How to say 'God' in the classroom: Teaching for religious tolerance in Israel
For the first time, teachers will be trained to handle classes with both religious and secular kids. The movement started in small communities, but is now coming to big cities too.
The secular-religious community in Mazkeret Batya. Photo by Dan Keinan
By Talila Nesher | Mar.31, 2013 | 11:57 PM
"Mixed" schools with secular and religious children have been around since the 1980s but the trend has been gaining momentum. Now academia is getting on board. For the first time in the upcoming school year, teachers will be trained to handle these mixed classes, courtesy of Kibbutzim College.
The first schools to pilot the integrated classrooms, in Kfar Adumim, Tekoa and Beit Horon countered the conventional separation between "public" schools (secular in nature) and "public religious" schools. Their aim was to strengthen both Jewish and democratic identity among students.
“It’s part of a wider trend also found in secular yeshivas and pre-army academies where religious and secular students study together,” says Aliza Gershon, director of Tzav Pius, a non-profit organization that facilitates dialogue programs for people across the religious-secular spectrum. “People want to choose for themselves the components of their Jewish identity and this complexity doesn’t exist in either the religious or secular school systems."
Major encouragement for mixed religious-secular schools came in 2008 when the Knesset passed a law recognizing the new movement. The law was proposed by Rabbi Michael Melchior, then a member of Knesset from the Labor party and chairman of the Knesset Committee on Education, Culture and Sports.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/how-to-say-god-in-the-classroom-teaching-for-religious-tolerance-in-israel.premium-1.512803