In Which English in Israeli Schools is "On the Face"...

REVIEW CHECKPOINT (20 points):

QUESTION ONE:
Who said knowledge is power?

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(10 points if you said Sir Francis Bacon. Go to the top of the class.)

QUESTION TWO:
And who said that with great power comes great responsibility?

...

(Uncle Ben to Spiderman? A further 10 points. Well done. My star student.)

BONUS QUESTION (100 points):
Assuming, then, that these two statements are true, what can we deduce?

...

Yes. You are correct. With great KNOWLEDGE comes great RESPONSIBILITY.

It's true. It's not my claim, it's basic math (if you're thinking transitive property at this point, you'll get an extra bonus. I'm a very generous teacher).

We're in the month of November. I am currently a little over two months into my educational journey. As is the natural way of things, it is impossible to spend such an amount of time somewhere without learning anything. The sixty day milestone behind me, however, I am now faced with a much bigger concern.

So my eyes are further opened than they were when I began. My education system toolbox is no longer lying empty, gathering dust in the far reaches of my subconscious. I am on almost even footing (at least as far as the students are concerned) with my colleagues in the educational hierarchy -- even to the point of saving a lesson at the last minute by buying a pack of paper cups on my way to school, an admittedly unusual (and cryptic, I know) skill that I was certainly not capable of at the beginning.

Am I in a better place than I was?

On the one hand, things ARE improving. There is no doubt about it. It is not physically possible to stand up in a classroom, in front of the same groups of students, every day for two months, without the students being forced to see you as something of an authority figure. Even if they have no respect for you whatsoever, the system is designed to keep you in a place of power -- at least as far as you're able to realize it -- in front of your students.

I am finding that I am spurred on by small successes. As far as I'm concerned, a minuscule success with a specific student -- even at the basic level of his showing up to class and taking out a notebook, assuming of course that this was not the case beforehand -- is worth the ten disappointments and hardships that I experience in a comparable block of time. That particular light has not gone out of my eyes, for which I am very grateful (and, for that matter, of which I am quite proud). As a self-affirming exercise, I will even share two specific cases with you (lulling you into a sense of calm and security -- which happens to be another skill that I need to practice, with qualifying exams in the not-so-distant future):

One of my students, a problematic child in the 7th grade, has a great deal of issues at school. First of all, he has a whole host of learning disabilities; after a great deal of psychological testing, it was determined that he needs extra time on exams, he needs someone to read them to him, dictionary usage... to name but three. Furthermore, he suffers from a handful of social disorders and behavioral problems. As the self-appointed class clown, he prefers to do things that will make his friends laugh, even at the cost of his own academic standing; punishments are meaningless, parental involvement is not a threat, teachers' opinions of him are bouncing off the bottom of his list of priorities... as long as his friends see him as "cool." Not a day goes by when I don't hear from some teacher "he doesn't work; he doesn't bring his stuff to school; he fought with so and so in class; he plays on his phone the whole period; he's a HUGE PROBLEM IN CLASS." And I cannot refute any of these statements; this child sits in my English class and behaves in the same fashion. So how do I reach him?

Last week, as a present simple exercise, I led the first half of the lesson as normal... standing in front of the class, writing on the board, shushing the troublemakers, and so on. I then announced to the class that we were leaving the room -- I told everyone to take a chair, follow me out, and set them up in a circle in the lobby. We proceeded to play "A cold wind blows..." using only phrases in the present simple. (For those of you who are not familiar with the game, it is as follows: there is one less chair than there are people. The chairless person stands in the middle of the circle, and says, for example, "a cold wind blows on anyone who eats breakfast in the morning"... anyone who does in fact eat breakfast in the morning then has to rise and find a new seat. There is always someone left over standing in the middle who then makes up a new sentence.)

At one point, the student in question found himself in the center of the circle. Panic stricken, he looked at me for help. Slowly and deliberately, I said each word that he needed to say and he repeated it after me (with about 70% accuracy), while the class tittered behind him. Once he had completed the sentence, the class jumped up and searched for new seats, myself among them. As I was busy participating in the game, it wasn't until relatively late into the process that, seated, I looked up at the center of the circle and noticed my student ambling aimlessly around the circle, making no attempt to find a seat. A few moments later, when the chaos had died down and he was once again in the center, he looked at me with big, obvious eyes and said "oh... was I supposed to sit down?"

