[etni] Fw: Intelligence or English

----- Original Message ----- 
From: David Hyatt - hyatt@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Intelligence or English

WGH

Several people on ETNI have been posing the question of "What is being 
assessed on the Bagrut, intelligence or English".

The answer to this question must be both.  "English" in its purest form as a 
communicative tool is being most highly appraised during the oral bagrut. 
Thus, rightly so, these grades tend to be high.  It does not require great 
intelligence to speak and understand a language.  After all, everybody, no 
matter what their "IQ" level learns how to speak.  True, some of us don't 
have a knack for learning languages, but does this necessarily say something 
about our intelligence?  I know some many very very bright people who have 
never excelled in English or any other second language.

On the other hand, the bagrut written tests assess English and intelligence, 
at least intelligence in the capacity of a student to infer, to read between 
the lines, to weigh the weight of a writer's language, opinions and hidden 
agendas.   Teaching our students to be critical readers of language is the 
crucial goal of all humanities teachers.  As teachers we are trying to build 
discerning, critical thinkers, good and responsible citizens and the medium 
of language is among the best for achieving that goal.

So yes, the higher tests tend to be quite difficult.  But frankly I find 
some of the A test questions to be challenging.  This too is how it should 
be.  Just because one doesn't have a broad mastery of English, doesn't mean 
that one's intelligence (as a reader of texts) shouldn't be measured.

Finally, since we are delving so much into the notion of intelligence, I 
think that we would all agree that test taking is not the sole measure of 
intelligence, not by any means.  There are emotional, spiritual, artistic, 
business, and physical intelliences (and endless others) that our bagrut 
tests cannot come close to measuring.  As teachers we must be sure our 
students know that as individuals they are not equivalent to their bagrut 
grades.  To realize the maximum of their "intelligence" they have their 
whole lives before them...


David 


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