[etni] Thumbs, Facts, Inferences and Exhaustion

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Like many of you, I came home from Bagrut Day too exhausted to do anything 
except plop down in front of the television set and promptly fall asleep.  Only 
today have I had the chance to digest the Kafkaesque experience of yesterday 
and would like to make several random observations:
1)  I would love to be the owner (or wife of the owner) of whichever company it 
is which manufactures all those tons of paper used to produce all the notebooks 
and the forms now needed for the English Bagrut exam.    Looking at the stacks 
of notebooks on the table in the Teachers' room I wondered if anyone had given 
a passing thought to the number of TREES which had to be sacrificed for the 
sake of Modules A, B, C, D, E, F and G.   Was this all necessary?   Was all the 
additional paper work necessary?     

2)  Looking at Module G, I found myself confounded by Question two.    The 
question reads as follows: " What can we infer from the statistics mentioned in 
lines 8-16 about the use of text messaging?  Give TWO facts."  Now there seems 
to be a fallacy here.   An inference is an inference and a fact is a fact.   
You can not infer facts!   An inference is an assumption, an educated guess, 
BASED on the facts, but the inference itself cannot be a fact.   So the 
question was poorly formulated and even misleading.   I sat a long time 
thinking about this question, what answers were expected and will be accepted.  
  It seems to me that to write something like  
"Text messaging is increasing in the USA" is not inferring anything;   if in 
2003 there were 1.6 billion users and in 2004 there were 2.6 billion users, 
well it's not an inference to say "text messaging is increasing in the USA", 
it's just stating the facts in another way.   But I suppose that will be an 
acceptable answer.  But supposing a pupil thinks like me and wants to write 
something that really IS an inference, such as "Text messaging is becoming as 
popular in the USA as it is in Europe and Asia", or "text messaging is a 
profitable source of income for telecommunication companies", would these be 
considered wrong?   Maybe yes, because they are not strictly based on the 
STATISTICS in that paragraph.  This is going to be a very problematic questions 
DAFKA for the pupils that recognized the flaw in the question, as I believe I 
did.   

3)   It is not every day that you have the undivided attention of approximately 
every 17 and 18 year old in Israel for three and three- quarter hours.    This 
fact creates a window of  opportunity to actually teach something meaningful.   
 Giving an unseen on THUMBS seems to me to me to be taking this opportunity and 
wasting it,  other than for those pupils who enjoy accumulating useless 
knowledge.   On the other hand, I disagree with those who believe that the 
unseen about the Australian teacher was a CONSPIRACY FROM ABOVE.    In my 
opinion, things just don't work that way.   However,  better judgment should 
definitely be exercised in the choice of unseen topics.     At least thumbs 
don't offend anybody!  (on the other hand if it had been about the THIRD 
finger........)   Yeah, I don't envy those who make up these exams.   

4)  Our super-competent Bagrut secretary had heart palpitations (I'm not 
exaggerating) by the end of the day from trying valiantly to cope with the sea 
of paper work yesterday and make sure there were no fashlot.  (We all know you 
can do 9,999 things right and one thing wrong and you will be hear about that 
one thing you did wrong.)     And I identify with all those who said that the 
Bagrut exam has become a race against the clock both for us and the pupils.     
You've got the first round of pupils doing an oral exam, then you've got the 
second round doing äëúáä ìáåçï ðèøìé or ùéòúå÷ and you're constantly under 
pressure because you know that in ten, fifteen minutes the next module is going 
to begin and the whole balagan starts all over again.   Before, we used to have 
three hours of quiet.   There would be a  flurry of activity for the first 
fifteen minutes or so when pupils were finding their rooms,
assorted problems were being sorted out.   Then everything would calm down and 
there was QUIET for three whole hours.    Now, no sooner do the kids settle 
down and start one module than they're out again and all the noise and 
commotion start all over again, having to brief the proctors all over again, 
etc.   I don't think the effect of this on us and on the secretaries should be 
underestimated.   

5)  I know that the Modular Exam is going to be with us for a long time (on the 
other hand, is there any such thing as "a long time" where the English Bagrut 
is concerned?) .  I would like to make two modest recommendations in terms of 
scheduling.   Module G, which is supposedly the hardest module, should come 
first.   E, on the other hand, is the easiest, at least for the five pointers, 
and should come last, also because pupils finish it the fastest and then can go 
home.
Is there any reason why this can't be done?  

That's all I can think of right now.    I'm glad it's over.    Regards, Maxine 
Tsvaigrach 
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