Tuesday, January 09, 2007

sleeping in class

Cross-posted on my alumni website's forum.

I was talking to my sister recently about some of the rules in her high school and one of them reminded me of a rule that we had in one class that I still do not understand.

Navi class, 11th grade. If you sleep in class you lose a grade on your report card. You can do very well on the tests, by studying for them and reading other people's notes. If the class is so easy for certain students, that they can understand the material without listening in class they should be moved up to a higher level where effort would be required, not penalized.

This is something that students wouldn't even think about. As a student, it would have never occurred to me to ask to be put in a harder class. Now that I am thinking about this rule in retrospect, I think it is something the yeshiva should have offered and recommended to students who sleep in class and still get good grades.

Even if there wasn't a higher level navi class, it could be monitored beis medrash time to learn navi on your own with more difficult tests. Or navi with a beis medrash chavrussa, etc..

This is my constructive criticism, 15 years too late.

Any comments?

5 comments:

DAG said...
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DAG said...

IF you presume the sleeping is related to the student's ability

rockofgalilee said...

I did specifically mention doing well on tests. If you sleep in class and do lousy, there is no need for an extra punishment of taking off a grade.

Just Shu said...

I had some classes that I looked forward to because I knew I could get a nice nap in. I don't think I would have tried for a harder class, because odds are I would ave fallen asleep in those as well, so what good would that do.

rockofgalilee said...

This might be why it took 15 years to come up with the suggestion. From the school's perspective it is a better alternative.

Also, if you had gotten punished for sleeping in an easy A class, you would be upset.