possible involvement behind the scenes, a little transparency would add considerably more credibility to these observations.

Reading through these comments I noticed that all the comments which where on the side of the mechanchim didn’t feel the need to hide their names and some including the writer and the first commenter put their names but those which are fighting or writing against wouldn’t write their names maybe there scared that it will take away from the negativity their trying to spread

https://anash.org/tomchei-tmimim-doesnt-need-to-be-reinvented/
The authors of the 2 articles were brothers and were both very talented mechanchim and understood allot that most don’t

A. Most plumbing systems are the same. No two children are the same and what works in the mainstream won’t work with mine.

B. The plumbing in my home isn’t of an existential nature and doesn’t involve the core of my being. The same cannot be said of my precious child.
While a great inconvenience and source of stress, the life consequences of destroying my plumbing would be insignificant in the long run. To destroy my child, God forbid, would have significant consequences in this world and the next for everyone involved.

I have no dog in this fight and don’t know the author but It would seem to me that failure to distinguish between these two things should disqualify one from making any valid observations on chinuch.

To those who claim that the system is not producing Chassidishe adults, let us consider how a plumber handles a serious leak.

When water is gushing from a broken pipe, the plumber’s first step is to shut off the water supply. Only after stopping the flow can he properly repair the pipe. Trying to fix it while the water continues to gush is extremely difficult and may be nearly impossible.

The same applies to chinuch. A teacher may be working hard to influence his students and inspire them to develop great aspirations. But his task becomes extraordinarily difficult when those same students are constantly being bombarded with nonsense and harmful influences from home, the street, and the world around them.

Yes, being a teacher today can feel like being a plumber who is trying to repair a broken pipe while the water is still gushing, with a manager standing over him, criticizing how he is doing the job, while all the customers are shouting at him for every drop of water falling on the floor.

Accountability and change are part of the fabric of creation. But on whose say so? A couple of “arrogant bullies” (the words of a different comment) who slander and defame from the shadows? THAT is the reality faced by a lot of Mechanchim. As another comment mentioned; they talk in shul, by kiddush and at Shabbos tables, rather than being honest partners for improvement. This is what the article is about. It is disingenuous and “tone-deaf” to pretend that it is stating that a Mechanech should have his job for life with no possibility for change.

I think this is actually the exact point of the this article, and the next article puts it into perspective. The phenomenon of people feeling they know how to “fix” chinuch isn’t new — it was already happening in the early days of Tomchei Tmimim.
That doesn’t mean mechanchim are above criticism or that a mosad shouldn’t make changes when something isn’t working. But there’s a big difference between recognizing a problem and assuming you know how to do the job better than the people who have devoted their lives to it.
Maybe the reason the this article is so hard for people to accept is precisely because almost everyone considers themselves qualified to be the expert on chinuch.
https://anash.org/tomchei-tmimim-doesnt-need-to-be-reinvented/

To reduce the systemic issues highlighted in these comments to “people missing the point of a mashal” is a convenient way to avoid answering the uncomfortable questions being asked.

Nobody here is taking issue with treating mechanchim with respect. Of course educators deserve honor, dignity, and proper compensation. But let’s not pretend the critical comments here are just about misunderstanding meshalim. To reduce serious, deeply felt concerns about our children’s chinuch to a joke about a “plumbers union” is intellectually lazy and emotionally tone-deaf. Nobody reading this article is confused about how metaphors work.

Accountability is not abuse. When said that a homeowner has every right to intervene when a job is going disastrously wrong, they aren’t attacking mechanchim—they are stating a basic truth about responsibility. If a mosad is consistently failing to produce peiros vi es darf tzu zain, asking hard questions and making substantial moves isn’t harassment, it’s responsibility.

The administration and parents are not Korach. Comparing concerned parents – who watch their children whom they sent to a moisad chinuch begin struggle b’ruchniyus in real-time – to Korach launching a manipulative, self-serving political rebellion is deeply offensive. Parents aren’t trying to usurp authority; they are trying to save their kids.

