It has been more than two years since the corona penetrated between our ranks.
The health damage will have to be treated medically, and the economic damage the state will have to minimize.
But the socio-educational-psychological damage, on the other hand, will not be repairable in the short term, and in particular the wheel will not be able to be turned back for the hundreds of thousands of students who have been injured and continue to be severely injured.
These are mainly students from the lower socio-economic class, whose parents are unable to finance regular tutoring, such as compensating them for a severe loss of content. Many elementary school students are not properly literate, and the children of the divisions have been severely damaged in the level of knowledge since the corona broke out. Every sane person sees that passive learning in zoom, given to students in its current form, is an alternative that was appropriate for a few days at the onset of the plague, and not as an immediate solution whenever there is a renewed corona wave, or when isolation due to classroom adhesion is needed. This solution must be taken off the table, because the damage it creates cannot be repaired among young children.
As alternative solutions - the numerical ratio between teacher and student should be immediately increased so that students can bridge the terrible deficits following the corona. A whole system of non-regular teaching should be developed, where teachers and students can come to school in the afternoon and evening, thus greatly diluting the number of students in classrooms. Teachers have a duty to change the passive frontal teaching method in classrooms, Practical experience of students in the open field, such as life sciences studies, which will reduce the risk of infection, increase students' motivation, improve their achievements and prepare them better for academia.
Teachers should use more guided self-learning by students in small groups.
This will reduce the amount of hours required for classroom learning and will be an excellent preparation for academic life, where much more self-discipline is required, especially in Arab society.
At the same time, the theoretical tests must be greatly reduced and the experience made academic, and not an official assessment.
Learning to zoom in on the one hand and a classroom theoretical test on the other hand are inconsistent.
The number of subjects given in the divisions should be reduced and individual reinforcements should be concentrated on, in order to reduce the terrible scarcity in preparing the student for matriculation.
The protective tests should be abolished, and the students' annual assessment should be sufficient.
Do not rely on one or two tests in such a fateful assessment of students in such a challenging time.
In conclusion, the entire educational system must come out of the box and adopt a new, refreshing and revolutionary form of thinking that will address the difficult challenges that existed before the Corona and which were doubly intensified in its wake.
As a professor at the academy, I already see signs of a decline in the level of readiness of new students in their first year, and especially those from Arab society who come straight from high school during the corona period.
This situation creates fertile ground for the massive dropout of these students from the very beginning of their academic path.
The author is the chairman of the Steering Committee for the Integration of Arabs, the Equality and Diversity Commission at Tel Aviv University
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