[etni] Fw: re: from Anonymous
----- Original Message ----- From: "Miriam Greif" <mgreif@xxxxxxxxxxxx> 
Subject: Re: from Anonymous


Dear anonymous and anyone else who may not be looking ahead.

If you read about reforms made in education in the USA, you will learn that
the one of the first things that they did was to reduce the number of pupils
in classes to somewhere between 18 and 23 children.

How much real education  goes on in a class of 40 pupils?  How much do
you know about your pupils if you teach 5 classes - 200 pupils?  Some
teachers don't even learn their names.  We are at least blessed to have more
hours with them than teachers who teach history or literature.   In order to
"control" them, teachers have created all sorts of testing methods.

In Israel, with 40 pupils in a class, the "problematic" are removed and
placed in small special classes and special programmes.
It is hard to teach the large classes and it is even harder to teach the
small classes.  The Ministry has created all sorts of programmes for the
problematic classes but they solve the problems only to a certain extent.
Teachers don't want to teach these "small" classes.

If there were 20 pupils in a class, the special programmes would probably
not be necessary and the "problematic" pupils would be lost in the crowd and
not given the amount of power they get when they are all put in a group
together.
Every year new programmes are being opened to solve the problems of these
specific "problematic" groups.
The so called reform that the Histadrut signed doesn't deal with the size of 
classes. It also takes away the rights that are specific to teachers.
Every sector linked to the work agreements have their own specific rights.
That is how the government solved the problems of the linkage.  In our case,
the Histadrut did the exact opposite.  It stripped the teachers of their
unique rights.

I can only regret that you have decided to join the Histadrut.  I belong to
the Histadrut and I feel that the Histadrut has weakened the struggle to the
extent that it has made teachers like you feel that there is no chance to
improve anything and this is the way it has to be.
How sad!   Maybe if the histadrut  joined forces with the Irgun, there would
be a chance to improve the education in Israel.

The way it looks now, those who have money will send their kids to private
schools and those who don't will have to settle for  mediocre overcrowded
public schools.
It is either now or never. The struggle is on and if people start giving up 
now, this bad situation will last forever.

It is not only a matter of money.  It is the future of education in the
country.  Your conscience should be more bothered with what will happen to
education in Israel if there isn't a drastic change.

I for one, never believed in strikes and was especially annoyed with
"itzumim"  but when education is threatened and all the teachers are
cornered, there doesn't seem to be much choice.

The full reform and a comparison between previous conditions and new
conditions appear on the following link which was up on ENTI.
"Otzma," the "Awakening of Teachers Against the Histadrut's Agreement,"  at
http://www.2all.co.il/Web/Sites/morim
There is also a link to the full text of the reform on the side.

Miriam Greif



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