From: Don Wilkins (dwilkins@ucr.campus.mci.net)
Date: Wed Dec 09 1998 - 15:14:10 EST
At 02:33 AM 12/9/98 -0500, yochanan bitan wrote:
>OK, don, i'll byte.
>of three children, a daughter has gone on for a BA in hebrew bible. she is
>young and plans to continue her training, and would consider working in far
>off places, e.g. even uganda or within a three hour flight of it. i support
>her and am happy, especially when able to converse with her over the weekly
>parasha, bantering hebrew/aramaic, MT/onkelos.
>but what of the others? one daughter is probably headed for managerial type
>work and a son in on the road toward his flight instructor license.
>a proud parent delights in all three contributions to a positive, friendly,
>spiritual life on this planet. son would be willing to fly
>development/missionary workers around 'forgotten places', too. likewise,
>managerial daughter with civil planning, development work. they've been
>there, done that, and like the food.
>actually, anyway one can positively interact with people is 'nice,
>livable', which leaves things pretty wide open.
>
>so, for your statistics, that's 1 out of three in the biblical language
>field. though all three speak hebrew to one degree or another. surprise?
>the daughter in hebrew bible has picked up greek, not a requirement for
>undergraduate,
>since we ran a greek kindergarten for grownups. ?!? nai? ti? TPR: anasthQi,
>kaQou, anasthQi, allou!, sthqi, epistreYai, epistreYai, kaQou. nun, ecete
>anapausin!
>errwsqe
>randall buth
Evcharistw, Randall. Like others who have replied, you have fine children
who have responded well to good parenting, and a hearty eu, h'tiyvtha is in
order. I only wish that the results had bucked the trend I see. For those
who may not know you, Randall and his family live in Jerusalem, are immersed
in the language and culture (for which others such as myself envy them), and
Randall is an enthusiatic and extremely well-read student and teacher of
Hebrew/Aramaic, Greek, and many other subjects. Given those circumstances,
it could be very enlightening to us for you to comment as to why your
children have chosen or are leaning toward those respective careers, though
I would certainly respect your privacy if you would prefer not to. Perhaps I
can prime the pump: first and probably foremost, IGNORAMUS; i.e. we cannot
sort out what really makes our children prefer one kind of activity or
occupation to another. But second, there seem to be several reasons why most
do not gravitate toward language majors and translation: too boring, too
difficult, and too few good jobs ('good' usually referring to financial
security). I can also sum it up by the typical reaction one sees when
suggesting to a college freshman or sophomore the option of a Classics or
Greek major, etc. First, the puzzled "Are you serious?" stare, then the
polite question, "What can you do with that?" Incidentally, Carl, if you
think we have been off-topic for too long, I will of course submit to your
leadership, but in that case I would still appreciate comments from others
off-list.
Don Wilkins
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