This week I attended a particularly depressing parent committee meeting.
The legendary principal of the school where two of my children attend, an elementary school in Jerusalem, described to us what is happening to the school's teaching and management staff these days.
Here is the place to add due diligence: the writer of these lines is the wife of a teacher.
Most of what the school principal said was hidden from my eyes as a mother. In words that came from the heart, she told about the challenges and the dilemmas. On the worn-out teachers, on the rising manpower shortage resulting from teachers' isolations and illnesses, and on teachers who are themselves parents of isolated or sick children. She really told about the teachers who are worried about their health, the ones who meet dozens and sometimes hundreds of children a day and are afraid of getting sick in Corona themselves. She talked about the teachers' fear, about the frustration in the face of the harsh reality in which they fail to create a routine and meet the emotional and educational needs of the students, about the physical difficulty of learning and teaching with an open window in the Jerusalem frost. She also revealed to us the difficulty in classrooms that are being torn apart because of the same staff shortage, the split between the children in the home and the children in the class, the undermining of the sense of security and the undermining of the connection between the students and their teachers. She also revealed to us the dilemmas about the enrichment programs they are fighting tooth and nail to keep them,The difficult question of how to deal with professional teachers who teach several classes and how to enrich the children even during the corona.
In the days when the Minister of Education comes out with statements of "everything is fine", because she claims that 90 percent of the children are in the educational institutions - the education staff in the field feel promiscuous.
The educational and administrative staffs have no backing, no father and mother.
No Ministry of Education has been functioning for a long time - not just from this government period - just an attempt to broadcast business as usual when everything is really unusual.
Fulfilled, if there was an attempt to help businesses be as usual, but right now everything is a hollow mask, with a hollow and neglected inside.
Executive independence is very limited, resources have not been adjusted for lack and difficulty, there is no response to the severe shortage of manpower in the system, there are no clear guidelines and no listening.
In kindergartens, too, the picture is similar and even sharper.
The shortage of kindergarten teachers and assistants is acute and is reflected in the closure of kindergartens - not because of isolation but because of a lack of staff.
It is not enough to decide that a routine is maintained at all costs, with those who pay the price being the educational staff;
Routine decisions need to be nurtured and maintained from above.
The educational staffs have been worn down from the last two years, and this is not always something that will be revealed to our eyes as parents.
Precisely these days, when everyone is in their justified difficulty, when parents of small children are in a war for survival over the livelihood and psyche of their children, it is worth raising one's head.
Ask the teacher, the teacher, the assistant, the principal how she is.
Say thank you, a good word, and maybe even bake them a cake.
They deserve it, they save and educate us the most precious thing.
Were we wrong?
Fixed!
If you found an error in the article, we'll be happy for you to share it with us