**** ETNI on the web http://www.etni.org.il http://www.etni.org **** > > The problem as I see it is less with the gmulim and more with the > number of > hours that 3,4 and 5 pointers receive. > Ever since budget cuts started at our school, our 4 pointers have been > receiving fewer hours than the five pointers according to the rule which > states that a 3 pointer is supposed to receive 9 hours during > his/her three > years of high school, a 4 pointer 12 > and a five pointer 15. > (This rule, however, does not seem to apply to mathematics at our school, > which is assumed to be harder than English and > therefore require more hours. Math at our school gets WAY beyond > the teken. > Is this true of other schools too? ) 3-pointers at our school get 4 hours a week, not 3. 4-pointers also get 4 hours and 5 pointers get 5. However, I believe that in 10th grade, they ALL get 5 weekly hours if they're in iyuni classes (my 10th grade mabar class gets 4 hours). As far as I know, math doesn't get more hours than English, though I think that our 3-pointers in math get more hours in 11th grade because they don't study math in 12th grade. > This is plainly ridiculous. > The weaker pupils need MORE hours, not FEWER! I have always felt this way. I remember the days when my "masmam" classes would get 2 or 3 hours a week and I never understood that. I still don't. > And now with the projects, > it's well nigh impossible for a teacher getting four hours a week in Yud > Aleph to get anything done. I haven't tried projects in a class with only 4 hours a week (nor will I this year -- both classes that are doing projects have 5 hours a week and the class that has only 4 hours is doing a performance task) so I don't know if it's possible or not. I would suggest making the project simpler and shorter, though. > As far as gmulim go, I agree with Bari. > Teaching a five-point class properly demands a great deal of extra work at > home grading essays and all kinds of other written work plus the > fact that > five-point classes at our school are MUCH larger (to the tune of > 35-40) than > the 4 point ones which are usually half that size. This is more or less the situation in our school, though our 4-point classes tend to be large, too. It's the 3-point classes that are usually smaller. > By the way, at our school for years we have been splitting the gmulim > between Yud Aleph and Yud Bet: the Yud Aleph > teachers get 1 1/2 hours and the Yud Bet teachers get 2 hours (for five > point classes). > This has been rather helpful in staving off the fights-to-the-death among > teachers for Yud Bet classes, and is also fairer, > since Yud Aleph teachers are preparing for Bagrut just like the Yud Bet > teachers are. Our school has also done this for as long as I can remember. However, the same teacher usually stays with a class from yod alef to yod bet (not always). However, now that we're sending kids to bagrut from 10th grade, the system will obviously have to be adjusted. Bari ##### To send a message to the ETNI list email: etni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx ##### ##### Send queries and questions to: ask@xxxxxxxx #####