Welcome to the March issue, the seventh issue of “Shared Citizenship”, MERCHAVIM's online magazine!

Contents

Editorial: The best of both worlds Read more...

Articles:

Current Activities: Shared Citizenship in Kindergarten: “Let's Play on Sesame Street” – Evaluation Study. Read full article...

Colleagues Partnering with MERCHAVIM : Interviewing Dr. Dyonna Ginsburg, Executive Director of Bema'aglei Tzedek. Read full article...

• Further Activities...: And Justice Shall Flow Down…" From Montgomery Alabama to Rishon L'Zion " Read full article...

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Editorial

The best of both worlds

BY Mike Prashker, Founder and Director of MERCHAVIM

	For at least two millennia, political and educational philosophers have remained adamant about the pre-eminent place formal schooling holds in shaping the “good” citizen.
Mike Prashker

However, while the place of schools as the single-most important institutional agent for shaping the good citizen remains unrivalled, many other less structured but important educational opportunities exist. As values educators we are obliged to explore and utilise all of these with equal seriousness. Attitudes of disdain that some “serious” educators show for everything that happens outside school, especially in regards to possible use of popular media, are unfortunate—an indulgence we cannot afford.

The fact is that, like most of their contemporaries around the globe, young Israelis spend less than 25 percent of their waking hours in compulsory schooling. Of this, only a small fraction is devoted to what we can seriously claim to be values education that instils, for example, respect for the rich human diversity that characterises our world and, more specifically, Israeli society.

While we are right to develop strategies to integrate values content across the curriculum, in response to the severe time restrictions of the school-day, we must acknowledge the limitations. In Israel, time pressures that restrict values education are compounded by the structural realities of four separate school streams (Jewish-secular, religious, ultra-orthodox and Arab) whereby young Israeli citizens, separated by nationality and religiosity, rarely, if ever, meet in school. 

Debate about the potential impact of employing various media platforms, of which television and the internet are prominent, to shape attitudes, is redundant. Like it or not, commerce driven by advertising has proven beyond all reasonable doubt the power of such platforms to shape—for better and frequently for worse—the preferences and priorities of the young. The fierce pressure placed on our daughters, through media-transmitted popular-culture, to become preoccupied with their weight, is evidence enough.

In short, dismissing the potential power of media platforms to help us do good as democratic and citizenship educators, just because these vehicles are so often used for bad, is as sensible as condemning the institution of schooling because certain regimes have and still use schools to instil and sustain grave injustices.

In Israel, a number of obvious opportunities exist and are now being explored as part of a major new public education effort to promote understanding and empathy towards citizenship and diversity. Two examples will suffice:

Firstly, it is essential to ensure the introduction of more positive representation of our diversity into mainstream children’s television. This is an area in which we lag far behind many of the comparatively progressive democracies with which we wish to be compared.

Rather than continuing to bombard our children with images of wafer-thin, white, exclusively-Jewish, secular and upper-middle class kids from North Tel Aviv, they should be exposed to their real contemporaries: Jewish and Arab-Palestinian, black and white, gay and straight, physically-challenged and sometimes obese. Provided this representation avoids tokenism and stereotyping, the educational potential to help young Israelis encounter their fellow citizens and imagine a better shared future is enormous.

In this regard, the monitoring and critiquing of existing programming, encouraging pro-diversity criteria in the allocation of broadcast rights, providing evidence of the significant commercial benefits over time of promoting diversity, and initiating positive new programming—are all useful approaches.

Secondly, positive use of the internet, including social networking, to engage and activate the young across national, religious, ethnic and socio-economic divides is becoming increasingly important—perhaps no less so than television—in shaping attitudes.

Properly guided, “You Tube”, for example, allows us to encourage diverse groups of young citizens, equipped with relatively cheap equipment, to vividly portray their own often marginalised communities, experiences and aspirations. The internet also provides unprecedented opportunities for the young to organise, and, hopefully, to translate their initial digital actions, into positive cooperation for change in the real world.

As values educators we have a unique opportunity and moral responsibility to grasp such exciting opportunities without condescension, trepidation or apology.

Expanding our horizons beyond the school day is in no way dismissive of the continuing centrality and distinct advantages of school-based education and there is no need for insecurity in this regard.

Indeed, we could do even better by exploring the exciting new opportunities for building symbiotic and mutually beneficial relations between school-based and popular media-based platforms, thereby enjoying the best of both worlds.

Current Activities...

Shared Citizenship in Kindergarten: “Let's Play on Sesame Street” – Evaluation Stud

Last school year, Merchavim conducted 11 training workshops for kindergarten teachers across Israel focusing on issues of diversity and fairness in the kindergarten and community. The goal was to help teachers get to know the "other", to develop awareness of different identities within Israeli society as well as in their classrooms and to offer tools for the development of a fairer environment within their kindergartens.

