2024-04-04 19:10:07
Mr. Jakob, who has worked with children for more than one decade, has no doubts that the huge stress experienced by the eleventh graders due to mid-term examinations will affect them in the near future as well, during the matriculation exams.
In his opinion, not only the Ministry of Education, Science and Sports (МССМ) has to bear the responsibility for the chaos caused by the mid-term examinations, but it would have made the most sense to simply postpone them for at least one more year.
M. Jakob also reacted to the events of the last few days, when parents who faced terrible experiences due to teachers’ behavior spoke in public.
“As a manager and a teacher, I always respect the people in my workshop, I always say that teachers do not wish bad things for children, and if you are, you should leave,” – to the news portal lrytas.lt said the longtime educator.
Checks are needed, but not now
The mid-term examinations that began in early March for the country’s 11th graders instantly caused confusion – there was talk of disproportionately difficult and unethical tasks, and the ministry formed special commissions to evaluate them and apologized.
According to M. Jakob, the situation with intermediate inspections is very unpleasant, and it is obvious that time has run out for their successful implementation.
“For a good student and a student in general, every test, whatever it is, every assurance causes a certain stress, which is of a certain degree. Standardized tests are one stress, a simple control work is maybe a little less stress, but it lives in the minds of children, because no one wants to be a bad student and no one wants to learn badly.
My opinion is that the tests that our eleventh graders are now undergoing should have been prepared with much more responsibility. Blaming everything on the Ministry of Education and the Minister – yes, it’s always a headache, but I wouldn’t think that the Ministry alone is to blame here. The responsibility that we were not successful in these inspections also falls on the heads of schools, although they are the least to blame, and on the Ministry of Education and Culture, and on the NŠA.
In what proportions this responsibility should be shared, I am no longer a prosecutor and I cannot say. But it was necessary to prepare thoroughly, because this is not a test or a standardized test, which we have had for many years – there is something new here. And when something new happens, something unexpected also happens,” thought the pedagogue.
According to M. Jakob, perhaps in this case pilot projects in schools would have been useful, and the intermediate inspections themselves could have started, for example, in the next school year.
“We haven’t done it for 30 years – well, 30 would be plus 1. Nothing would have happened,” he is confident.
It is true, according to the former director of Sholom Aleichem ORT Gymnasium, intermediate inspections are indeed necessary, but due to hasty decisions, we now have an unenviable situation – students may no longer believe in the education system.
“We have put our eleventh graders through a lot of stress and experiences, and I don’t know how to talk to them here now. I hear that the results of physics and mathematics tests will be revised, the results will be raised by one point or another – this generally brings distrust to the education system. It is not solid.
I understand that mistakes have been made and it is necessary to atone for them somehow, but in this case the prestige of the education system in the eyes of our students has fallen. Maybe I’m thinking too boldly, but maybe it was necessary to annul those results altogether, to stop all checks. I think it would have been better than now we will review it here, we will call commissions – such confusion. And confusion should be avoided when teaching children.
I truly feel very sincerely for the eleventh graders, because I remember – when I left school, they were in the seventh grade, I remember a lot of them because my signature was put on the contracts, so I am going through a lot because of their fates and I feel sorry for those children. When children are stressed, we adults should also be in pain,” M. Jakob admitted.
The pedagogue also had no doubt that the anxiety caused by mid-term examinations will negatively affect young people in the future as well, when state matriculation exams are held.
“We are all sensitive people. Of course, life makes its own corrections, but I’m pretty sure that graduates can be restless. Mistakes should be avoided at all costs.
In general, the school is a living organism – maybe you missed some part of the course, maybe the teachers were sick, didn’t have time to emphasize one or another area? When everything is alive, it changes very quickly – you should also think about this more seriously.
Children’s destinies are no laughing matter, and children’s destinies are being decided now. Everyone wants to pass the exams, everyone has their own dreams, and now we may be narrowing down those dreams a little bit”, thought M. Jakob.
Urges schools to respond to signals
M. Jakob, who headed the Šolom Aleichem ORT Gymnasium in Vilnius for three decades, responded to the even more painful current issues of education today. Recently, the mother of a teenager shared the news on Facebook that her son committed suicide after being pressured and bullied by his teachers.
Portal lrytas.lt also wrote about the fact that an eleventh-grader who spoke loudly about the emotional difficulties of schoolchildren received condemnation and painful retorts from some teachers.
However, the teacher who regrets such situations tends not to take on the role of judge – in his opinion, such accidents happen for several fundamental reasons. One of them, according to M. Jakob, is the extremely negative emotional background in our country.
“We see the consequences, we hold our heads when we see them, we moan, we live, everyone has their own opinion – some will be for the students, others will be for the teachers, the third will be for the parents – but where are the reasons? Look at the environment we live in recently – television, all the press, all the politicians are screaming about threats, about the coming war. It also affects us, the experienced, older people.
What can we talk about the youth – after all, they hear and listen to what their parents and relatives say. I would think that one of the reasons for such rising aggression is that it has become very uneasy to live in our environment. People are being killed very close by, terrible shots reach us from Gaza and Ukraine, from various parts of the world – this affects us,” M. Jakob thought.
According to the long-time pedagogue, such disasters should signal to schools that it is not possible to ignore the sad faces of schoolchildren and their problems, it is important to improve mutual communication and strengthen community ties.
“You can be a judge, but in order to be a good judge you need to examine both sides, how it was there, why it happened, so I wouldn’t really dare to make an accusation. As a leader and a teacher, I always respect the people in my workshop, I always say that teachers do not wish bad things to children, and if you do, you should leave.
Looking at all this from a human perspective, I am very sorry and very wrong that our teachers behave like this. I understand that their work is difficult, but that is what you are a teacher for, to understand what the children want from you, and not to make any tactical or strategic mistakes.
I am very sorry that this happens, that the parents are going through a lot, but here everything depends on the climate inside the educational institution, whether it is talked about, whether it is worked with teachers and children. It is talked about, but, in my opinion, it is not talked about enough”, explained M. Jakob.
According to the interlocutor, if the situation continues like this, serious accidents in schools may increase.
“We have all become so authoritarian, we don’t ask our colleagues how you feel and what I can do to help, we don’t communicate with children and see their sad faces, we don’t ask who, why, for what.
Such things are missing, and when there is no communication, simple human understanding, such painful events happen. I think the school community here should pay attention to this, because more and more such cases, such unpleasant events can happen”, predicted M. Jakob.
2024-04-04 19:10:07