----- Original Message -----
From: Rivka Lewenstein - rlewen@xxxxxxxxx
Subject: Today's Bagrut
Well, we had only ten students tested today (my policy is to try and avoid
winter testing as much as possible), so I was sure it would be a breeze.
Nevertheless, we had one major fiasco, for which I accept part of the
blame - a teacher FORGOT to test a girl orally, even though she was
finishing up her 3-point test today. It's true that this is a student who
came down from a different group, so she was the only one in the group who
hadn't been tested last year. However, I did remind her a few months ago
that she would need to test this girl before the winter Bagrut. I put her on
the list of teachers who needed a k'tav minui for testing (this was the only
student she needed to test internally). When she got her k'tav minui, she
asked me why she had been told to test in the school, and I reminded her
that this student needed to be tested. Despite all that, she forgot, and as
I said, I accept my share of the blame, since as rakezet I should have been
on top of that and made sure the testing got done.
I do want to praise Judy Steiner for her guidance on what to do regarding
this problem. The fact that she sent out an e-mail with her phone numbers
meant that I was able to reach her office quickly and easily. She was in a
meeting when I called, so they told me to send a fax with the details, and
she herself called me back and gave me her suggestions. I really appreciated
that and want to make my appreciation public. After all, we have no
compunctions publicly about criticizing Dr. Steiner when we don't like
something she's said or done - so I think that a bit of public praise is in
order here.
Of course, I am still very upset by the whole incident. I would be the first
to quote the rule of having to test orally before the last of the three
modules is taken, and I really try to impart any and all information I have
about the Bagrut to my staff. In this case, I feel that I didn't fulfill my
responsibility, and let down a student as a result. The bottom line: Don't
take anything for granted!
Moving on to a totally different aspect of today's Bagrut, I've only had a
chance to see Modules A and D so far, but my impression of those two is as
follows: Module A continues to become slightly harder with every passing
moed. I thought the idea was to give weaker students an easy start? While no
one can say it is very difficult, today's test would certainly be
challenging for our very weak students. As for Module D, I think it was
surprisingly easy, both in terms of vocabulary and structure and in terms of
the questions asked. I'm a bit sorry I didn't have all my students take
Module D this winter! I would love to hear other teachers' impressions of
the level of difficulty of today's Bagrut.
Hoping you all had better Bagrut experiences than I did this time around, Rivka
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