Education in Sderot
The Train is Flying Off the Cliff
by Jerry Waxman
After nearly two years of looking for a job, sending resumes, going to inteviews and doing demonstration lessons, I have finally gotten to work for money. As a substitute teacher. Teaching English. My specialty.
I am not elated.
In my first class, a boy who was late for tefilla sits in the front desk, tefillin on his head and arm, wrapped in a talit, and uttering the final passages of Shachrit. When he is finished some ten minutes later, he immediately goes outside the classroom, and meanders back in once or twice during the rest of the hour. Later I learn that this is the boy's daily modus operandus.
At least he goes outside the class. Others come into the class shouting, and the noise level never subsides for more than a few seconds. They sit in desks toward the back and play cards or they play with their cell phones. They bring sandwiches and drinks and toys, and are completely oblivious to the fact that a teacher is in the class with them. Nor would it help much if they did notice. They show more respect for cartoon mice than they do for teachers, no less a substitute teacher.
Sderot's schools are probably not much different from others. When I visited a high school in Jerusalem, I watched an English teacher use the majority of her time trying to discipline students. It was a very nice high school with a modern building and materials for teaching and learning, which is much different from what we find in Sderot. Yet the teachers and students in the Jerusalem school made no better use of time than their counterparts in Sderot.
The security guard at the school told me, "In Israel, there is no education."
He is not the first person to say this. I guess it took a couple days of entering littered classrooms, being shouted at by students, breaking up fights - or trying to, and watching all my preparations getting trashed before I fully understood what the security guard meant.
The teaching methods fit the curriculum. And the curriculum fits the attitude of whoever devised this system. In teaching English, for example, there is no emphasis on acquiring the language. The students are trained from early on that the goal is to pass a national test, not learn anything useful, Their textbooks are designed with this objective in mind. Hence teachers are discouraged from actual teaching, and follow the textbooks when they can, when they are not having to deal with discipline.
The lack of self-respect, not to mention lack of respect for other people, is symptomatic of a deeper problem in Israel. When so many people and national leaders in Israel are willing to relinquish land to the Palestinian leaders under the pretense of peace, it is no wonder that the youth see no future here. Why shouldn't they shout at teachers, and completely disregard all authority? When Israel's leaders don't value the students' futures, why should the students respect them?
The teachers also seem resigned to the notion that "There is nothing we can do about it." Perhaps it is safer for teachers who want to keep their jobs to believe this. But in the long-run, it is harming Israel. The problems in the schools have been going on for decades. These same youth who trash handouts and bring food to class today are going to be leaders in the near future. I used to believe it was the teachers' responsibility to guide the youth toward productive careers. In fact I still believe that. There is a system in place which interferes drastically with that responsibility.
The great shame is that there is so much potential going to waste. The schools are full of unguided students, using time only to shout and yell, and interrupt, and play childish games. This they do instead of channeling their energies toward creative outlets. The obstruction to education is now like a machine perpetuating itself forward It is like the students and the city are all on a train, flying over a cliff, and the teachers are greasing the wheels.
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