So I’ve recently been enlightened to a phenomenon here.
Apparently School does not necessarily imply learning.
Now you might look at this as a complete generalization, and
I’m sure that any teacher or professor here in Israel would have a word with me
(whether I like it or not, as is the Israeli way), but from talking to my
Israeli 20-something aged friends about college, this seems to be a consensus.
I am currently in finals season– I had a final today, I have
one on Thursday, and then I have a few weeks off before two more finals in
February. So, as I’ve done for the past X number of years, I’ve gone into study
mode: constant tea in my thermos, snacks in my backpack, and hours in my office
at my computer going over power point presentations.
After spending too much time trying to figure out a problem
set from Groundwater Hydrology, I go to my friend Imri’s apartment and start to
complain – I haven’t learned anything this semester, the professor doesn’t
explain the concepts well enough, there are no office hours to ask questions,
etc, etc, blah blah blah. My other friend Sivan is also there and just
blatantly says, “But he’s the best teacher I have.” Wow. Holy moley. And it’s
true – my GW Hydrology course is often a favorite when polling Hydrology
students on best classes to take.
For those of you who know my academic background – that I do
not have a degree in engineering or geology, or something that would have given
me the basis for learning Groundwater Hydrology – you might be thinking that it
is unfair of me to blame my lack of understanding on the professor. But get this:
Apparently Israeli students (at the college level) are so
used to having bad teachers., that they have created a strategy to still get by
with good grades. My friends Almog and Eyal informed me that they don’t
actually learn all the material – they just do the practice problems and
memorize how to find the answer. And that’s it! Ze o!
For my exam on Thursday – Contaminant Hydrology – Eyal
called me tonight to ask if I was studying. I said yes, and that I was going
through each lecture, writing down notes, re-learning material, and then
planned to do the practice problems. Eyal said, no no, you don’t have to read
the lectures. I have a few tests from previous years that you can practice. I
told him that this was sometimes illegal in the states, and often Professor’s
make a point to recollect tests after they are handed out so that they cannot
be passed on. “Welcome to Israel,” Eyal said as he handed me a photocopy of the
only test he had with questions in English.
So there you have it. School here, does not seem to actually
mean learning material, but rather learning a strategy.
