[etni] Re; Judy Steiner's response
- From: Rivka Lewenstein <rlewen@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: etni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2004 01:02:15 -0700 (PDT)
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Hi,
I read Judy Steiner's letter, and while I disagree strongly with many of the
points she's made there, I'm going to specifically take issue with one of them:
her claim that the sample exams in the NBA handbook were adequate enough to
prepare students for Modules E-G.
With all due respect, Judy said something quite different at the chat shop at
the ETAI conference. According to her, the sample exams WERE NOT WRITTEN BY THE
PEOPLE WHO WRITE THE BAGRUT EXAMS and therefore WERE NOT NECESSARILY AN
ACCURATE REFLECTION OF THE ACTUAL TESTS. (Sorry for all the caps, but I think
that this deserves it.) So who are you kidding here, Judy? (Not to mention
that, as both teacher and textbook writer, it took me about five minutes of
glancing at the test samples, especially from Module C on, to realize that
either the level of the Bagrut was going to be lowered drastically, or the
samples were much too easy.)
In addition, saying that the Ministry isn't responsible for materials put out
by publishers is also laughable in this case. Considering that the Ministry
refused to expend money on preparing more sample exams (whatever good that
would have done us), what exactly were teachers supposed to do other than turn
to the publishers for help? And would it have been any different had we all
adopted Judy's advice of writing our own Bagrut practice materials? I doubt the
Ministry would have given its approval on that, either...
BTW, I personally have no stake in changing this year's Moed Aleph results,
since my 11th grade students took Modules A, B and C and did extremely well.
It's the principle of the matter, along with its broader implications for all
of us English teachers, that has me reacting so strongly.
All the best,
Rivka
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