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6.01.2009

Stretching the truth in advertising

I'm sure that this apartment is lovely and the location is great. However, saying that Mekor Haim St. is in Baka is like saying that 120th St. is on the Upper West Side. Close, but no cigar.

Also, I don't know if this is stretching the truth exactly, but I would not advertise myself as a Technion grad if I could only tutor math at a junior high/middle school level. If you're going to tout the fancy smarty-pants school, it should be because you feel you can tutor high school and university students. At least high school!


And here is the Hebrew:

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Comments:
When I read the first bit, I thought, "Mekor Haim must be in Talpiot or Arnona, kind of like people talk about 'North Bethesda'." I guess I was wrong!

And, judging generously, perhaps the tutor is advertising a willingness to tutor that most obnoxious age of child, the middle school student. (Yeah, that's a stretch.)
 
A more charitable read of the light post advertiser just occurred to me:

Junior high students are worried about getting into good high schools, which I think requires doing well in all subjects. This is the time of year when they are likely to worry. So it makes sense to advertise to that grade level. Maybe high school students who don't "major" in math don't care that much about doing well, as long as they can pass enough bagruyot to graduate. (Bagruyot are exams taken at the end of high school, I think like A-levels in the UK in that you take harder tests in the subjects that you major in.)
 
It might also be that the post advertiser knew high school and university level math perfectly well, but was a specialist specifically in teaching math to junior high students, perhaps had taken a course in just that topic at the Technion? Nah, I'm probably kidding myself. But people should think that way. Knowing math at a certain level does not mean that you are competent at teaching it (as we both know).
 
Nice idea, but I think if s/he had been specifically trained to teach middle-schoolers, s/he would have mentioned that fact. Perhaps in place of "every student successful," which is, well, clearly not true. Would have been more reasonable to say "every student improves." Unless the definition of success is improvement, in which case I retract my objection.
 
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