[etni] Fw:re: 4-5 p catch
- From: "Ask Etni" <ask@xxxxxxxx>
- To: "Etni" <etni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 4 Jul 2008 14:32:01 +0200
----- Original Message -----
From: Ruthi - rsheffer@xxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: 4-5 p catch
Sandra you are dead right. That's why maybe we need a separate union for
English teachers to protect our interests.
The other subjects (with the possible exception of Math which is more
objective- no essays to mark, no LD concessions except time)
All these considerations put a burden on our time and energy.
This was suggested on Etni and I think we should seriously think about it...
Ruth
Sandra:
>Hi everyone. Re the 4-5 point dilemma.
>We have all been dealing with this issue somehow. At my school there is a
>clear policy of pushing students up to 5p. I teach at a very prestigious
>school and the students won't settle for less unless they're really weak
>and even those usually get their parents to exercize pressure on our
>management so they will be given the opportunity to "prove" themselves
>(even if their other grades all show failing grades) mamash up to the very
>day of the matkonet. The students are all too aware of the new
>opportunities the modular bagrut offers. They have safety nets all around
>them and they can try and retry without risking or paying anything. The sad
>result is that doing the bagrut in English has really become some kind of a
>roulette. The problem is that the flexiblity of the system has made
>everything very confusing to the student. And it has undermined the
>teacher's authority and his/her professional judgement. In fact, we
>teachers, are nowadays expected to teach under the humiliating conditions
>of the public school system (I trust I won't have to give any
>examples...)while offering the students the testing opportunities of an
>external/private school system. In my opinion, this is the worst aspect of
>the new bagrut. And it is wearing me out. What does this have to do with
>the 4-5 dilemma, you might ask. Well, I think that we English teachers have
>enough work on our plates. We should just be teaching and we shouldn't have
>to be bothered by questions such as university requirements or planning
>strategies how to make it possible for a student to try for F and G while
>at the same time preparing a magen for C and D, just in case... Because
>what we are actually doing here is providing an individual learning program
>for about 30% of our 40 pupils counting classes. Preparing extra magens
>means writing and marking extra tests , which we are not paid for-of
>course. But even worse is the fact that students know how the system works
>and they know they can try for the 5p in any case, so instead of working
>hard at a 4p level, proving themselves and then moving up to the 5p level
>(isn't that every teacher's dream?), they waste their energy on fighting
>placement decisions, stop working when they are forced to sit in a 4p group
>and keep trying to get into the 5p because anyway, they feel they won't
>lose anything by doing so;once they do E in yudalef, they can do C and D in
>winter and F and G in summer. We teachers know that most of these students
>won't live up to a 5p level-especially when for 2 years they have been
>planning strategies instead of actually working on their English-but sadly
>the students do not see it that way. Because they are misled by this half
>private system. That's why they keep telling their teachers "ma echpatlach
>she ashev be 5 ani tamid jahol lehashlim le 4". They have lost the sense of
>"first having to prove yourself"-they want it INSTANT-now, like a 5p kochav
>nolad! With minimum investment and maximum opportunities! And that's what
>the new bagrut has been teaching them. Real great education. Well I am not
>for it at all. I want to do what I am paid (?) for: teaching them at their
>current level and trying to get them to improve through hard work, so I can
>move them up to the next level. And I want ALL my 35 students to be at a
>similar level, taking the same tests, at the same moed until THEY have
>proven they can move up. And then I want them to move up to ANOTHER group,
>because I am fed up with splitting myself up into 4 levels of teaching. Is
>that too much to ask for?
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