[etni] Fw: Intelligence or English
- From: "Ask_Etni" <ask@xxxxxxxx>
- To: "ETNI" <etni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 22 May 2009 21:00:58 +0300
----- 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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