[etni] my response to Mr. Asa-El
- From: Sharon Tzur <sharontzu5@xxxxxxx>
- To: etni <etni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 04 Nov 2007 19:33:57 +0200
Dear Mr. Asa-El
Regarding your article, “Don’t pity the teacher”. I am an English teacher who
has been teaching in Israel, full time, for 30 years. I have a M.A. in
Education, and I consider myself to be a fine and devoted teacher.
First, I want to say that I deeply resent your assumption that teachers have
“ample free time they ostensibly spend fully working”. I assure you that when I
teach “full time”, meaning 4 to 5 classes, I certainly work full time. When
school is in full swing, I come home, eat, take a short rest, and spend a good
part of every evening preparing lesson plans, grading exams, projects, updating
my web site, corresponding with students, etc. It is a great insult to be told
that all these years, I have not been working a full work week!
Your article is mainly about the conclusions of the Dovrat committee, which you
yourself say is a dead horse. Why do you not address what is on the table? The
plan called “Ofek Chadash”, being offered by the government, (and accepted by
about 10% of the Histadrut teachers), a plan which is being to presented to the
public as some sort of educational reform, is, in my opinion, a disaster for
the future of education in this country.
According to Ofek Chadash, in order to get an increase in salary (which
everyone believes is justified), I must teach more frontal hours. As a 52 year
old teacher, I’ll be expected to teach 27 frontal hours instead of the current
22. (Teachers over 50 have been able to teach 2 hours less per week than
teachers under 50 – this benefit will be cancelled). This represents a 23%
increase in hours - and at least one more class - for what will be less than a
25% increase in salary. (Less, because many of our g’mulim will be cancelled.)
In other words, not only would I not be getting more money per hour; I’d have
an impossible burden which will definitely require me to cut back on my
preparation time and assessment time. The quality of my teaching will be
adversely affected.
As to the demand that we do our preparatory hours in school, I have no
objection to this provided that we are provided with a proper work space. I
have to do this work anyway. However, I must say that I personally think it is
a tremendous waste of the country’s resources. Do you have any idea what
investment will be required to provide every teacher with a proper workspace,
including minimum equipment (such as computers). At present, we have 2
computers in our school for a staff of about 80 teachers! I think the country
would be better off investing money in better conditions for STUDENTS and
letting teachers continue to do their preparation work and grading at home.
You pointed out that the Dovrat committee called for capping classes at 35
students per class (which is still a large number by Western standards). This
is indeed one of the demands being presented by the Irgun HaMorim, an issue not
being addressed by the government. I think that everyone in education will
agree that our classrooms are far too overcrowded. This is not only a burden on
teachers; it makes proper learning close to impossible.
You also point out that the Dovrrat committee wanted to extend the school day
until 15:30. (Of course, this would require proper infrastructure, such as
air-conditioning in all schools, providing a real meal for students’ lunch,
etc.). Ofek Chadash will not add even one hour to the students’ school day. It
is the Irgun which is demanding that teaching hours that were cut from the
system be returned! Teachers will be required to work longer hours (more
teaching hours), but students will not be learning more hours! This will
apparently be achieved by firing many teachers who currently teach part time,
or who have just entered the system. Alternatively, there will not be enough
hours available for teachers to enable them to teach “full time”, and so they
will teach the same number of hours they teach today, but will have their
salaries cut considerably, because they will no longer be considered full time
teachers. Ofek Chadash also expects teachers with special duties, such as
homeroom teachers and racazei shichvot, to meet the exact same teaching demands
as their colleagues. When are they supposed to carry out their special duties?
Your article is quick to point out what is probably the one main advantage of
teaching (vacation time), but fails to address the disadvantages. Are you aware
of the fact that teaching is a high stress profession? I once read that
teachers die earlier from stress related diseases than people in any other
profession other than air traffic controllers and dentists. Do you have any
idea of the stress involved in even one hour of teaching? Standing up in front
of 35-40 young people, many of whom are not particularly anxious to learn? A
teacher must somehow maintain authority and yet still get across his/her love
and concern for the students. A teacher must not only maintain order, but
attempt to motivate all the students to actively learn. Our authority is
constantly being questioned by both students and parents, especially in today’s
generation. We must often deal with at least a few students in each class who
have serious discipline issues or who are downright hostile to us. We often
must intervene to prevent students from acting out aggressively toward each
other. And even students who are supportive of teachers can never show this
support in front of their peers, lest they be the subject of ridicule. Teachers
need vacation time - and a good part of our vacation time we spend learning
and preparing ourselves better for the next school year. And one can always
add, if teaching is so attractive, than why are so few young college graduates
in Israel entering the field?
I have no problem with a system of meritocracy. However, I do know that school
systems all over the world have trouble translating this into a viable policy.
Generally, meritocracy means rewarding teachers based on measurable parameters,
particularly the success of students in standardized testing. This generally
leads to an increase in generalized testing, and instead of teaching, teachers
are forced to prep students for exams. Even this system has two serious
drawbacks. First, everyone knows that standardized tests provide a very
inaccurate measure of a student’s knowledge or learning. Secondly, the success
of a student on a standardized test is not only a function of the teacher’s
abilities. It also depends on a large number of other factors not under the
teacher’s control - the conditions in the school, the student’ attendance,
ability to focus, make an effort, etc. Lastly, there are so many other
parameters involved in being a good teacher not all of which can be quantified.
What is the nature of the feedback he/she provides? To what extent do students
feel comfortable with the teacher? Does the teacher encourage independent
thinking? Is the teacher able to enhance the self esteem of students, etc. How
can these be measured?
I am in favor of simplifying the procedure for getting rid of poor teachers.
However, as someone who has been in the system for many years, I’m not
convinced that empowering principals is the right way to do it. Sometimes the
“best” teacher for the principal is one who has generated no complaints from
parents, but this may be a result of over generous assessment on the part of
the teacher rather than good teaching. Furthermore, principals are not always
ruled by the right criteria. Other principals might be quicker to promote “yes
men” rather than members of the staff who have questioned policies that the
principal has set. In a religious school, a principal might give preference to
teachers who he/she considers to be sufficiently “religious” over colleagues
who are “not religious enough”. I believe that teachers deserve more
professional protection than is being offered by Ofek Chadash. The best proof
of that is the fact that there are principals who have been threatening
teachers with layoffs if they do not sign Ofek Chadash!
I do not want anyone’s pity. Just some respect. I’m a trained and experience
professional. My job requires knowledge, intelligence, sensitivity, people
skills, patience, and perseverance and a tremendous investment of effort. We
deserve to be paid fairly and not to have others constantly belittle our
profession.
Yours,
Sharon Tzur
Yours,
Sharon Tzur
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