[etni] Fw: re: present Etni poll results
----- Original Message ----- From: Linda - lsk120@xxxxxxxxxxxx 
Subject: Re: present Etni poll results
I grew up in New York; we had regents.. Everyone I knew in New York too regents. The universities decided what they wanted to take into consideration.. both grades were on our transcripts.. the yearly grade the teacher gave us and the regents. There was no such thing as a yearly/magen grade.. Guess what? We ALL came to school, we learned literature (yes, even in our foreign language classes), we did not feel like school was a test factory. In addition, I did not say it was a problem calculating the grades.. I do that easily and effortlessly on Excel, as B"H, I AM organized and EVERYTHING is recorded. I must say that I don't have many problems with students over their grades, but they do exist and they shouldn't. I have heard of teachers being threatened by parents because of the magen grade!! OF course, that's not common, but what IS common, and I've seen it way too often, is students crying and/or arguing with their teachers over the grades and/or comparing grades between classes. All of the above is what I DO NOT want!
What is so holy about this magen grade? There should be the report card grade and whatever they get on the bagrut, so be it.. good or bad. 

That's my two cents.. or agorot...
Be well..
Linda Kuras Mizrahi


Adele wrote:

There is no need to do away with yearly grades - the option already exists.

It's called: externi. The testees (after they have left school) come in, sit
down, take the test - what they get, they get.
But _I_ thought our aims were to be EDUCATORS. If you didn't have the yearly 
grade, why would they bother doing the classwork? Extensive reading would be
"history". You could forget about teaching literature, because why should
they do the work? In fact, all too many teachers out there would just pass
literature over, since, it's not mandatory for the yearly grade (as it IS I
have heard of many schools that turn a blind eye and do not check if
literature or extensive reading is being done, and fabricate their grades).

Doing away with yearly grades would serve to turn us into bagrut factories.

Is THAT what we want? _I_ certainly do NOT! And why is it such a problem to
make up the yearly grade, anyway? All you need to do is be organized enough
to save your grades. The Three Year Follow Up page is very helpful with
this:
http://www.mchp.gov.il/Site/Supervision/REED/Bagrut+Forms/Working+out+your+yearly+grades/Three+year+follow+up.htm

The English coordinator needs to be organized enough to get the team

together on deciding how the yearly grades are given for your school, on the
different levels
http://www.mchp.gov.il/Site/Supervision/REED/Bagrut+Forms/Working+out+your+yearly+grades/school+plan+modular.htm
(that can be done ONCE if it is done
properly) and then everybody works accordingly. Excel makes the calculations
a piece of cake (this from someone who  is dyscalculic).

Well, that's MY 2 cents on this issue. Sure - I would love to have less

administrative work to do, but the whole bagrut system (which we did NOT
have in New York) and the universities demand it - therefore, there is not
really much we (or our complaining) will be able to change on this issue -
so we may as well make the best of it.


Linda wrote:

I'd like to start another poll: doing away with giving yearly grades
("magen" grades).. just giving a grade for the report card, which is
separate from and not connected to their bagrut exam grade. That's the way
it was in New York.. wow, our teachers didn't know how lucky they were!
Anyone??????



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