Merely 2 items this evening. But notice how the 2nd one shows the importance of teaching civics in Zionist classrooms!
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Haaretz Monday,
September 06, 2010
Education Ministry moves against cutting civics budget
Education Ministry director general reverses decision by another ministry official to cut most of the budget for intensive 11th- and 12th-grade civics classes.
Education Ministry director general Shimshon Shoshani reversed on Sunday a decision by another ministry official to cut most of the budget for intensive 11th- and 12th-grade civics classes.
Even after this unusual change in policy, this year’s civics budget will still be about half of last year’s.
Shoshani left in place an earlier decision to cut funding for intensive 10th-grade civics classes, which focus on Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. Several sources said at least twice as many hours were cut from the 10th-grade curriculum as were restored by Shoshani to the upper grades.
“This is a key lesson in teaching the students basic democracy,” said a 10th-grade civics teacher at a school in the north. “The curriculum allows for a flood of questions on fundamental issues that almost never get addressed in other classes.”
The money saved by the budget cuts was slated to be used for Jewish studies, including Bible, Talmud and Jewish philosophy.
“Unfortunately, the current Education Ministry administration wants to turn civics lessons into the study of nationalism, history, Judaism and Zionism – just not civics,” said Dan Avnon, an associate professor of political science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
The ministry said the number of classroom hours allocated for teaching basic civics classes has not changed. The basic classes are taught in grades 9, 11 and 12 to students planning to take a lower-level matriculation exam (two units ), while the intensive classes are for the highest-level exam (five units ).
In his decision on Sunday, Shoshani reversed the civics curriculum cuts instituted by Zvi Zameret, who heads the ministry’s pedagogic secretariat, after teachers and principals protested the reduction in classroom hours.
“We are primarily concerned about the trend led by Zameret, which represents a change in the Education Ministry’s priorities regarding civics,” said a member of the ministry’s advisory committee on civics instruction. “There’s a feeling that Zameret considers civics to be not very important.”
Another committee member said, “Zameret’s cuts were a direct hit to our chances of making civics important and central” to the overall curriculum, “as we believe it must be.”
Last week Dr. Ayman Agbaria, a civics education lecturer at the University of Haifa, quit the committee to protest a plan to revise a widely used textbook that Zameret said was overly critical of Israel.
Ministry officials said Shoshani and Education Minister Gideon Sa’ar have privately expressed their opposition to Zameret’s plan, though they had previously given him their support.
The Education Ministry, which has refused repeated requests by Haaretz to speak to Zameret, won’t disclose exactly how much money is involved. According to various estimates, the budget for intensive civics classes for the 2009-2010 school year came to NIS 1.8 million, and Zameret wants to leave the program with just NIS 600,000. Based on how the funding is handed out, that means that only a third of the 60 or so schools that met the criteria for ministry support will actually receive it.
Zameret, who is second only to the director general, was appointed by Sa’ar early this year. The ministry sources said the minister’s support for Zameret began to crumble over the last few weeks.
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Haaretz Monday,
September 06, 2010
Poll: Half of Israeli teens don’t want Arab students in their class
Study polling 500 teens aged 15 to 18 finds that most don’t think Arabs enjoy equal rights in Israel, and most of those don’t think Arabs deserve equal rights.
Sixty four percent of Israeli teens aged 15 to 18 say that Arab Israelis do not enjoy full equal rights in Israel, and from that group, 59 percent believe that they should not have full equal rights, according to a special survey prepared for the “Education in the Digital Age” conference held in Haifa on Monday.
The survey also revealed that 96 percent of the respondents want Israel to be a Jewish and democratic state, but 27 percent believe that those who object should be tried in court, and 41 percent support stripping them of their citizenship.
In answer to a question if they would be willing to learn in a classroom with one or more students with special needs, 32 percent answered in the negative. When the question was asked regarding Arab students, 50 percent of respondents answered in the negative. In addition, 23 percent said that they wouldn’t want gays or lesbians in their class.
The survey was conducted by Professor Camil Fuchs from the Statistics Department of Tel Aviv University, in cooperation with the company Sample Project. The poll included about 500 people between the ages of 15 and 18. The conference has been sponsored by “Reshet Shocken,” in cooperation with Haifa City Council.
The poll also revealed that 40 percent of Jewish youth have never been a part of a youth group, and 45 percent have never volunteered in any capacity.
In regard to motivation to serve in the IDF, 83 percent said that they don’t doubt that they will serve, but about half said that they have friends that do not plan on enlisting.
More than half of the survey’s respondents, 59 percent, said that they did not want to serve in combat units of the army. In response to a question of whether they would refuse to serve in the territories, 24 percent said they would refuse, 47 percent said that they would not refuse, and the remainder had not yet decided.