Chinuch is a team effort, not a monarchy. A plumber or a Chabad House shliach (albeit in a lesser extent) works on an isolated job. A mechanech works on a child who returns home every single evening to their parents. You cannot isolate chinuch from the students parents (balei batim) and then label any parent who speaks up as an “opinionated congregant who needs to be shown the door.”

It is easy to hide behind Elul rhetoric, tell everyone to take a deep breath, and preach about teshuva. But true cheshbon hanefesh goes both ways. Shielding real educational failures behind Torah pesukim and calling valid critique “getting defensive” isn’t a call for peace – it’s silencing the very people who care the most about the outcome.

Wishing you a kesiva v’chasima tova as well.

Best comment!

2. ​Appreciate the fact that today, teachers go into chinuch with Mesiras Nefesh. Unlike older shluchim, they are often dismissed as out of touch when they reach their forties or fifties. Experience is often undervalued, and as good as they are, they will often face unjustified (often sharp) criticism from parents.

3. Regularly show appreciation to your child’s teachers.

4. Collaborate with teachers to improve your child’s education. Seek their advice and work together on plans to support your child’s spiritual and emotional growth.

He also gets paid so if you don’t like his work you can find someone else unlike the mechanech does not get paid so there’s no one else. If you have a problem so then become a mechanech. Try it out for a year and see maybe you’ll change your perspective.

The reason that you missed the point entirely nobody said that the schools are doing a good job but fighting the school is one of the biggest reasons for them failing. If you think you can do a better job go no one in the world will stop you from going into chinuch, even though they might lose their job they’ll be happy with that but to just say their doing a bad job and therefore close the schools that’s adas Korach just to go back to Korach I don’t think Moshe would have a problem if Korach tried to start a new kehila Korach tried to take down Moshe

Start telling people to go into chinuch instead of telling people to leave chinuch

Maybe it’s because the plumber is being paid but not the teacher maybe that’s why you can tell a plumber what to do or get a new one but not someone in chinuch unless you go there yourself

To be honest I think “Another perspective” has a solid point – which you failed to address. When it’s clear that certain mechanchim are failing at their job, they should be replaced. And if the response of that mechanech is to shout a slogan that is devoid of sechel and say that he is Moshe and whoever disagrees with him is Korach – I want to keep this arrogance far from my children. Such a mechanech/es can never learn to improve; since when does Moshe need to improve! Maybe this is why they are failing to educate the students of our generation, they feel they are perfect and have no need to improve although on the ground we see that they fail to educate properly.

When mechanchim are raising their students in kedusha then there are doing the ratzon of Moshe; and if ch”v for an extended period of time we see a spiraling yeridah in the kedushah of a school then they should be replaced.

Do you realize what teachers are up against? At home many of these students are watching 10 second clips of extreme hanachos haolam (to put it mildly) for hours daily. (And if one child doesn’t, all of their friends are. Imagine the interests of their social setting.)
When the child comes to school their attention span has been crippled and nothing off a screen – and certainly nothing of substantial toichen – can possibly interest them when their heads are overflowing with this junk.
Then come the parents with complaints and accusations that the teachers can’t infuse their children with yiras shomayim…

In the nimshal…
1. If a school isn’t the right fit for your child, you are welcome to find another Moised you are more comfortable with, without destroying whats in place in order to ‘fix it up’ to your personal views. Just because a school is in a certain location it does not need to be a one size fits all and be right for every child in the proximity.
2. It would take a lot of well done research, inspection and narrowing down to write off a school or a mechanech as messing everybody up. You can ask 10 alumni who had a hard time and blow up a story, or you can be honest and ask 100 alumni, and get to actually know the mechanech and realize they may actually be doing some really good stuff.
3. Since when is the only place we point fingers at is mechanechim? At a time when strong winds are blowing, and parents after all have the biggest impact on a childs chinuch, it is impossible to antagonize mechanchim because of disappointed ‘results’
4. the Rebbe talks about fixing issues in Moisdos, not destroying the mechanech/ Moised because it isn’t to your liking. Most critisizm and unsound advice does not give better tools or management, it only puts down, harasses, destroys, and makes everyones job more difficult. Don’t critisize without providing a better solution and then say your helping the klal.
Would you rather your childs teacher be spending more time thinking about how to connect with your child or how to respond to their uncooperative parent?

