[etni] Bla bla CD's

From: Renee Wahl <renew@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: etni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 2009 12:19:41 +0200
Hi,
I didn't see a long email that I thought I thought I had posted yesterday, so 
I'm going to try and recap.
Regarding the CD's and all the suggestions made, I think you have all missed 
the point.  Since when is the job of the English teachers to prepare 
tapes/cd's/MP3, etc.  For the Bagrut?   The Ministry has a list of ALL the 
pupils who have special accomodations and the evidence of this is that they 
have special labels to paste on all their forms.  They know how many 
tapes/cd's/etc have to be made, and they are responsible for preparing them and 
sending them, period.  Why are you all running around on the day of the exam 
trying to make copies?  Have you ever seen a history or Tanach teacher doing 
this?  The answer is no and the reason is that they get ALL the tapes they 
need.  

Regarding the recording of tapes/cd's for the class tests during the year, why 
don't you ask the school's computer technician to do it?  After all, the 
recordings have to be done for ALL subjects, not just English.  The kids who 
have 'hakra'a" in English, have it for History, Tanach, and any other text-rich 
subjects.  Of course, your technician is going to laugh in your face and tell 
you that it isn't his job.  Guess what - it isn't yours either!  I made a 
survey of the teachers in our school and you should too.  NONE of the other 
teachers (Tanach, Literature, history, etc.) would dream of preparing tapes.  
They have a simple solution.  They say NO and they don't do it.  Yes, many of 
us have LD kids and we empathize with their plight.  However, we do not need to 
take the burden upon ourselves, even if we are told we will be paid (a pittance 
if you figure out the time it takes, the pay comes to about a shekel an hour 
before taxes) and I haven't seen any payment yet.

What really got my goat about the extra time accomodation, was the solution 
proposed by the pedagogical committee in our school.  Apparently they do not 
want to pay the extra time we need to stay and test the kids who have this 
accomodation, so they said to make the tests shorter, like instead of 45 
minutes, we make it 35 minutes, dismiss the kids who have finished and stay the 
extra 10 minutes with the kids who get extra time.  Can you believe this?  
First of all, we need the full lesson for the test especially when you remember 
that you have to calm them down and give instructions for at least the first 10 
minutes.  Next, can you just see the pandemonium when those who have finished 
or are told they are finished, start arguing for more time or move around to 
leave - great for the concentration of those LD kids who have enough trouble as 
it is.  Next, what happens when you let 30 out of 35 kids loose 10 minutes 
before the bell rings?  And what happened to the rule that you are responsible 
for them if they aren't in class?

There has to be good will on both sides, and not only on the part of the 
teachers.  I proposed to my principal that I would teach all the accomodation 
kids and the teachers to download and use a text reading program. All I asked 
was for one hour over the year to do this - not even a 'teken' hour, but 'sha'a 
effectivi'.   Instead of buying half a dozen CD players (which are very 
sensitive and break down often) he could buy 2 very basic laptop computers with 
disk on key.  These laptops could be set up at the back of the room during the 
test and since there is no wireless internet connection in most of our schools 
(and if there is it's easy enough to neutralize it), the kids could use the 
text reader program to listen to any part of the exam they need.  No need to 
burn CD's, make sections, etc.  They just highlight the part of the text they 
want to hear and it is read to them.  Do you think he agreed?  He didn't even 
check it out.  So if the school isn't willing to do its part....... 

Renee
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[etni] Bla bla CD's

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