[etni] Re: new English teachers
- From: Sandra Yosef-Hassidim <hassidim@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: bnirenberg@xxxxxxxxx, shlayer@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2009 10:16:08 -0800 (PST)
Bari-I have been teaching for 12 years and I am not making NEAR 9000 a month.4
teachers in our staff are probably going to leave at the end of the year-guess
why. The ministry is running in the wrong direction!
________________________________
From: Bari Nirenberg <bnirenberg@xxxxxxxxx>
To: shlayer@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: etni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Saturday, February 21, 2009 7:16:29 PM
Subject: [etni] Re: new English teachers
Although I understand the outrage over people who aren't "really" teachers
being paid more than a beginning teacher, I also think we need to put things
into perspective.
First of all, two articles in two different editions of the same newspaper
seemed to have some trouble with the facts. How do we know how many other
details were inaccurate?
Second, there IS a shortage of English teachers. I haven't heard any
realistic suggestions on how to bring more English teachers into the
system. Those good teachers who left teaching didn't do so because they
wanted a NIS 9000 salary -- assuming this is the gross salary, it's not that
much more than a lot of teachers already make and it's certainly not enough
to lure someone away from teaching.
I'm also having some trouble with some of the arguments presented on the
list:
I take pride in my knowledge
> and skills and it took me a long time to develop and accumulate them
> through
> hard work and experience.
Exactly -- through hard work and experience. The only way to get experience
is to teach. I've learned much more from teaching than I learned from
studying. So if the bulk of our knowledge comes from actually teaching,
what difference does it make how long the training course is?
> How can it be possible to "train" someone who
> never thought of going into teaching in the first place, to suddenly become
> a teacher in six months. Will they learn all about second language
> acquisition, applied linguistics, methodology, not to mention the
> psychology
> of the adolescent, the philosophy of education etc etc.in this short time?
My BA is not in education. I got an MA in TESOL from Columbia University
Teachers College in one year (including the summer). Although I did study
second language acquisition, methodology and some applied linguistics, I
never took a single course in the psychology of the adolescent or the
philosophy of education. I wasn't required to take courses in class
management or literature, either. I WAS required to take a bunch of courses
that didn't help me much as a teacher. I'm willing to bet that all I needed
to know I could have learned in six months of intensive study. In fact,
when you take semester breaks into consideration, my "one year" really
wasn't much more than six months and I managed to get a master's degree in
that time. How can we comment on the course of study when we haven't seen
the curriculum?
>
>
> If you did your four years at Oranim or Gordon or any other college aren't
> you good enough?
Maybe (and maybe not), but if there were enough people like this, then there
wouldn't be a shortage of English teachers.
Again, I understand why people are upset that these new teachers will be
paid more than new teachers who are graduates of education colleges.
However, I also understand the money incentive. The government is trying to
solve two problems at once -- increase the number of English teachers and
decrease the number of unemployed people. If they don't offer a high enough
salary, these unemployed people, who are used to earning a whole lot more
than NIS 9000 a month, will prefer to continue receiving unemployment
benefits.
The entire education system is in a sorry state in this country -- it's not
just English teachers who are underpaid, overworked and unappreciated.
English teachers leave the system more than others perhaps because their
English skills make it easier for them to find jobs in the private sector.
Education is obviously not the highest priority of our government and the
chances of any significant increase in our salaries or improvement in our
working conditions any time in the near future are slim. I'm not outraged
over the fact that these former high-tech people will receive higher
salaries than other new teachers -- it's the fact that our salaries are so
low to begin with that's outrageous.
Bari
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