Can School Educate For Changing The World? The Story Of "Ein Karem High School"
Abstract
Many in the post-primary schooling system are sceptical when it comes to the possibility of making a substantial change in a school that is subject to standardized examinations and the endless chase after better grades. Many claims that in a relativist and teleprocessed world, enabling the shattering of the time and place union, it would be unlikely that schools would still hold a place. Many demonstrate disbelief in the capability and will by teachers to change the existing system and most certainly in the school's capability to instil values. There are many in the education system that are apprehensive of the criticism coming from teachers, supervisors and so on and prefer to refrain from attempting to introduce a change within the formal system. The story we have to tell you claims that it is possible. The experimental Ein Karem regional school is a comprehensive six-year high school located in Jerusalem, Israel. The school’s motto is “From Awareness to Action”; the school has developed and adopted a pedagogic approach using initiative-driven and project-based learning within the formal curriculum, alongside social initiatives interwoven into school life; and it developed a unique high school certification program for social entrepreneurship, which encourages students to take a stance and initiate projects aimed at reducing the social injustices surrounding them.
Keywords: High schoolproject-based learningsolidarity
Introduction
The experimental Ein Karem regional school is a comprehensive six-year high school located in the Jerusalem are in Israel. It is a regional public school, in other words, on that does not screen its students. 700 students in 30 classes, ranging from seventh to twelfth grade, attend the school. The school hosts students from the boarding school, coming from all over the country, and students from 20 communities from around the area.
Many in the post-primary schooling system are sceptical when it comes to the possibility of making a substantial change in a school that is subject to standardized examinations and the endless chase after better grades.
Many claims that in a relativist and teleprocessed world, enabling the shattering of the time and place union, it would be unlikely that schools would still hold a place. Many demonstrate disbelief in the capability and will by teachers to change the existing system and most certainly in the school's capability to instil values.
There are many in the education system that are apprehensive of the criticism coming from teachers, supervisors and so on and prefer to refrain from attempting to introduce a change within the formal system.
8 years ago, Prof. Roni Aviram, a professor in the department of Education in Ben Gurion University, published his book "Navigating Through the Storm: Reinventing Education for Postmodern Democracies" (2010)
The main claim Prof. Aviram is making in his book is: A postmodern storm is rattling the foundations of the modern world, including those of the education system, a system that is clearly based on modern fundamentals. This means that a gulf is continuously and rapidly opening up between the system and the reality within which it operates. This abyss turns the education system into one that is socially and economically dysfunctional, leading to increasingly growing performance problems" (Aviram, 2010),
We live in a world characterized by alienation and apathy. Schools have the right and responsibility to develop and direct their scholastic worldview towards the optimal desirable world. A desirable world is one in which human beings are committed to each other, strive to prevent injustice, combat apathy, and foster social solidarity. School is part of the world around it, and the school curriculum therefore incorporates issues and experiences from the surrounding environment. What do we need for tomorrow's world? What are the characteristics of the world in which we live?
Our response is stated below. The school’s motto is “From Awareness to Action”; the school has developed and adopted a pedagogic approach using initiative-driven and project-based learning within the formal curriculum, alongside social initiatives interwoven into school life; and it developed a unique high school certification program for social entrepreneurship, which encourages students to take a stance and initiate projects aimed at reducing the social injustices surrounding them.
The story of a school
The experimental program,
The program was initiated with the background of the team's perception that global events cannot be ignored: a global environmental crisis, an international economic crisis with an impact on hundreds of thousands of people in the first, second and third worlds, a diminishing of the sense of personal and economic security, the social unrest that broke out in Israel in 2011, an atmosphere of disrespect towards citizens, offenses towards foreigners, elderly and women, poverty and housing hardships, lack of a sense of employment security, ridiculously low wages to young people, etc. Quite often, in face of the
Problem Statement
Schools curriculum focus mainly on subject matters and do not prepare students to for the real world, especially to take a stance and make a difference.
The gap between school's curriculum and the world surrounding us is growing every day.
In a Postmodern world that is defined by relativism school cannot ignore the necessity to deal with moral issues
Research Questions
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How can we make the school curriculum different?
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Can we educate at school solidarity and the motivation to make a change?
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Will it affect the wellbeing of the students?
