Agnon School

This school created tons of excitement for me towards education. I think this is because of the way it was set up.  At first when given an overview of the school by Mr. Shutkin I was unsure how I felt about it because it seemed a little informal that the students called the teachers by their first name, but then it grew on me. In the classroom, the teacher spilt the kids up based on their reading levels. The ones that had high reading levels and understood the reading better were pair together as well as the ones who needed work. Then the teacher sat them down and made a list on the board of the activities they could do in their "busy work" packet, she made the coloring project at the end because that is what the students were most excited to do. Every 10 minutes, or how every long she needed, she would work with a pair of students. She had them read aloud to her, correcting them on any errors. When they finished the reading, she would go back and ask them questions about the reading, which I thought was very effective because it helped them comprehend what was going on. This classroom was very well organized which was what I liked the most.
  Overall, this school was very well put together. I was very surprised how every student was already writing in Hebrew as only second graders. This just blew my mind, because I am a college student now and can barley write or speak in a simple language like Spanish. Also, when we had our little group at the end, and she talked about how their school was family oriented, this got me even more intrigued about the school because being a big family person, I thought that this was the best way to capture a students learning, because of these "tribes" the student would always have a friend in the school, and no one would feel left out.
   This school was very well academically structured but it only creates more questions on standardize testing for me. I am wondering if these schools are better than public schools because they don't have to teach to the test and the teachers have creativity in their lessons? Do you have any idea?