My Thoughts on Class Size

I teach in a small special high school for students with learning disabilities.

Unlike "regular" schools, I teach classes with 6-10 students.I have been working there since I began teaching 4 years ago and I can't imagine myself teaching classes with 30-40 students. In each of my four classes there are students with a wide range of disabilities – dyslexia, dysgraphia, ADD, students on the autism spectrum etc.These students have experienced failures in different schools and for some of them we are the last option to succeed in the educational system.I teach classes which are tested for 4-5 points "bagrut" and these students usually do very well in their exams.Teaching these students is very challenging yet very rewarding.

I want to focus a bit on the class sizes. Small classes enable us to help every student, teach each of them "according to his/her way", and see them and their difficulties.

I look around and see my friends who are teaching huge classes and my kids who are studying in these type of classes and think that it is wrong in so many ways. There is no way that a teacher can see the student as an individual while there are 35 or 40 faces in front of her. My daughter tells me that some of the teachers don’t even remember her name at the end of the year. That is so sad!!

I think that a reasonable class size is a basic condition for teaching and learning effectively. Furthermore, I believe that every child is entitled to be seen.In my opinion, limiting the classroom size to 20-25 students is the first thing that should be done in the Israeli school system.