Purpose of the Study
The school’s motto is “From Awareness to Action”; the school has developed and adopted a pedagogic approach using initiative-driven and project-based learning within the formal curriculum, alongside social initiatives interwoven into school life; and it developed a unique high school certification program for social entrepreneurship, which encourages students to take a stance and initiate projects aimed at reducing the social injustices surrounding
Research Methods
Project based learning
The school places an emphasis on ground breaking pedagogy that combines social entrepreneurship with PBL (Project Based Learning.) Today’s learners will be encountering a future world of uncertainty and rapid change. The education system must prepare them accordingly. As noted at the outset, the realities of the twenty-first century make it essential that students develop autonomous learning capabilities and the ability to define goals for themselves, as well as the path to achieving these goals through the effective use of rapidly changing relevant knowledge. This definition is the essence of perspective underpinning project-based learning. Through PBL, the student learns to plan and construct solutions to real-world problems. PBL optimizes development in four areas of utmost importance in the twenty-first century:
Critical thinking;
Communication;
Collaboration; and
Creativity
These are supplemented by the constructivist principle that learning should foster the ability to transfer knowledge acquired from one discipline to another discipline (Scott, 2015). The ability to solve real-world problems can be cultivated through group projects that require in-depth investigation, personal as well as individual responsibility for the product and its various components, and control and oversight of work by various groups, with the aim of providing an optimal, comprehensive solution. In addition, encouraging learners to manage the learning process by themselves at their own pace, with the aim of presenting their achievements and solutions to the problem, fosters their abilities to cope with future problems (Punie, 2007). Studies on project-based learning approaches have shown that students taught through action-based learning perform as well as or better than students who have been educated using conventional learning approaches. However, when twenty-first century competencies were measured, learners who were taught through PBL significantly outperformed those who were educated using conventional approaches (Punie, 2007) This learning method is based on active learning and on linking the pedagogy with the reality found out of the classroom (in accordance with the vision of the experiment.) Using this method within the formal curriculum, students are required to work as teams, planning and executing a practical project, providing a solution for issues that are relevant to the study subject, which they have detected.
This learning method strengthens the sense of self-capability, enhances leadership and social responsibility, and connects the curriculum with the reality that lies out of school, encourages experiential and societal learning as well as imparts communicative skills, enhancing facilities such as negotiation, cooperation and presentation.
At the same time, the outputs of this learning involve widening horizons and being acquainted with the Israeli social reality and bureaucracy as well as reflect a wider in-depth understanding of the project and the expertise required for its execution. This way, students employ their inner motivation to learn in a significant way.
With project-based learning, teachers generate an educational atmosphere that is adjusted to the spirit of the time, mounting social, value related and contextual challenges we face in the world around us. Learning is conducted using pedagogic tools including experiencing surrounding a main theme, employment of independent thinking, creativity, patience in taking steps towards an output, expression of the students' personal strengths and passing the learning baton to the students. (McLoughlin & Lee, 2008, p. 15).
The leading principle, in constructing the projects, is that they are based on a real need and that may be of use to someone. Another tenet is the one of Transparent Walls, or in other words, learning is not limited to school grounds. (Trilling & Fadel, 2009, pp. 114-115). This way, for instance, following a meeting with the author Etgar Keret, children who learned of writing short stories wrote, published and sold two original books. A class that studies Geography during the Nepal earthquake prepared a campaign promoting preparedness to natural disasters put together information systems and launched the campaign in its respective community. Students who studied in history lessons about the immigration waves prior to and after the founding of the country issued a stamp for each such wave by way of the Israeli Philatelic Service. At the end of the schooling year, the stamps were affixed on the school's certificates. A class that studied the scriptures started a chain of theological study centres in their respective places of residence.
Social entrepreneurship
“Social responsibility” – a guiding super-value in school activity
This value could be interpreted as an integration of the sense of belonging within the level of consciousness and of involvement and entrepreneurship in the practical level. Social responsibility is manifested in the level of consciousness by the student's sense of belonging, namely that he is not an island in the world and part of various circles - environmental in general and human in particular. In the practical level, the student is involved in the circles of his belonging, or in other words, he acts by his own disposition as part of the circles of his belonging in order to contribute, introduce improvements and overcome problems. In this context, the central concept is "Social Entrepreneurship." Entrepreneurship can be described as a concerted action to change reality. The entrepreneur is an individual who acts for changing a given reality. For that end, he directs an organized and skilled educational and reflective process, following stages such as interest and curiosity, identification of problems and pitfalls, definition of personal will, definition of objectives, formulation of a full-scale operative program and its execution. An entrepreneurial project is one with an impact that last even after the entrepreneur completes his or her own enterprising activity. As mentioned, the type of entrepreneurship to be promoted by the school will be Social Entrepreneurship, or in other words, an entrepreneurial feat of an individual within a collective (whatever it may be - class, age group, school, neighbourhood, community, the natural surrounding and so on) and for his or her own good. The school will setup for its students learning processes that generate an extensive contact between the school and the world outside - introducing the real work into the school's realm (content, issues, dilemmas, people, organizations, and the likes) and projecting the school (its students, the faculty and parents) into the real world to learn and operate within it.
