[etni] fwd: Judy Steiner's letter to high school principals
- From: "Ask" <ask@xxxxxxxx>
- To: <etni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2005 13:33:10 +0200
From: Rivka Lewenstein - rlewen@xxxxxxxxx
Subject: Judy Steiner's letter to high school principals
I've just taken a look at the latest letter sent to high school
principals by Judy Steiner (available on anglit.net), and I
would like to tell Judy: Kol hakavod!
I think that having regional inspectors check projects,
reading tasks, and literature tasks is an excellent idea, and
one I've personally endorsed for quite a while. The two
main benefits, in my opinion, are as follows:
1) We all know that there are teachers and schools that
don't quite follow the directives of the Ministry of
Education regarding projects, literature, and extensive
reading, whether that means totally ignoring these
requirements or doing only a very partial job.
Hopefully, this will forces those teachers / schools to
begin doing what they should be doing, which means
that there will be a little more equality among all of
the students who take the Bagrut. As the situation
currently stands, there are some students working a
lot harder than others, because their teachers do
adhere to the Ministry's directives (and rightfully so!),
and that's extremely unfair. Just an aside, since we've
gone through this before on numerous occasions,
I do believe that everyone should teach literature and
do extensive reading because that's what benefits our
students, regardless of whether anyone's checking up
on us or not. However, since not everyone seems to
agree with that, I think that having inspectors inspect
our work is the most appropriate solution.
2) Many teachers have complained that their principals
object to their giving magen grades the way they are
supposed to be given, according to the official Ministry
percentages. I think that having the regional inspectors
involved will cause these principals to take those
demands more seriously.
There are other benefits to this change, just as there
are also disadvantages.
I'm sure that there will be teachers bemoaning the lack
of trust between the Ministry and the teachers, but guess
what? In every profession, there are those people who
will do their best and give the job everything they've
got in them whether someone's looking over their
shoulder or not. However, there are also those (yes,
even in teaching!) who will look for shortcuts or even
worse if there's no one keeping tabs on them. Would
you prefer to be in a workplace where everyone does
what he or she wants, or to be in an orderly job setting
where everyone does what they're supposed to do?
I know what my answer is to that question.
All the best,
Rivka
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