[etni] Re: criticism of unknown teacher

I apologize for the unfortunate "fellow traveler" terminology.

I agree with 90% of what Sharon Tzur wrote. Her example of class trips is an 
excellent one. English teachers certainly deserve compensation for all the work 
going into projects, as they will deserve for the upcoming (hopefully to-be 
revised) lit module logs. I know there are a large number of hardworking and 
conscientious English teachers out there. However there are many who skimp (on 
literature teaching, on extensive reading) and now these skimpers could, under 
the guise of sanctions, skimp also on projects. Give a grade based on one 
"matconet", that's it.

If you are not like this, Etni reader, please do not be offended because I am 
not criticising you. 

However, back to Barry's question. You can't square the circle. If a pupil did 
no project, he/she cannot get a grade for discussing it and answering questions 
about it. If the teacher did not help him because of union scruples, let the 
pupil do the project on his own, as some teachers suggested. Just give them 
guidelines and let them sink or swim at the orals. Fill in your 30% grade on 
the product and not on the process, though under normal circumstances the 
process should get a lot of weight. 

I am against allowing kids to skip 60% of the oral test with impunity and still 
give them a 90..... 

At 20:04 23/04/2009, you wrote:

>I would like to react to Dov's criticsm of the "unknown teacher" who
>followed the Irgun directives not to do projects. 
>
>A - I resent the use of the term "fellow travelers" - with its Stalinist
>implications as a way to refer to an Irgun member who followed the Irgun
>directive.
>
>B - Dov seems to suggest that the unknown teacher chose not to follow the
>ministry rules (concerning the project) as a way to "skimp" and to make life
>"easier". That's like saying that when teachers go on strike, they do so
>because they prefer to sleep late and spend the day reading instead of
>teaching.
>
>I have no doubt that the teachers who are calling most insistently for
>additional pay for teachers doing projects (and implementing the irgun
>directive as part of the struggle) are doing so because they have been doing
>the projects for over six years - the way they should be done according to
>the Ministry directives - and it is a lot of work. In fact, Dov states in
>his letter that "teachers --- bullets working on these projects for months".
>
>Now I know that there are teachers who don't bother to do the project
>properly - who simply send the students home to do the project over the
>summer, who only collect and grade the final papers. I know there are
>teachers who let the kids get away with just copying and pasting from
>Wikipedia, with an occasional rewording.  I guess such a teacher doesn't
>really care if teachers get paid for the project or not. However, those of
>us who do the project the way it should be done have to invest a tremendous
>amount of work on the projects. 
>
>In our school, we do the projects in four stages - each stage is submitted
>and graded; we were taught that the project should involve process writing,
>which means grading the process and not just the final paper. We were taught
>that the project must be based on sources, and that these sources should be
>integrated into the paper, and not copy-pasted. This means that in order to
>assess the paper intelligently, one has to read - or at least skim - the
>sources. And of course, the project is done in ADDITION to traditional
>assessment (exams). I would ask Dov - is there any reason that we should go
>on doing all this hard additional work for no pay? Other teachers whose work
>involves projects (such as Biology) are paid for their effort.
>
>Any type of sanction that the union calls for will be -  by definition -
>not going according to the Ministry rules. That is true even of a one hour
>strike called to protest violence against teachers. I have been in the field
>for 30 years, and unfortunately, I have to say that with the exemption of
>Yossi Sarid/Shulamit Aloni under the Rabin government, teachers I can't
>remember teachers ever having gotten anything we deserved without struggling
>for it. For example, it took two years of refusing to go out on class trips
>and hikes before it was agreed that a teacher who spends 24 hours a day with
>a class deserves to be paid for that time. Other achievements have come as a
>result of strikes and other sanctions. 
>
>I know that often there are union members who refuse to go along with their
>union's sanctions - and I think that they are the ones who have some
>explaining to do. They can go along being the "nice" teacher, while others
>have to face their students and explain why their union has called for
>sanctions - and yet  - eventually, when the sanctions pay off, ALL the
>teachers end up getting better conditions, including the teachers who
>refused to implement the sanctions that brought about the change.
>
>Naturally, this year, when the union directed us to stop doing projects
>(which we do in our school in 10th grade), we filled in that time with more
>literature - but eventually, if we count literature in all three modules -
>instead of counting the project in one module, that will also be against the
>Ministry rules. Naturally, we try to everything to see that the students
>don't suffer. However, don't we teachers deserve any consideration? And is
>it fair that students who did not do projects because of their teachers'
>sanctions be given a zero? During the year of the two month strike, the
>Ministry published the mikud early so that the students' grades would not
>have to suffer because of the strike. Perhaps the Ministry should be
>thinking of how to see to it that the students who did not do projects this
>year not be penalized.
>
>I end with a query. Other than sanctions, how else can teachers bring about
>a change in the current policy?
>
>BTW - Do you know that teachers of Civics and Hebrew language were given one
>hour a year for a year as compensation for having to change over to a new
>bagrut program? Why have English teachers never been given such
>compensation? 


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