[etni] musings #93 DOVRAT; sorry for duplicates, you may distribute, just attribute and please send me copies or links from any publications this appears in
- From: Yisrael & Batya Medad <ybmedad@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: undisclosed-recipients: ;
- Date: Fri, 07 Jan 2005 10:38:46 +0200
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Musings #93//
January 6, 2005
The 25^th of Tevet
Dovrat--Rotten Idea
The Dovrat recommendations are going to do to Israeli education what
Michael Jackson's plastic surgeons did to his face. Yes, exactly. The
Dovrat Commission's restructuring plans are superficial, cosmetic. Just
like no matter what some plastic surgeon does to someone's nose, his or
her kids will inherit the original "big nose gene." All the hullabaloo
and proposed changes won't eliminate the real problems. And believe me,
there are problems.
I'm not going to get into the anti-religious aspect or the obvious
financial difficulties of the proposals, such as lunchrooms, busing and
all that. What concern me are the curriculum, the teaching methods and
the needs of both the students and the teachers.
First for a little background: I'm a mother, grandmother and teacher.
And, obviously, I was also once a student. I've seen the systems here
in Israel, in the states and in England. I also worked in a number of
other professions, sometimes simultaneously while teaching. Dovrat is
blaming the teachers for the sorry state of Israeli education. It
reminds me of when I was a saleslady in a small store. The store wasn't
doing well, and the owners brought in an expert to recommend changes.
The expert never asked the salespeople our opinions. We were given an
assignment to keep track of how many people entered the store and how
many of them bought anything. The expert insisted that we should be
able to convince them to buys "something." People did want to buy, but
we didn't have anything they wanted. And you can't sell an expensive
play outfit to somebody who can barely afford the simple socks they had
entered the store to buy.
I couldn't sell something that wasn't in the store, and the teachers
can't teach what isn't on the curriculum. The failures in the Israeli
educational system are due to faddy curriculum planning and
failure-prone teaching methods.
All over the world, studies in worker efficiency show that people work
better if they can take breaks, vary their schedule, get out of the
office, factory, etc. Forcing teachers to work full-time office hours
will not make them better teachers and will not attract "better people"
to the profession. Teaching demands a lot of emotional energy, like
actors on the stage. Many of us are better, more effective teachers
simply because we can restrict our hours. The fact that we have time
during the week to make doctors appointments, go shopping, see family
and friends and plan our lessons on our personal computers (instead of
waiting on line in the school) means that when we are with our students
we are not distracted. And we don't have to be excused and cancel
lessons to take care of urgent personal matters. The concept of
teachers devoting all their days at the school is based on the Catholic
schools, staffed by nuns and priests. It's not relevant for people who
have lives. My friends and relatives who are teachers abroad suffer
greatly from their inflexible schedules, and so do their families. We
don't need that here. Life's tough enough.
I'm an English teacher, a high school English teacher. I never planned
on being an English teacher. I had heard that the "bosses" were very
strict about making the teachers teach according to official policy.
I'm not very good at obeying rules, especially if I think they're
stupid. I've gotten myself into trouble, since, as you may have
noticed, I can't keep my mouth shut. After seeing what my kids were
given in school English lessons, I knew that I wouldn't survive a day as
an English teacher, so for thirteen years I was a girls gym teacher in a
school with neither sports equipment nor a gymnasium. Originally I took
the job "temporarily," a year or two, until they found a real teacher.
I wasn't a real teacher, lacking certificates and training. But I kept
those girls busy, and even today, years later, when my former students
meet me in the pool they ask my advice on proper exercise.
Seven years ago when I was asked by a friend to teach the kids who were
failing English, I was given a few minutes "training" and the green
light to do whatever I thought would work to help them pass. A couple
of years later I got my teaching license and I'm still at the same
school. And year after year, I'm more and more disappointed in the lack
of foundation language skills my students bring into the classroom.
That's where the main problem is, in the basic learning, the
foundation. Our children must be taught basic language skills and basic
arithmetic. They must be taught that every letter has a sound and that
combining them makes a word. It's called phonetics. And that every
number has a set value, and they can be combined, subtracted, multiplied
and divided. And the basic counting by two's, three's, five's, ten's
should be ingrained in their brains; it's called memorizing. Put it to
music; dance to it; shout it as a chant; yes, it can be fun. Correct
Hebrew grammar must be reinforced, and incorrect must be corrected. If
not they will continue having trouble learning additional languages and
sound like neurologically impaired illiterates in their own.
As a high school English teacher, I waste valuable precious time
teaching my students basic grammar and composition and summarizing
skills. When I asked my cousin to send me a highly recommended book for
teaching students composition writing, he was amazed: "But aren't you
teaching high school? This book is used in the third grade in New York
City."
"Restructuring" is not the solution it reminds me of when my eldest was
in the second grade and I was trying to explain to the teacher that the
arithmetic was too boring. She had done that level at the age of four.
The teacher replied: "But look at how pretty the book is, how could it
be boring?"
We must get beyond the superficial. I can go on and on about what I
would change, but this is long enough.
*/I wish that I had some real influence. All I can recommend is that
everyone protest however they can and demand a true education for our
precious children./*
Batya Medad, Shiloh
Shilohmuse@xxxxxxxxx <mailto:Shilohmuse@xxxxxxxxx>
http://shilohmusings.blogspot.com/
http://me-ander.blogspot.com/
_http://www.shilo.org.il <http://www.shilo.org.il/>_
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