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Created October 9, 2002
Latest Update: October 9, 2002
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Backup of Ha Aretz article:
Ministry plans program for schools to debate Oct. riots
By By Relly Sa'ar
Copyright: Ha Aretz.

Ministry plans program for schools to debate Oct. riots. By Relly Sa'ar.

For the first time since violent clashes erupted over two years ago, the Education Ministry is sponsoring a current-events initiative to foster discussion of controversial political topics.

Ministry Director General Ronit Tirosh yesterday said classroom time devoted to the events of October 2000 will soon be incorporated in secondary school curricula for students in Arab language schools in Haifa and northern regions.

This will enable thousands of junior high and high school students in 140 Arab-language schools to express their feelings about the tensions that developed during October 2000 and in subsequent months, Tirosh told school principals and senior education officials from the north.

Until now the Education Ministry has kept intifada-related current events out of the classroom and Tirosh's new instructions to educators departed sharply from this policy.

Tirosh stressed the significance of October 2000 in her comments yesterday: "That October is part of a series of hard experiences that Israeli society has experienced in relations between Jews and Israeli Arabs. Twelve Arab citizens and one Jewish citizen were killed in this trying month ... A state committee of inquiry was formed to investigate the events. Feelings stirred by the ongoing situation ... are complex and related to claims of continuing neglect of the Arab community."

Tirosh asked teachers and principals to encourage students to "express their anger, pain, frustration, disappointment and anxiety about the situation." The new initiative would provide room for "an array descriptions of reality provided by teachers, pupils and parents, all based on different standpoints."

Hiam Tanus, responsible for educational counseling in the Haifa public school system, has been a leading member of a special committee of psychologists and educational counselors formed to give advice and proposals to teachers on programs devoted to the October 2000 events.

Tanus believes the new initiative "will help pupils channel their pain and anger ... it will allow students to say during a class that 'it hurts me to see a mother weeping over the grave of her son who was killed in Arabeh [two years ago, during clashes in the Galilee],' or 'I am angry when I see IDF soldiers firing at Palestinians."

The new initiative will navigate a taut and sensitive tightrope between the Israeli and Palestinian perspectives. Tanus said: "Pupils see on Al Jazeera [television] that not everyone regards the attacks as terror - for some, it is a war of liberation for Palestine. Our job as educators is to explain the sanctity of life to pupils, to explain that nothing is gained by death."

She said that during one of the program's lessons "a teacher can show pictures of murdered victims to pupils ... and then propose to the students that they write a letter to the police, Sharon or to Bush, to propose solutions to the situation. Such a letter can serve as catharsis." She said "it's important to teach students to get past hatred, and cultivate values such as tolerance, mutual respect and reconciliation."

Tirosh showed an open-minded attitude to discussing the October riots and their aftermath, but the initiative will not include class debates of one disputed incident about the start of the intifada - the visit by then opposition leader Ariel Sharon to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

Tanus said teachers shouldn't get involved in discussions about the possible causes of the intifada but they should relate to the security situation as a given reality. "Arabs in Israel face a very difficult situation. At the end of a classroom discussion students might, for instance, draw the conclusion that there is no contradiction between their identity as loyal citizens of the state, and their identification with the Palestinians. They can express solidarity by sending money, food or cloths to [Palestinians] who need them, or by staging peaceful demonstrations to express their views."

Arab-school principals are not accustomed to officially sanctioned, no-holds-barred current events discussions in class, Tanus said, but their suspicions can be overcome.

"When I told principals about the programs, they couldn't believe it," Tanus says. "They asked me to send to them a letter from the Ministry director general as authentication."

Implementing the new program depends on at least 300 teachers from northern schools attending a 28-hour training program. Significant budget allocations will be needed to pay for each teacher getting involved in the training program, and funding could be jeopardized by future ministry budget cuts.

Tanus is unfazed by the prospect. "The program will go ahead," she says. "It will start on an experimental basis in 15 Haifa schools" in the next few weeks.