One of the major tools we offer kindergarten teachers is our "Let's Play on Sesame Street" kit developed in collaboration with Sesame Workshop and Hop! TV channel.

" Let's Play on Sesame Street"

The kit was developed to help children feel more comfortable when faced with diversity and to appreciate its value and potential as a part of their lives. The kit contains 10 activity plans to be used by teachers when responding to various situations they frequently encounter among children: unwillingness to have one of the children participate in a game, an offensive comment made about one of the children's accent, social rejection caused by external appearance, cultural customs etc. The activity is based on watching video clips from the last Sesame Street series which stimulate learning through play, creative activities and dialogue on topics pertaining to inclusion of the "other" within the kindergarten. The Goals of the study were:

To detect changes in the attitudes of kindergarten teachers toward principles of shared citizenship in their everyday life in general and in their kindergartens in particular, after attending the workshop.

176 kindergarten teachers participated in the study: 54.6% were from state schools and the state religious school system and 45.4% from the Arab school system (including teachers from Bedouin and Druze schools).

The study included a questionnaire about everyday situations and dilemmas in the kindergarten. The questionnaire was completed by the teachers before and after the workshop. A few months later, the kindergarten teachers were asked to complete an evaluation form.

The study found that the training workshop influences the attitudes of teachers toward principles of shared citizenship in their daily life in general and within the kindergarten environment in particular:

A general positive change was achieved in attitudes toward shared citizenship.

The findings have since been presented to Ms. Sima Hadad, Director of the Pre-School Branch of the Ministry of Education and her staff, and to Mr. Adar Cohen Director of the Kremnitzer Democracy Education Headquarters and Chief Inspector of Civics Education, and his staff.

These positive findings have contributed to the expansion of kindergarten activity this year and major new investments in family-, community- and media-based activities, notably from the U.S. Congress in support of expanded activity together with Israel's Ministry of Education, Sesame Workshop and Hop! Childrens' TV.

Colleagues Partnering with MERCHAVIM

Interviewing Dr. Dyonna Ginsburg, Executive Director of Bema'aglei Tzedek

Please tell us about yourself and what brought you to Bema'aglei Tzedek? I moved to Israel from New York eight years ago, shortly after completing my BA at Columbia University. My commitment to "shared citizenship" stems from my own diverse upbringing - I am the daughter of a Conservative rabbi and a secular kibbutznik mother, was educated in Orthodox Jewish day schools, and spent my early childhood in a largely Irish-Catholic neighborhood.

My journey with Bema’aglei Tzedek began four years ago, when I made a personal decision to eat only in establishments that bear a Tav Chevrati, a certificate granted free of charge by Bema'aglei Tzedek to restaurants that are accessible to people with disabilities and treat their workers ethically. After working my way up the ranks of the organization – first as a volunteer and then as a board member - I took over as Executive Director a year and a half ago. As an NGO that uses education and practical social action campaigns to create a more just Israeli society inspired by the Jewish value of Tzedek, Bema'aglei Tzedek combines three things I am deeply passionate about: a diverse and vibrant Israel, Jewish tradition, and social justice.

What are Bema'aglei Tzedek's core activities?

Bema'aglei Tzedek empowers the next generation of young Israelis to become powerful agents of social change, particularly in the areas of fair labor practices and handicap accessibility. Bema'aglei Tzedek has three major spheres of activity:

1. Educational work - Bema'aglei Tzedek reaches thousands of young Israeli Jews, religious and secular alike, in ongoing educational programs targeting high schools, youth movements, the army, and educational personnel.
2. The Tav Chevrati
3. Employment Watchdogs - Bema'aglei Tzedek trains high school students to act as "watchdogs" for the custodians and security guards working in their own schools. Students are taught how to: look out for discrepancies in a custodian or guard's pay slip; inform custodians and guards about their rights; advocate on behalf of these workers to principals and other school authorities; and organize various awareness-raising activities within the school. This initiative creates a network of high school students who are well-versed in Israeli labor laws.

As a direct result of the student network's lobbying efforts, the Jerusalem Education Authority added over 10 million NIS to its budget to ensure that custodial staff receives its legally-mandated wages, and hired a permanent external auditor to review the pay slips of custodial workers in Jerusalem schools. Hearing of our successful intervention in Jerusalem, senior officials in the Tel Aviv Municipality turned to Bema'aglei Tzedek for help in bringing about a similar change process.

Bema'aglei Tzedek is unique in that our programs draw upon Jewish values and texts, and yet directly benefit the full spectrum of Israeli society regardless of religion, ethnicity, or race. 

