[etni] Re: more about discrepencies!!!

I found a few disturbing things in this post:
1.  Most "technological schools" are iyuni.  If the kids are studying
electronics or other such subjects, they are also studying for Bagrut.  The
really good vocational schools have become iyuni or disappeared.  Very few
kids actually go to "learn a trade" at this age any more. Would you want a
poor meitzav grade to take kids out of the learning loop altogether?
2.  The Meitzav suffers from the same ills as the Bagrut - all over the
world, educators and publicists are saying how inaccurate, unconclusive,
unfair and downrigt stupid standard exams are, and school systems are
politely requesting "Stop confusing us with the facts."
3,  There are places in the country where there are terrible discrepancies,
some caused by suspected cheating, others by well-meaning teachers, others
with no proven cause.  For some reason no one has seen these discrepancies
for what they are - the failure of an attempt to take half an orange and
half an apple to create an "average fruit".  Some kids are brilliant in
daily activities, written papers, etc., and fall apart on exams.  Others
test well and do a minimum of daily work.  This won't change just beuse we
add another moed or a project.  And have you noticed that every single
attempt to make the grade more authentic means tons of extra work for the
teacher?
4.  It also really annoys me that everyone asks for more and more patches.
Small-group tutorials, projects with fancy names like Ometz and Etgar and
Mabar, special interventions - if we just put all that money, planning and
energy into creating smaller classes to begin with, and early detection of
both learning difficulties and just kids who need a little more at
foundation level, maybe we wouldn't need them!  We shoudl start out right -
because we don't, high school teachers spend most of their time on damage
control!

We will never solve the problems of the system by substituting one test for
another, creating more and more "special groups", and increasing teachers'
workloads.  Someone, somewhere must stop and take a long hard look at the
education system, and ask some really hard questions.  Questions like:  What
is the best way to learn?  Is it the same for every subject?  Is the
classroom setting the only way?  What age is really appropriate for each
field of learning?  Should classes go only by chronological age?  Should
everything be gradual and slow, a couple of hours a week for many years?
Where do we really need computers/textbooks/labs/projects and where are they
window dressing?  And many, many more questions.  I don't see it happening
soon.

And yet, I am hopeful.  Shana Tova.

Judy


-- 
"Music will save the world."  Pablo Casals

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