Throughout the years, the school students deal with social entrepreneurships. This is increasingly growing during the school years and is part of the students' school life. Following is a table summarizes the dealings and activity made in this area in each academic year (Table
Halev (AIL) center - The Anti-Indifference League
The Halev centre, the Anti-Indifference League (AIL), was founded in 2013. The centre has set its aim on encouraging students to be more active and involved socially, using informal pedagogic tools within the formal educational institute. The centre attempts to combine the necessity of bringing together and connecting youngsters with the realm of social involvement, concern and solidarity with the existence of a providing, enabling and accessible framework with the school. The AIL centre offers students an open and homey physical structure, eye-level meetings with teachers and social content relevant to them. All these intertwine harmoniously within the Israeli public-school structure and agenda. In practice, the AIL centre wishes to physically and pedagogically introduce the informal education into the formal educational system.
The centre resides in a classroom that is located in the middle of school, hence creating clear visibility of the place and of the centre's activity. The mere central nature of the centre is a statement of its significance within the overall school framework. The centre is equipped in such a way that enables varied social activities, including a round table, newspaper and magazine reading place, computers, audio-visual means, comfortable seating, "Coffee and Deed" corner, team workstations, etc.
Every student may attend the centre totally voluntarily. The centre is always lively and packed with students. The place can host some 40 to 50 students.
The
Personal Education
In order to strengthen the discourse and personal acquaintance with the students from 7th to 12th grade, they are given additional hours with the class tutor and personal holistic guidance on every aspect - academic, social, emotional and at home.
Every class tutor is given three weekly hours with the additional of individual hours that are dedicated only to the core class (and not to the specialization course.)
Findings
During the years in which the experiment took place, the number of students in school has grown by 50%. The students express significantly higher satisfaction. The academic accomplishments doubled themselves and our students graduate and enter the military, aiming to a commanding position, while there is an increasingly growing trend to volunteer for a year prior to the military service.
Conclusion
It is possible to chance a school curriculum to a better one' if we do so the students starts to see the world and themselves in a different way. This year, a comprehensive study is being made to examine characteristics of positive psychology in school. Do we really prepare our children for the "Good life", as defined by Prof. Roni Aviram and Prof. Seligman?
Follow up articles to this one will discuss the experiment and its results.
References
- Aviram, R. (2010) Navigating Through the Storm: Reinventing Education for Postmodern Democracies. Israel: Sense Publishers
- McLoughlin, C., & Lee, M. J. (2008). The three p's of pedagogy for the networked society: Personalization, participation, and productivity. International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 20(1), 10-27.
- Punie, Y. (2007). Learning spaces: an ICT-enabled model of future learning in the knowledge-based society. European Journal of Education, 42(2), 185-199. Retrieved from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/enhanced/doi/
- Scott, C.L. (2015). The futures of learning 3: what kind of pedagogies for the 21st century? ERF Working Papers Series, No. 15. Retrieved from https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000243126
- Trilling, B. and Fadel, C. (2009). 21st Century Skills: Learning for Life in Our Times. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass-Wiley Imprint,
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About this article
Publication Date
25 June 2019
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eBook ISBN
978-1-80296-062-4
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Future Academy
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63
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1st Edition
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Subjects
Teacher, teacher training, teaching skills, teaching techniques, special education, children with special needs
Cite this article as:
Yedidia, T. (2019). Can School Educate For Changing The World? The Story Of "Ein Karem High School". In V. Chis, & I. Albulescu (Eds.), Education, Reflection, Development – ERD 2018, vol 63. European Proceedings of Social and Behavioural Sciences (pp. 593-599). Future Academy. https://doi.org/10.15405/epsbs.2019.06.71