How do you view contemporary challenges faced by Israeli society?

Championing the belief that every person can make a difference, Bema'aglei Tzedek tackles an underlying current of cynicism in Israeli society, a cynicism which leads many to believe that they can't make a difference and that society is destined to continue on a path of inequality and injustice. Bema'aglei Tzedek challenges this cynicism and asks people to take an active role in shaping their own individual and collective destinies.

How do you view the ideological link between the role of Bema'aglei Tzedek and that of MERCHAVIM in promoting the idea of shared citizenship as developed by MERCHAVIM?

I am a firm believer that the fate of Israeli society will rest not only on larger geopolitical questions affecting the entire Middle East, but on devising creative solutions to challenging social justice issues. How can we create a society where individuals and communities have equitable access to healthcare, welfare, education, and the public space? A society where citizens possess a shared commitment to making this country better for all? Both MERCHAVIM, through its shared citizenship model, and Bema'aglei Tzedek, through our own educational work and social action campaigns, are working towards promoting this goal.

We were delighted to hear about your decision to join the advisory committee of the Shared Citizenship Public Education Campaign which we are currently planning. Why do you believe this campaign is important?

I am honored to take part in the newly-formed advisory committee to promote shared citizenship through a large-scale public education initiative. The concept of using a wide variety of social media tools, such as Facebook and Twitter, to bring about sweeping change is one that is deeply exciting to me. The Obama campaign in the United States of America and the Iranian protest movement are marvelous recent examples of how these tools can be used effectively to connect people from diverse backgrounds and inspire them to action.  

More Current Activities...

	55 Years after Rosa Parks' famous stand against racism on a Montgomery bus, an Egged [Israel's largest bus company] bus driver in Rishon L'Zion said to Ideno Verka: "Can't you understand? I don't take "Kushim" [a derogatory racial epithet]... in Ethiopia you didn't even have shoes and here you do; try walking instead". (Rishon L'Zion, November 2009 - as reported on Ynet)
Participants in the workshop - See of Galilee, 2009

MERCHAVIM's shared citizenship model stresses that the fair society to which we strive is characterized by equitable and dignified access and opportunities to citizens of all backgrounds irrespective of such irrelevant considerations as skin color.

As part of our efforts to promote a fairer environment in classrooms, schools and communities --- and to integrate shared citizenship content across the curriculum --- we have developed "Access", an educational pack for English teachers who train to use the program to develop English skills and promote fairer shared citizenship. Not by chance the Rosa Parks story features prominently!

Access and Shared Citizenship in American History

Access is an educational pack for Jewish and Arab high school English students and teachers in Israel. The pack was developed by MERCHAVIM with the support of the Public Affairs Office, Tel Aviv Embassy of the United States of America in collaboration with Amal 1 Network and Ort school networks.

In addition to teaching English, the program aims to engage students in the idea of democracy as an ongoing historical struggle by individuals and groups of citizens of diverse backgrounds to participate fully and fairly in the communities and governing of their states.

To achieve this, the program's contents focus on some important episodes in the on-going democratic effort to expand access and opportunities for all American citizens. In other words, through this Program, students explore and promote core shared citizenship values and concepts relevant to their own lives, through the prism of American history --- and leaders such as "Rosa Parks" --- while at the same time strengthening their English towards passing four-point matriculation.

The pack includes a background article for teachers as well as ten lesson plans.

 To explore the Access Pack please click here...

Teacher Training

"Access" teacher training workshops are currently being run jointly for the second year - for Jewish and Arab English teachers.

The training is comprised of two parts:

1. Individual workshop, lectures and tours

• Familiarization with the "shared citizenship" model

• Individual workshop activity devoted to the model's concepts

• Multiplicity of identities in a diverse society

2. Evaluation in class Following extensive work on the model and based on the "Access" pack, the participants expand and adapt the provided lesson plans to serve their teaching requirements.

Participants of the training workshops- Beit Yatsiv, December 2009

A 60 hour workshop was given during the 2009/2010 academic year to a group of 19 teachers from the Haifa region.

The training workshop was held at The Center for Teacher Development in Haifa and at the Beit Yetziv Teacher Training Center in Beer Sheva. It concentrated on: a discussion of religious symbols from a universal multicultural perspective, the Bedouin community in the Negev and a tour of Netivot.

A teacher from Haifa who did her training in October 2009 designed a lesson plan inspired by "Access" and the shared citizenship model. "I invited a representative from the U.S. Embassy to give a lecture on human rights to 12th graders which was followed by a discussion in class focused on fairness exercised towards different identities and cultures in Israeli society".

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