[etni] FW: Re: Why are the changes important

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Dear Suzanne and all those poeple who think that I'm being oversensitive, 

nobody is talikng about the question whether the text and the qustions were
fair or not. That is not the issue. What bothers me here is a  question of
pure ethical nature. 

a) Is it ethical to give our students an unseen (sorry access to written
information) text which implies that we are not devoted teachers beacuse we
are not prepared to work for free? What bothered me (and my colleagues) in
the first line is the underlying message). 

b) Is it ethical to make changes to a text which result in falsifying the
information? If Machon Szold thought it to be  unethical to let our students
read an article in which a teacher who is an enthusiastic striker is being
praised, how come that they didn't find it problematic to publish an article
where this same teacher breaks the strike of her colleagues? 

c) Does anyone really believe that no ministry official had seen the text
before it was printed? 

Here you have the full text of the artice again, please read it (especially
para 5-7) again and tell me if there is no change of message.between  the
original article and the bagrut text. 

Yours Vera
>

         April 24, 2002
         FILM REVIEW; A Music Teacher Trims the Curriculum but Not Her
Enthusiasm
         By STEPHEN HOLDEN
                                                     1
         Watching Anne Boyd -- the Australian composer, music professor and
embattled heroine of the documentary film ''Facing the Music'' -- teach
classes in composition, it is clear she is one of those rare teachers who
changes the life of almost every student who crosses her path. Stout with
short grayish-blond hair and a bluntly emphatic manner, Ms. Boyd
metamorphoses from a dowdy middle-aged academic into a fire-breathing
idealist whenever she talks about music. If an actor were to portray her on
the screen, only one with the impassioned grandeur of a Vanessa Redgrave or
Judi Dench could do her justice.
                                                    2
         Ms. Boyd is especially eloquent on the subject of Beethoven who,
shesays, believed artists to be society's ultimate elite. One of the more
revealing stories she tells her students describes the divergent attitudes
ofBeethoven and Goethe when they encountered a group of aristocrats while
taking a walk. Where Goethe was deferential, Beethoven, to his companion's
chagrin, unceremoniously cut through the middle of the group as though he
were the king.

                                                  3
         Ms. Boyd may not put on royal airs, but her sympathies clearly lie
with Beethoven. When she talks about music, God often appears in the same
sentence, since great music, she insists, is a direct spiritual connection
tothe eternal. She can't help but lay her heart on the line. In one of the
film's most touching scenes, she becomes so overwrought while helping a
student improve a work in progress that she delivers a sermon that reduces
the student to tears. After Ms. Boyd leaves the room, the student rips up
hermanuscript in despair, but a lesson has been taught; composing should be
ado-or-die emotional commitment.
                                                                 4
         ''Facing the Music'' which opens today at Film Forum in Manhattan,
was directed by Bob Connolly and Robin Anderson, the husband-and-wife team
responsible for well-regarded documentaries like ''First Contact'' and
''Ratsin the Ranks.'' Since it was completed, Ms. Anderson died of cancer at
51. The movie was filmed while Ms. Boyd was chairman of the music department
of the University of Sydney during a time of sharp financial cutbacks that
threatened her department's integrity, if not its existence.
>                                                            5
         On the evidence of the classes, meetings and student performances
the film observes, it is an outstanding department whose faculty members,
energized by Ms. Boyd's commitment, give their all. As the cutbacks
necessitate trims in the curriculum, her loyal staff follows her example by
picking up the slack and teaching many more hours than contractual
obligationrequires.
>                                                            6
>         But Ms. Boyd is no diplomat. She is the kind of stubborn true
believer who can be a thorn in the bureaucracy's side, and she tends to play
the self-martyring victim. Although her colleagues are willing to make
sacrifices, there are limits to the responsibilities they are ready to
assume.
>                                                           7
>         Early in the movie, when the vast majority of the university
faculty members are ready to strike to protest the cutbacks, Ms. Boyd is a
holdout who insists that closing the university for even a day would be a
tragedy. Eventually she changes her mind and once enlisted in the cause
becomes an enthusiastic striker eager to persuade university suppliers not
tocross picket lines.
>                                                          8
>         ''Facing the Music'' often feels like two movies loosely sewn
together. By far the most compelling of the two is its portrait of Ms. Boyd,
a woman who for all her quirks and self-dramatizing flourishes, emerges as a
noble spirit on the side of the angels. The other, more mundane movie, deals
with the politics of university financing, the relationship between the
faculty and the administration, and the underappreciation of the arts.
>                                                         9
>         But as observers of an institution, the filmmakers lack the
patience and thoroughness of a Frederick Wiseman. As effectively as ''Facing
the Music'' conveys a sense of crisis, its detailing of the institutional
nuts and bolts and the social, political and economic processes eroding the
music department is sketchy and ultimately one-sided.
>                                                            10
>         FACING THE MUSIC
>
>         Written, directed and produced by Bob Connolly and Robin Anderson;
director of photography, Mr. Connolly; edited by Ray Thomas; music
supervisor, Christine Woodruff; released by Film Australia in association
with Arundel Films, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Channel Four
(U.K.) Australia. At the Film Forum, 209 West Houston Street, west of Sixth
Avenue, South Village. Running time: 89 minutes. This film is not rated.
>
>
>
>
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>         Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company | Permissions | Privacy
Policy
>
>
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