On our sixth day, Shabbat, we got in our minibus and headed north to Nazareth. There we visited the St. Joseph Nuns High School, and stepped into a tenth grade computer science course. The students were actively at work on their projects - primarily Access-based databases which they designed. Almost as soon as we entered the classroom we were invited to wander around and speak with the students, which is (of course) precisely what we did.
We were very impressed with what we saw (and heard). The students did a very good job of explaining themselves, and were very rightly proud of their work which was rich both in the "computer science" backbone, but also, because each student built a site/database around an issue that interested him or her, in personal expression.
After wandering around the classroom for a while, we sat down for a group discussion in which our host (and the teacher), Walid Khalifa, asked some of the students to show us, and explain, their work.
They did this well, and in excellent English. There wasn't much collaborative use of the computer in this class, but we certainly got the impression that there was lots of learning, and the atmosphere was open and very pleasant.
We then moved to the teachers room where we held a short discussion with Walid and other teachers about what we'd seen.
They informed us that the school has a reputation as one of the best schools in the country, and we responded that from what we saw in our short visit that reputation seems to be very well earned.
We were very impressed with what we saw (and heard). The students did a very good job of explaining themselves, and were very rightly proud of their work which was rich both in the "computer science" backbone, but also, because each student built a site/database around an issue that interested him or her, in personal expression.
After wandering around the classroom for a while, we sat down for a group discussion in which our host (and the teacher), Walid Khalifa, asked some of the students to show us, and explain, their work.
They did this well, and in excellent English. There wasn't much collaborative use of the computer in this class, but we certainly got the impression that there was lots of learning, and the atmosphere was open and very pleasant.
We then moved to the teachers room where we held a short discussion with Walid and other teachers about what we'd seen.
They informed us that the school has a reputation as one of the best schools in the country, and we responded that from what we saw in our short visit that reputation seems to be very well earned.
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