[etni] Fw: Hooting about HOTS
- From: "Ask Etni" <ask@xxxxxxxx>
- To: "Etni" <etni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:18:27 +0200
----- Original Message -----
From: sbshai - sbshai@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Hooting about HOTS
To all ETNIers in general, and Jimmy & Ruth in particular,
Not only do I second everything my revered colleague Rachelle Immanuel has
said, but I also want to urge one and all -- those who have participated in
the HOTS course as well as those who have not -- to attend the ETAI summer
conference, where there will be a roundtable discussion on the issue.
Our colleagues who are HOTS graduates can explain their concerns about the
program in its present form, and those who have not yet wasted 56 precious
hours in the course can learn what they are up against. I'm confident that
some HOTS instructors will also be present, as will some Ministry reps,
perhaps, so that no one need fear that they will come away with a lopsided
view -- though we can't guarantee that they won't be confused because most
of us who took the course still are, even if we had as competent and
pleasant an instructor as mine and Rachelle's was. The whole point is that
the problem is with the program itself, not the instructors (who are
teachers like us), and this is why we have refused to reveal the name of our
instructor because the fault is certainly not hers!
But some people are fond of blaming everything on teachers: I have even read
on this list more than a few scathing comments against colleagues who had
the 'temerity' to explain why they objected to doing projects. They were
denounced as being ... well, let's just say unprofessional, and it was
clearly pointed out that when an edict handed down to us from the
Inspectorate fails, it's because the teacher mismanaged the situation.
Never mind that the courses which are supposed to train teachers to become
enthusiastic about these programs are themselves poorly run (again, rarely
the fault of the instructor, who can only try to sell the faulty goods she
received); this minor irony is, of course, patently overlooked!
BTW, everything that Jimmy pointed out about the progam's fallacies is
consummately accurate, and his implication that much more can be said along
these lines is similarly true. I too have previously mentioned that despite
the program designers' claims, there is nothing innovative about it. As
Rachelle has also said, we have always been using the ideas that are now
being touted as "new" to teach literature; the only difference is that now
we are expected to explicitly teach "higher order thinking skills" by
showing, for example, how a Menthos candy thrown into a bottle of soda pop
will cause it to fizz, and that if we repeat this ad infinitum we'll have
the whole world popping and fizzing in no time! This, FYI, is called
demonstrating cause and effect, and our students are expected to be able to
connect this supposedly new-found skill to a particular piece of
literature. (That's called infusing HOTS into literature, but I hope my
esteemed colleagues will be able to see why we need to defuse it!)
It's clear that the literature is subservient to the HOTS rather than the
other way around, the idea being that we shouldn't really care "ages and
ages hence" whether our students remember the details surrounding Frost's
choice; rather, we're supposed to want our students to be able to apply
whatever hotsy-totsy HOTS we taught to other pieces of literature as well as
to other subjects and areas in their lives. Well, isn't that what we've
always been doing? Only we haven't forced our students to name the thinking
skill. But now we're told that better minds than ours have discovered that
"the name's the thing": if you can name it, you've got it! Tra-la, just
like that! I don't want to make this long message even longer by
enumerating the problems I forsee with this desperate plan. (I say
desperate because if this is supposed to be the savior of EFL instruction,
teaching literature and/or inspiring our students to think, then we need to
immediately reevaluate our whole system!)
In short, the program is too massive a problem to accept resignedly, and not
merely because it loads yet another heavy weight on our already overburdened
backs. As a group, I have good reason to believe that English teachers are
among the most hard-working and dedicated educators in the country;
therefore, we have earned the right to be heard instead of being treated
like underlings by some (not all) representatives of the MOE. I do
understand people's hesitations to speak up, but please consider the
consequences if we keep silent; we'll have no one but ourselves to blame.
(Go ahead and blame the teacher!)
So please, one and all, attend the ETAI conference to hear and be heard.
Together we might be able to come up with suggestions to iron out the many
creases in the program as it now stands (though maybe sits or lies would be
a better description).
To rephrase a popular saying: Many keppelach (little heads) are better than
none!
Hoping to see you there,
Batya
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