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Good education: the teacher who changed our lives Israel today

2022-08-18T13:54:36.170Z


The teacher suddenly stopped, put his pages on the table to the side, and went on to talk in the first person about his experiences from the qualifying period.


In the last few days we have all been hearing the line "It was at the end of the summer..."

What to do, you miss Zvika.

But if we talk frankly, we all know what we do at the end of the summer, and the anonymous couple in the song - don't.

It is quite clear that they have no children.

With us at the end of the summer there is no "they looked in the eyes".

We climb the walls at the end of the summer.

The list of creative ideas is exhausted.

Everything has already been marked with a "V" and there are two more weeks left for your appointments.

The children are sun-baked, satiated and full of experiences.

Every now and then someone throws into the air "Let's pack something and go to the beach", "Would you like ice cream? Watermelon?"

- and no one even bothers to respond.

Out of frustration we try to remember where we pushed the equipment lists for the school year.

Maybe for once we won't wait until the last minute?

Maybe we'll beat the habit, prepare everything in advance and not stand in line for two hours, next to people who look like they've spent the whole summer fighting taxis in hotels and airports - only to find that there's no eraser left, not to mention "Arabic for beginners".

Then a kind of emotional flood begins for me.

On the night of the smells that come from an open school bag (which no one calls a bag anymore) throws me into a multitude of experiences and thoughts.

They have all the good and the bad, the bitter and the sweet of school memories.

Some of them I wish for my children, and sometimes I even worry that it is no longer possible to find their quantity.

Some of them left me with such scars that I will do anything to keep them from my loved ones.

Lately, for example, I've been thinking a lot about the history teacher.

The history teacher was one of our oldest teachers.

Sometimes we thought that was what got him the job.

He would stand in front of us in a timeless plaid shirt, lean lightly on the table and patiently read ancient lesson plans from a stack of yellow folio pages with wrinkled corners, his fingers trembling a little.

Everything seems like distant history to us - the shirt, the pages, the teacher himself.

He didn't take his eyes off the pages.

He didn't bother to check if we were still there, and if we had a pulse left.

Never tried to fight monotony.

Headlines chased dates.

Dates were attached to the titles.

We had no chance.

Everything swirled into a lullaby, which could defeat kingdoms and put elephants to sleep.

Feudals and Visigoths and baron officials.

Committees, agreements and revolutions.

Everything swirled into an indistinct pulp, which earned from us the necessary nickname "The Magna Harte".

It's not that we were bored.

We just couldn't wake up even with the recess bell.

One day it happened.

The history teacher just put the pages on the table, looked up and looked at us.

Astonishment was in the air.

what will happen now

He had good eyes, we noticed.

A short silence hung in the air, and then he opened up, almost apologetically, that as far as the subject of our lesson today is concerned, he has a personal experience.

He is completely part of the story.

Today, friends, we will learn about the qualification.

The illegal immigration.

He said that he had the privilege of being part of the boys and girls who helped the Mafilim, the remnants of European Jewry, to make their way from the boats to the shore.

He described a difficult night.

Atlit

heavy woman

She was afraid of the waves and was afraid that they would be stopped at the beach.

She didn't know how to swim, and she didn't know Hebrew.

He had to calm her down, and also carry her a little in his arms like a bride or a baby.

And we didn't even laugh.

No one made a stupid comment or shouted "fuck you".

We all sat speechless.

He told, and we felt the sea water.

the vigilance and the night.

The weight of responsibility and the anger that saving the lives of Holocaust survivors was defined as a criminal act.

It was the first history lesson in our lives.

Because for the first time, the teacher put aside the pages and the dates, looked into our eyes and told us a personal story.

I hope he knew that for at least a few students in the class he changed the life, and what we think about education, about story and the connection between them.

• • •

It is strange to write about education in the days when my generation separated from two great figures, who influenced his life in a way that in those days was considered uneducative.

In the last few days I have heard a similar thing from many friends.

Everyone was surprised by the intensity of sadness they felt with the death of Zvika Pick and Olivia Newton John.

The one convinced us that it is possible to be larger than life and unapproachable even if you are from here and your name is Zvika, the other planted in us the opposite feeling.

Hollywood superstars also have a phone number.

We were high school students, and cinema was the forbidden fruit.

It was strange to us, because we came from homes where cinema was a legitimate family pastime, and suddenly it became clear to us that it was not so simple.

Going to a movie from the yeshiva was a secret and dangerous operation.

We ran away from the boarding school in small groups of two or three.

secrets secrets

We slipped in the dark between the orchards and barns of Kfar Hara towards road 4, and there we tried to hitch a ride to Hadera. For us - the city of cinema.

The risk was great.

The one who was caught could fly from the yeshiva, and the one who flew - never flew up.

If you are expelled from the privileged yeshiva, you found yourself in the best case in some high school.

In the worst case - the penal colony called the professional high school.

There you will learn your new place as a young man who stinks.

There you will study blue-collar professions: frames, printing or car mechanics.

We were not film connoisseurs.

We usually preferred tough action movies, shootouts, shootouts and chases.

After all, it was only at the box office that we found out which movies were showing tonight.

Otherwise, there is no way I would find myself in front of a romantic and musical film, without corpses or guns.

In any normal situation I would give up and go home.

But after we already managed to slip away, take a risk and get to her room, there was no way we wouldn't watch a movie.

Even if it's called "grease".

No one would admit it, but we all fell head over heels in love with Olivia Newton John.

On the way to her room we hadn't heard that name yet.

But as we made our way back through the orchards, there was nothing beautiful in the world that didn't rhyme with Olivia.

I'll spare you the embarrassing dreams in which I invited Olivia to Kiddush at her parents' house, added her to Bnei Akiva and caught a glimpse of her dancing in the "Find Love in the Desert" circle in sandals and a movement shirt, and all this even before we found out that she was of Jewish origin at all.

She was no Sophia Loren, and no Liz Taylor.

She was not the epitome of veiled seduction, or larger than life, a "femme fatale" or a diva.

Oddly enough she seemed approachable.

One could say words like "cute" or "lovely" about her.

I, being ashamed to talk to girls from the tribe, thought it perfectly feasible to offer Olivia to accompany her home at the end of the action.

And what touched us the most: in the movie she fell in love with Danny the mechanic, which seems reasonable.

She even adopted a "siggy from the neighborhood" haircut just for him.

John Travolta, who we all jokingly called "Ron Trabalsey", looks to us like a guy who was probably once caught running away to the movies and thrown out of the yeshiva to some vocational school to learn mechanics.

At the end of the movie, there was nothing in the world we wanted more than to get caught, thrown into a professional, mechanical major, and dance on the hood of a car out of service.

As with the late Tzvika Peak, the news of her death also flooded me with grief that was clearly not pedagogical.

shishabat@israelhayom.co.il

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Source: israelhayom

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