[etni] Haifa Coordinators' Letter
- From: Rivka Lewenstein <rlewen@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: etni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2003 11:46:12 -0800 (PST)
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Kol Hakavod to all those who had the courage to speak up!
Being that I have started giving mini-courses on the NBA in different schools
in Jerusalem, I certainly hope that I do understand the different aspects of
the tzvira model, as well as the new grading system (it helps that I always
give my students grades according to percentages) but wherever I go, the first
think I say is that certain issues will remain unclear even after my talk -
because the Ministry has not given us any answers on those questions. A few
examples are:
1. Can students take 2 oral tests (3 and 4 points) in one moed? The need would
arise if a student took modules A and B at the end of 11th, and continues on to
C, D and E at the end of 12th. He wants to make sure he has the 3 point test
"in his pocket", but can he take those two oral tests at once? I already got an
answer from Judy that students can take the modules for more than one level of
Bagrut at a time, but that doesn't exactly answer the question, since here
modules C-E are all for one level.
2. If a student takes level E in 11th grade, with the intention of continuing
on to F in 12th, but in the middle of 12th decides that the 5 point test is too
difficult for him, and wants to take C and D instead, what happens with his
oral test? He should have taken it in 11th with module (the highest of 4
points), but at the time he didn't know he would be doing 4 points. Judy's
answer to this question which someone on ETNI posted was that the oral test
must be taken with the highest module. Am I to understand from this that once a
"mistake" such as the one takes place, there is no way for our students to
change their minds? What happened to the flexibility which is supposed to go
hand in hand with the modular Bagrut?
I and others have posted these questions (some of the latest were posted by
Melvyn on November 15 - Judy answered other questions from the same digest -
but unsurprisingly - not those). What am I supposed to think other than that
the Ministry doesn't yet have the answers to these questions, so its policy is
just to ignore them in the hope that they will go away?
Then there are some of the other issues brought up by the Haifa coordinators,
including: gmul hachana and projects without computers have all been brought up
here numerous times, but I have yet to see a sensible answer which relates to
ALL of the aspects of these problems.
The issue of books is also a big one: I have 11th grade students who are doing
modules A-C this year, and D-E next year. Are they actually supposed to buy 5
books? I mean, I'm grateful to Eric Cohen for coming out with these books, but
how are students, parents or schools supposed to afford so many of them?
Not to mention the ridiculous suggestion that teachers adapt old Bagruyot for
students to practice on / Matkonot etc. (As an aside, the idea of starting a
database of adapted material is wonderful, but I'm not sure it will be enough)
Does the inspector really believe that I have the time to rewrite questions,
figure out how many points to give to each question, divide the parts into
modules etc.? Any "free time" left over from checking tests, unseens,
homeworks, bookreports etc. goes into preparing my next project...
In short, in case you didn't realize, I absolutely support the Haifa
coordinators' letter to the Irgun. (And by the way, I do also see some
advantages to the tzvira system, so please don't think that I'm just
irrationally set against it. As I said, I've been giving these courses, and
enjoying it, but... the questions remain.) However, can we all stop preparing
our students for the modular Bagrut? Even if I did belong to the Irgun (and I
don't), and even if we did strike in our school (we don't), I would be
hard-pressed to do so. Right now I'm focused on helping my students pass
modules A-C this year, and I find it difficult to believe that the Ministry
will suddenly change their minds and bring back the old Bagrut.
All the best,
Rivka
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