How often is it that a Chabad house attendee gets most inspired when he attends a farbrengen at the Chabad house where the mechanech was brought to farbreng.

And how often is it that bochurim or girls get most inspired by a shliach or shmucha when visiting or helping out in a Chabad house. Or it was at a farbrengen in yeshiva or at school with a Chabad house shliach brought in by the hanholo to farbreng.

While the author attempts to separate the two entirely, it is self understood and there are thousands of such stories to prove the opposite.

“Be flexible.” (The rebbe used the English word.)

This wasn’t a message to him to break Halacha (g-d forbid) or to “lower the standards” (g-d forbid), it was that he remember the goal and intention of what he was being sent to accomplish and to figure out when and how to show flexibility to accomplish those goals (without losing one’s own identity and standards).

In chinuch, this just as pertinent. The goal is inspiring the students and raising them up to be neiros lehoir. The flexibility comes in to play when the packaging needs to be in oisiyos hamekabel and not in the way it may have been packaged for you when you were in school.

The language of everyone is a plumber when it comes to chinuch and should “stay out” is the exact opposite of being flexible, it is the attitude that pits one side against the other while the intent is to work together with one common goal.

Some points to ponder:

1) The world needs great mechanchim and mechanchos. They are often (though not always) under-appreciated.

2) The world needs great Chabad House shluchim and shluchos, though they are often (though not always) under-appreciated.

3) Just because you are a rabbi in a Chabad house setting doesn’t mean you are a plumber when it comes to chinuch. And just because you are in chinuch doesn’t mean that you are not a plumber when it comes to chinuch. One can be in chinuch for years with limited results and one could be a Chabad house rabbi for years and see limited results. It’s all about what you do with the opportunity given to you.

In fact, the author who was once in chinuch may also be great at some Chabad house roles.

4) There are times that a Chabad house rabbi has to stand up to those in his community who are demanding changes… while there are times that the shliach needs to learn humility to be more in-tuned to the needs of his community and make the necessary adjustments to reach the results he was tasked with reaching. (Rabbi Yossi Goldman from Johannesburg is a perfect example of that!.)

5) Specifically in smaller communities, one must understand well the make up of the families before administering a type of chinuch for that particular community. Unlike in larger communities where there are multiple schools and style for the diversity within the community.

Shluchim whose Chabad houses have many anash members have a unique perspective as they both see the needs of those families and have a responsibility to guide the mechanchim on the best tools to be used in inspiring their constituents.

6) One could begin a life in chinuch or as a Rabbi and be wildly successful for years, but over time become less relatable to the students or attendees given the new world that emerged over time. While the rabbi and mechanech could scream that they are using the “original text” that worked 30 years ago and what brought that Chabad house or school notoriety, it is also the very cause of its downfall.

The rabbi and the mechanech are there to create peiros, to inspire a generation. If at some point the rabbis sermons or the mechanechs language isn’t doing the job, it is their duty to recognize that and put in place new people who speak the new generations language (while keeping to the same goals) putting their own self on the side. After all, this has never been about an individual, it has always been about the people we are trying to affect.

You may ask, what will become of the person who now finds himself out of a job? There is more than one type of job as a shliach and there is more than one type of job as a teacher or principal, and one isn’t more important than the other. It does however take a degree of bitul to do this…

To summarize:
Contrary to what the author writes, there is no Moshe and korach in these stories. As one commentator wrote, there is only one Moshe and it is the rebbe, who tasked everyone equally to prepare the world for the coming of moshiach. Shluchim, both those in chinuch and those in a Chabad house setting, along with parents are there to inspire the people, both Frum and not yet Frum, adults and children alike, albeit with different tactics and language.

