"On the face."

Thursday, September 3, 2009
“On the face,” my barber, Itsik HaKatan, Little Isaac, translated a very common Hebrew saying, which loosely means, “It sucks.” He was trying to sound sophisticated by showing me his level of English. Little did he know how silly he sounded?
Itsik is not silly. In fact, 13 years ago, it was in Itsik’s barber’s chair that I decided to take up my grandfather’s offer to come back to the States and help him deal with his businesses while he fights Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, the diseases that eventually killed him. Itsik said that if I stayed in Israel, I would be spinning my wheels and not reaching my potential. He reminded me that America excels in many ways, and that I have a unique opportunity to benefit from what my country has to offer. One of those areas of excellence is education, even if I struggle with the government’s education policies.

This week my kids started school for their first time in Israel and neither Irit nor I can recall the details of our own Israeli education enough to instruct ourselves about the nuances of this challenge. Irit did all of her schooling here and I went to agricultural high school. I didn’t come back to Israel with high expectations for my kids’ formal education, but I knew the supplement of life experience would be well worth the loss in the classroom. In education circles, this is referred to as non-formal education or life lessons.

My son, Itamar, came home from his first day of school and had what we call in America a play date. It was very refreshing to not have to stand face to face with another parent, or on the phone, and pull out calendars and schedule time for the kids to play. When Itamar came home from school, he said his friend’s mom would be calling and we need to get the two of them together. Life lesson number one: Over scheduling is bad and leaves no room for spontaneity. In Israel, my kids will learn to take charge of their own free time and plan it in ways that give them fulfillment.

My eldest, Maya, started high school. Wow! And I mean wow! on many levels. Wow! I have a kid in high school. How can that be when I’m still a 20 something? Wow! My daughter is following in my footsteps and coming from America to study in an Israeli high school. Wow!

I must say, speaking with my doctor of education hat on, I am not thrilled about the Israeli education system. When we went to the high school to meet the advisor and principal, I asked what makes this school special. He said that all Israeli schools teach toward the bagrut, the Israeli matriculation tests. Ugggh. In essence, Israel has decided that education is something concrete that can be passed from one generation to another. Students don’t learn to think. They learn to know, which, I’m sure if I opened up my Merriam-Webster dictionary would fit better under the definition of indoctrination. Of course, in America we call this, “No child left behind.”
I will have to work hard to deal with life lesson number two: currently, school is not the place where knowledge is constructed. I will need to expose my kids to the richness of Israeli society outside of the classroom. This reminds me of high school when my older friends came back from the first Lebanon War and told me that everything I was learning in school was a lie. We were all programmed that our country, Israel, does no wrong, and they had just returned from Israel’s Vietnam.
In school, my daughter will learn about her obligation to serve her country in the Israel Defense Forces, but she won’t be taught to think critically about the amount of IDF resources wasted occupying the Palestinians in the West Bank. She’ll be taught that we consider 1948 the year of our independence, but she won’t be taught that that same year is considered a major catastrophe for the indigenous Palestinians who lived here. She’ll be taught about her Jewish heritage, but it will seem like a museum exhibit in the context of modern, secular Israel.
Life lesson number three: Think critically and challenge authority.
My daughter Sahar and son Itamar are going to a school wear they are forced to wear uniforms. It’s really not so bad, just a t-shirt with the school logo and it comes in many colors. But Sahar didn’t like it and was upset that she has to wear a uniform. I told her not to wear it, but she’s afraid of making a spectacle of herself, so today I bought her some materials to personalize the shirt. Sahar is very creative, so she should have fun with it, if I can get her to go along with the rebellion. I told her about one of my approaches to authority, “better to ask forgiveness than permission.” I qualified it by adding, “from people other than your parents.” I know it is a delicate balance, but she will need to learn to not accept the world as it is and to make it the way she thinks is right (as long as she doesn’t hurt anyone).