Tag Archives: Israeli schools

An emerging portrait of the schools

06 Tuesday Sep 2011

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From my several conversations so far, a consensus view of Israeli education seems to be coalescing. As one person said, “There is no concept of comparative religions of the German or Northern European model.” The coursework in the regular public schools, if I understand correctly, is based on learning the Jewish Bible, with some Talmud and later commentary coming in the high school years. Christianity is encountered in history, and it is not a positive encounter – much of it being the story of anti-Semitism. Islam might come up a bit in history or if one chooses to take Arabic as one’s third language. Otherwise, very little about other religions is taught. Meanwhile the religious schools’ curriculum is even less cosmopolitan. Those with whom I have spoken describe a system they view as not even preparing students for gainful employment, in the case of some ultra-Orthodox schools. Even in religious schools with a broader mission, they say, a narrow religio-nationalistic superiority is frequently taught.

So far, no-one who I have met has even commented on the curriculum or on what is actually taught in the Palestinian Territories. One person commented, “Well, I wonder if they’ll tell you the truth. They’re not very well going to say, ‘We teach Islamic fundamentalism.’” A few seem to have implied that the schools teaching in Arabic in Israel do a good job on cross-cultural and cross-religious issues, or at least they have praised some administrators they know. I have just read, however, a scathing critique of how both the Israeli schools and the Arabic language schools teach about Arab and especially Palestinian issues. Ismael Abu-Saad, a professor at Ben Gurion University, wrote “State Educational Policy and Curriculum: The case of Palestinian Arabs in Israel” in 2006. As he summarizes, “This study demonstrates how Israeli educational policy and curriculum are designed to support the Jewish nation-building project. As such, they silence the Palestinian Arab narrative while reshaping regional history for both Jewish and Arab students to fit the Zionist narrative.” He does not address studying belief systems per se in the paper, but he does describe curricular lists from the Arab and Hebrew-speaking schools. He notes that both teach the Zionist interpretation of historical events. More concerning from my perspective is the portrait of the Israeli textbooks he cites from Prof. Elie Podeh of Hebrew University. Prof. Podeh wrote The Arab-Israeli Conflict in Israeli History Textbooks 1948-2000. The picture is not pretty – lots of bias and omission. At the same time, I have not yet read anything about what the textbooks in the West Bank sound like…

A stab at what I’m doing here (i.e. a rough draft of my revised project proposal)

26 Friday Aug 2011

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Jerusalem's Old City from the roof of the Notre Dame Center

My friend Launa has a real blog at http://www.launawrites.com . There you can find actual writing – evocative, beautiful, and fun. Having looked at my posts so far, she gently asked what my project actually was. At the same time, Hilary suggested that the next step should be for me to more carefully define my research question. I can take a hint, so I have produced the following draft of my project proposal (extremely rough, almost certainly will change, feedback welcomed, etc.)

“I seek to interview Israeli and Palestinian teachers to learn what and how they teach about religion.

How one discusses religion is a highly contested part of any curriculum. Instructing young people on matters of faith was one of the earlier purposes of school. In medieval European universities theology was “the Queen of the Sciences.” In most times and places, to provide religious instruction different than that understood as correct by the majority could land you in a great deal of trouble; Socrates was prosecuted for, among other things, “prying into things in the heavens and below the earth.” People and institutions often respond to such tensions with silence. In the United States, for example, many people believe incorrectly that the courts have interpreted the separation of church and state to mean that it is illegal to teach about religion in the public schools. (In fact it is encouraged; proselytization is what is outlawed.) How a society approaches the teaching of religion can reveal a good deal about what that society values.

Meanwhile, most governments believe that good citizenship can and should be taught through that country’s public schools. Under various subject headings — civics, citizenship education, social studies, history, ethics, religious studies — public school systems seek to influence the values of the population. In such conversations, questions of belief are either going to arise or assumptions about them are going to be made.

Thus, some questions I might have for my teachers: What are some of the goals of your teaching? How do you design your curriculum, or how do you modify or implement the curriculum you are given? What do you see the role of your teaching being in your student’s lives? How do you see it informing their roles as citizens? How do you see it informing their personal religious choices?” Among other revisions, I will continue to add questions, of course!