I smiled at him and said yes (amid the cries of "duh, idiot" that followed his statement, all of which he pointedly ignored), and once again slowly began a sentence in the present simple for him to repeat after me. Again, he struggled but emitted something that resembled an accurate sentence, and the class jumped into a flurry of frantic activity, students giggling and trying to find seats. This time I watched the perpetrator, however; while the whirlwind was going on around him, he stood in the middle and stared, unmoving, at an empty seat in front of him, until it was nabbed by a wayward student who collapsed in the chair and gave a sigh of relief. The former then dropped into a seated position on the floor, legs crossed, looked at me and said "oh... in a CHAIR?"

He ended up in the center of the circle a total of four times until I gently convinced him to sit down and let someone else have a turn. After class, I took him aside and told him how proud I was of him for participating in class that day, to which he responded "yeah, it was fun. And tell my parents I was good today."

--

The second tale I will share with you is that of an 11th grader and his vocabulary quiz.

My weakest class, in the eleventh grade, is preparing for matriculation exams in January. At this point, it is unrealistic to expect that I can actually teach them English by then, considering we spent the first class day on the ABCs, so I do the best I can and try to quash the perfectionist inside me who is trying so desperately to be heard. Some days we focus on reading practice, some days on listening, and some days on writing. On the day in question, we had worked with a text, practicing reading. When one hones reading skills, vocabulary enrichment is a natural side effect. I decided, therefore, to give them a vocabulary quiz.

I announced this fact in class, prepared them, did exercises... and then showed up to the next class with the quiz (all of ten words, in the context of the passage that they were already familiar with). What should have been a ten minute quiz ended up taking the whole lesson, and I found myself looking out at a sea of discouraged students, most of whom were staring blankly at the half sheet of paper in front of them, desperately clicking their pens on and off in what was perhaps an attempt to snap the answers back into their heads.

Once I had collected them all, I decided to obey the mercy rule. I told my class that I would count what they had done as classwork, that we would review the vocab in the next lesson, and then retake the quiz. Which is exactly what we did.

While the quiz (take two) was going on, the next day, I happened to glance over at one of my students. Backpack on the table beside his quiz, he was bent over his work, busily writing. As I watched, he lifted the backpack slightly, peered underneath it, put it back down, and resumed his writing.

I was very weary. It is written in the school handbook that any student caught cheating must be dealt with -- first and foremost by an immediate zero on the work in question, and secondly through his mechanech/parents/the principal.

Now, there is a facet of the educational system that I find confusing. Any student who misbehaves must not, according to my TFI mentor, be allowed to sit in my class under any circumstances. Now, I know that logically speaking, the ones who act out, cheat, or otherwise disrupt class are the ones who, generally speaking, are farthest behind in the didactic process, and the ones who most need the lesson. So, what is the use in removing them? Not that I don't do this ever, but it seems backwards to me.

I didn't want to take action. The class had caused problems all day and I was tired of it.

I walked up to my misguided student.

Me: "What are you doing?"
Him: "Umm... taking the quiz..."
Me: "Mhm. And what is under your backpack?"

Silence. A stricken look. A pair of eyes waiting for the axe to fall.

Me: "How about I bring you a blank quiz and we start over?"

I cannot describe the relief that flooded across his face. "Yes, yes, of course" was all he managed to say, but his expression said so much more. I gathered up the half-completed quiz and the fully corrected one from under the backpack and brought them to my desk; he removed his bag from the table without being told, sat quietly in the corner and didn't open his mouth until he was finished working.

At the end of class, he brought me his quiz. As he handed it to me, he said "Shani... I am so embarrassed that I did that. I promise you, it was not in my nature and it will never happen again. I really like and respect you and will work well from now on. You'll see."

It's not always 100% true, but now a glance at him is all it takes to get him to settle down and start writing. A monumental success as far as I'm concerned. As well as the fact that he does not attempt to cheat at any point during my class!

--

Are we feeling fuzzy? How lovely. But don't get too comfortable.

My main grief with the Israeli school system, I am discovering, is its inherent lack of organization.

Now, it's not that I am the world's most organized human being. Far from it. Send me on a scavenger hunt in my own bedroom and I will yield very mediocre results. But even I am appalled at what goes on in my school.

Exhibit A: 11th grade Tafnit, a little over a week ago.

Now, as a reminder, Tafnit is the program in my school that houses the weakest students, with the most emotional, academic and behavioral problems. It is designed to gear exclusively towards qualifying exams, meaning that the goal here is not to learn, but to get a reasonable grade. Attendance, therefore, is crucial (if frequently overlooked), and the group dynamic is very important, as learning otherwise becomes very difficult.

Imagine my surprise, then, a little over a week ago, when I was preparing for class, and two unfamiliar faces showed up at the door.

"Shani?" they asked.
"Yes?" I replied.
"Hi. We're taking the Module B exam and are supposed to be in your class."