At the end of the day it is very clear that many of our schools (for whatever reason particularly the schools for bnos chabad) fail to impart basic Yiddishe values to scores of students . It’s a fact (just take a cursory glance at the most discussed topic this year on this site – there is an issue).

However people are just to scared to see the problem. They don’t have the guts to make any move of substance to fix the system. They hide behind reasons of like what your saying, their afraid, maybe they will be cancelled, maybe the “institution” will go after them.

The plumber is failing at his job and it’s time for him to be replaced. Enough is enough. Come out from under your rock and smell the coffee

So 1st and for most, I understand where this guy is coming from about that teachers have to but ur forgetting the most crucial aspect of chinuch- the home. (As they say, monkey-see, monkey-do…)

U can’t expect for a school to bring results of chassidishkiet if from to begun with the students are in a household that doesn’t live by the standards that the school is trying to instill, (you can fill in the blanks for what they are..)

If a family does, and a girl wasn’t surrounded by girls that dont, there would be very different results in schools, for those girls in the class that dont, affect others in the class, what the solution is for schools, i dont know, maybe only accept the type of students that you want, maybe even have standards for the parents, i dont know.

But the point is, i would say practically for parents, teachers/any human beings, dont like being micromanage/harassed by people that who can’t atleast appreciate all the work they do/did for you and know absolutely nothing about chinuch

And 2- show them an extra sence of appreciation, they genuinely actually care about ur child, and honestly, why should they, its not there kid, but they do, and they are the only other person besides for there family that cares about how ur kid does . Everyone should have much hatzlacha in doing what the rebbe would takeh want from us, to be menchin, kesiva vachasimah toiva.

Sticking to the plumber metaphor; Let’s say a plumber has been plumbing for 30 years and has hundreds of satisfied customers, and then one, or, to be fair, a few people accuse him of not being so good at plumbing and start ‘shouting from the rooftops’ that he should be stripped of his licence. Is it possible that the plumber grew old and developed butterfingers? Perhaps. But normal people would say that those ‘dissatisfied customers’ are arrogant bullies who should find a better medium to resolve their complaints or quietly move on to a plumber of their liking.
I think the point of the article is that Mechanchim, particularly experienced ones, deserve to be treated with respect. Not discarded like yesterday’s newspaper.

Korach didn’t recognize that there’s a mishaleach, and he thought being a chacham on his own, that he too was a ״מורה הוראה״, he could be the Rov too. But he didn’t realize that משה רבנו wasn’t self appointed.
That a שליח is a שליח of THE משלח and not his own entity ח״ו, is self understood, and even those completely not associated with the Rebbe clearly see and recognize that Rabbi x in China, or joberg or the end of the world like New Zealand, is a שליח of the Rebbe, and he’s not their on his own, nor does he make his own decisions etc.
if an educator (teacher) follows the Rebbes directives on chinuch, he is doing the Rebbes work ארבעט and has nothing to fear or worry about, for he’s a שליח of a משלח, he’s not an employee, he’s a representative of the Rebbe and he’s responsible to give over life the way the Rebbe dictates. Not to add and not to subtract! When there’s a “teacher” who enters a classroom and hasn’t learned that which the Rebbe demands of him or her to have learned prior to entering the holy space wherein Hashems holy children learn, namely כללי החינוך והדרכה, they don’t belong there, they’re not professionals, they’re not licensed by the Rebbe, they are self employed, “private contractors” and therefore others tell them how to run the classroom for there’s no sense of superiority.

I’ve met many who would be great educators, conduits of yiras HaShem and ahavas Hashem, yet they refuse to step anywhere near a classroom for this exact reason!
Who wants to start their life over from scratch at 35-40 years old cause the new board decided you’re not what they’re looking for?
Therefore lots of the great yungerleit who would be fantastic educators, say no thanks.