[etni] Taking the HOTS course
- From: Louise - <lu_mmm@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <etni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2009 05:03:25 -0400
Dear All,
Earlier this year, I took the HOTS course. It was an on-line course with only 2
face to face meetings. I decided to enroll as I wanted to understand better the
issues that related to this course. Why is it so much work? What will we be
required to do? Why should we have sanctions against it? I wanted first-hand
information. I also felt that this is a course I am taking on my own time,
which I paid for (small amount), and I was in the mood. I said to myself, that
learning about it doesnt necessarily mean I have to teach it, in the event of
further sanctions coming in the future. These were my justifications.
Well, all I can say is I am glad I took the course. Leaving aside my own
feelings about Israeli students being introduced to HOTS in L2 and still trying
to resolve whether there is merit to this approach (as laid out by the MOE), by
taking the course you will know exactly what you are up against. Therefore, you
will be in a better position to argue for or against it.
For myself, it was bloody hard work preparing a lesson plan following the
required format and trying to recreate the very high standards set by our
instructor. Of course, all newly learned things take longer to implement, and
this we were reminded of periodically. So 3/4 of the way through, many of us
thought we would just send the kids to the exam and not do the log which would
require even more hours of work to correct. Then the bombshell hit --
regardless of whether or not the students take the exam, they should (or must)
do a log. When you take the course, you will see what that entails. All I can
say, is that on the last day of the course, (a face to face) our instructor
brought in a few sample logs, which seemed to be about 3x the thickness of a
project.
Therefore, given the above, I do suggest that at least one person from your
school take the course in order to better judge what this program entails.
Interestingly and by the way, we brought up the Literature course to our Union
rep, but she didnt seem to know much about it. She said she would get back to
us but as far as I know, she never did. It makes me wonder why we do not have a
designated and dedicated English representative in the Irgun organization who
can better represent our issues.
Louise Lipert Maery
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