Now, I remind you that we are over two months into the start of the year. The exams are in January -- meaning that half of the prep time had gone by before I was aware of the existence of these two students. I told them to come in and sit down, handed them the worksheets and included them in my lesson. Then, at the sound of the bell, I gathered my belongings and stormed off to the Tafnit office to speak with their mechanchim.

Me: "Are you aware that two students showed up TODAY and informed me that they were supposed to be in my class??"
My colleague (serenely): "Oh? Who?"
Me: (Their names.)
Him (checking his records): "Oh, yes. They are supposed to study with you."
Me: "Are there any more students I should know about?"
Him: "No, no, of course not, but we'll check it out right now."

Now, the lists of students I was sending to exams had already been turned in to the ministry of education -- a list that I had checked, double checked, and triple checked just that morning in the secretary's office against the list of students that I had in my grade book. Since the exam is divided into modules, I had intended to meet with this particular colleague anyway to find out which student needed which part of the exam, but they did not need to sign up for those in advance. It was imperative, however, that the students themselves be registered for the exams in general!

I opened my grade book and added the two wayward students who had made me aware of their existence that afternoon, making a mental note to talk to my coordinator asap to get them added to the official exam list, and hoping that nobody would freak out that two students had been overlooked. Then, I read off my students one by one. The other teachers confirmed that my information was correct. When I was finished, my colleague looked up at me. "What about Moshe?" he asked.

Me: "Pardon?"
Him: "My student, Moshe. He needs Module B. Doesn't he sit in your class?"
Me: "No..."
Him: "Yeah, Moshe... and Danit, and Zuri, and Stav..."
Me: "Where on earth have these students been all this time?!"
Him: "I guess they haven't been coming to class. I'll make sure they come next time."
Me: "So, who's been teaching them English and preparing them for exams?"
Him: "They haven't been learning English yet this year. But don't worry."

Don't worry.

I walked out of that office with six students more than I had had that morning. Six more extremely weak students, with learning disabilities, behavioral problems, and broken homes. My class size was increased by 25%. And I was left with the task of mainstreaming six students who had not touched an English book since last June into my classroom.

Don't worry...

The good news is, my coordinator hit the roof and laid to rest my worst fears -- she confirmed that this situation was, in fact, NOT MY FAULT. And took care of adding the students to my list. Now all I need to worry about is their academic situations and behavior in my class. In other words, the usual.

How very refreshing that is.

I won't bore you all with the details of every hiccup experienced in the school, but as I have given the high school a great deal of time in the spotlight, I will venture briefly to the middle school before I sign off.

Over the past few days, I have had to deal with one case of violence after another -- violence towards my students (those that I am in charge of, in my chinuch class), violence on the part of my students... basically, a lot of violence involving my students.

To name a few: there is the student who was ambushed by three of my kids, as well as a few from other classes, and kicked and beaten mercilessly when he went out of class for a drink of water; there is the girl who was sitting and playing on her tablet during a recess when another student of mine (plus some others from other classes, again) dumped the class trash can on her head and kicked her -- after which a circle formed around her, and she was kicked around it until the teacher on duty came in and broke it up; and the student of mine who, in a fit of teenage venom pushed another girl into the street in front of a passing (and thankfully vigilant) vehicle, who swerved abruptly out of the way to avoid hitting her. Yes, these acts all happened, and all involved my twelve-year-olds.

The same student, by the way, who pushed her friend into the street was caught the very next day roaming around a different school in the district and causing a ruckus, after which she showed up to OUR school two hours late and told her teacher that the reason she was late was because she wasn't feeling well and had just gotten to school (without a doctor's note, a parents' note, or any other kind of note authorizing her tardiness)... upon inquiry, it turned out that her mother had intentionally taken her to the wrong school so she could hand out invitations to her bat mitzvah. So nice to have the parents on my side.

There is a great deal more I could say... about the nightmare that is the tablets (not to mention the fact that Eric Cohen Books, the main English book publishing corporation in Israel, refuses to cooperate and none of the kids have had English books since the beginning of the year and may never get them), about the high percentage of students who turn in blank exams; about the fact that I can't keep up with all of the misdoings and issues surrounding my groups of students... but we must leave some of the fun for next time...

Anyway, on this note.... I would just like to say that my feelings about the events at my school can be summed up in a simple phrase, one that I will steal from a post-exam student of mine: in Hebrew, we have a slang phrase, על הפנים, meaning that things are in a dismal state. This student of mine, after I asked him how the exam went, tried to be clever and translate it into English to impress me.

How am I doing at my job thus far, and what is the progress from a pedagogical standpoint?

To quote my student, it is "on the face."

His next exam is on Wednesday. Yeah, this is going to work.