Last night I didn’t sleep well, I felt under pressure, anxious, unsettled. This morning two of my teacher-education courses opened online. As I tossed and turned in bed, I thought about the two groups of students I would meet for the first time on my screen today. I wondered how many would find the link to the Zoom session, how many would win their battles with the internet infrastructure in the regional areas of northern Israel. I wondered how many would be preoccupied with the current financial, social and health problems connected to the pandemic. I tried to imagine myself beginning a new academic year as a student in today’s…
-
-
Relationship-Rich Education
This morning I listened to a recent podcast on the Teaching in Higher Ed Podcast called “Relationship-rich education”. Bonni Stachowiak talked with Peter Felten and Leo Lambert about their new book: Relationship-rich education: How human connections drive success in college, due to be released soon. Felten and Lambert have both worked in significant roles in which they encourage institutions of higher education to adopt practices focused on developing a sense of community and fostering mentoring as an institutional goal. I have read widely on relational education and consider myself a relational educator, but the term ‘relationship-rich’ was new to me. The way the speakers described the concept makes it clear…
-
Literacy Lockdown
Yesterday in the late afternoon, I received a request from the Oranim College spokesperson, asking me to write a short response to the Ministry of Education decision to place all grade one reading instruction on hold until schools reopen. The decision followed the widespread discussion in the media on the effectiveness of online reading instruction at the beginning of grade one. A news reporter from the top Israeli newspaper asked for the response and needed it very quickly. I sat down and spent an hour crafting a paragraph stating my opinion on the topic. Unfortunately, this morning I received an apology that they shortened the article, and that they cut out my response. While…
-
Attending to the needs of (first-year) students
This morning I discovered the work of Sheila MacNeill through the Teaching in Higher Ed Podcast and her blog, HOWSHEILASEESIT. Many issues were raised in the podcast entitled Time, Space, and Place and in the blog post entitled “The upside down and in-between: the uncertainity of where I am right now”. One of the topics that the two pieces share is the concern for all higher education students, and new students, first-year students in particular. In the podcast, Sheila explained: I think this whole notion of being a student and being a lecturer, actually just being at university or college just now, it’s changing… this goes back to time, I…
-
New Start: Saying Goodbye
This is a year of new beginnings for me, even if some of those beginnings involve renewing old interests and activities. This year I will be holding on to some old strings and letting go of others. Almost a month ago I said goodbye to the Ofakim primary school which had been my second home, an additional family, for over thirty years. Ofakim was more than a workplace for me, it was a source of learning, growth, friendship and self-fulfilment. I chose to part from my students and my colleagues; I knew it was time to say ‘farewell’. I arrived at the Ofakim school, thirty years ago, when they called…
