[etni] The conference and HOTS

From: Avi Granit <judiavi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: ETNI <etni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2010 10:24:58 +0300
First I want to join the long list of teachers praising the ETAI conference.  
It was great and I loved being part of it.  It was a priviledge to hear so many 
interesting and varied presentations, and a pleasure to be surrounded by so 
many pleasant and friendly colleagues.   I loved the fact that it was held in a 
serious venue (the nightmare of last year's hot, ill-equipped, crowded and 
dirty-bathroomed meeting place was thankfully erased :-).
As somebody else said (Sara G?) my only critisicm is that there were often too 
many excellent presentations going on at the same time and it was very 
difficult (I'd even go so far as to say "distressing") to have to choose.  I 
was particularly disappointed that there were parallel plenary sessions which 
meant I had to choose between local "legends" like Batia Laufer and Elisheva 
Barkan when I desperately wanted to hear them all!!   Similarly, while I know 
the conference had to open with a "big bang", not being able to afford to spend 
3 nights in a hotel (I paid for 2) I missed the opening session, arriving on 
the 1st day,and therefore disappointingly only got to hear David Crystal only 
once. 

I want to thank ETAI and the entire dedicated committee who obviously worked 
extremely hard and in addition, I want to thank all of the presenters who were 
willing to share their knowledge voluntarily for the benefit of us all.

As for the HOTS issue, I admit that I have mostly sat on the sidelines and 
still feel very much "on the fence".   I do not profess to be a literature 
expert or an expert teacher, like many others I have been teaching in JHS and 
HS for a long time (18+ years) and enjoy what I do.   If there is anything I 
have learnt about teaching in this length of time it is the advantage of being 
flexible and open to new ideas which I believe is one of the keys to being a 
good teacher.   I personally like variation and enjoy trying out new ideas 
therefore I am approaching the HOTS program with curiosity, an open mind and 
actually some enthusiasm, seeing it as a way of doing something new, a 
challenge.  

Unlike many others, I am unable to judge whether it will be effective or not, 
whether my pupils will enjoy it or not, whether they will succeed in 
understanding literature at a deeper level or not until I implement the 
program.  There have been times in the past that I have chosen a new text book 
or reading program or activity for pupils with the best intentions and the 
results were unpredictable.  My students have loved working with textbooks that 
I might have rejected given the choice, sometimes students have not related 
well to my choice of literature pieces which I chose out of love!    What I am 
saying is that I personally feel that I cannot jump up and down and either 
berate or praise the new program before trying it out.  

Once I have worked with the program which my new school has already adopted, I 
will then be able to stand up in favor or against.   Perhaps this means that I 
am naive, I don't know.  I simply remember the huge fuss made about 
implementing projects before they were made part of the syllabus and my 
personal experience of working with them has been positive and I do not feel 
that they made my life more difficult as a teacher. 

Just wanted to go on record :-)

Wishing you all a great vacation,

Judi G. 


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[etni] The conference and HOTS

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