[etni] Re: Learning Curved

From: judy <judyewc@xxxxxxxxx>
To: etni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Sat, 29 Aug 2009 11:24:20 +0300
Yanai, the writer's son, was my beloved pupil at the Democratic School.  The
school began with perhaps 30 kids, and another 25 in the gan.  It has been
steadily growing.  A junior high school class is opening, and there are two
ganim.
There is no particular reason that there are many male teachers there.  A
few of them have already succeeded in high-tech to a point where they can
make time for teaching at relatively low pay.  Others studied teaching and
took an interest in democratic education.  As the Institute for Democratic
Education is at Seminar HaKibbutzim, the Tel Aviv area might have more of
these teachers.

In addition, in the "regular" system, there are very few male elementary
school teachers because of the low pay.  Women say things like "second
salary" and "convenient hours".  Democratic education by nature attracts
young, idealistic teachers who either can afford not to care about the
salary or live very frugally or have wives with more lucrative careers.

Anyway, I can say that I have taken part in the construction of student
assessments at the Kehilla School.  It's important to say that the
evaluations are very honest - they point out students' strengths and
weaknesses, offer advice, help and encouragement.  They do not trry to make
everyone feel good or gloss over problems.  Best of all, the students learn
to evaluate themsleves, learn from mistakes, ask for what they need and set
goals.

Many people say that Democratic education can't work because a child is too
young to make choices.  That is exactly why he should be learning to choose,
through exposure, trial and error, and mentoring.  The evaluations the kids
get help them review, change and plan their choices.

-- 
"Music will save the world."  Pablo Casals


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[etni] Re: Learning Curved

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