Coronavirus, strikes, demonstrations, illnesses and the rest of the Bishin neighborhood were the lot of Israeli parents in the past school year. A year in which every week passed peacefully caused thousands of secular Israelis to congratulate "Hagomel." Who remembers that in the previous two years, children spent entire school days under the blanket, and that Yaffa Ben David took every opportunity to leave the children at home?
Everything went as never before, and the parents, who were already licking the wounds of the coronavirus, found themselves facing new challenges in addition to those brought about by the pandemic.
The announcement of the expected bridge during the holidays between Yom Kippur and Sukkot, along with the constant threat by teachers' unions to shut down the school year when it begins, make it clear to us that this weekend our children will probably not see school until mid-October, and that if they do, then for partial days within long weeks of holidays. A great freedom that goes on and on.
Opening of the current school year. An event that has become rare // Archive photo: Moshe Ben-Simhon, Yaniv Zohar
Three and a half months, in a few years in which Israeli children and youth have lost all stability, is an impossible challenge for a system that is already fighting for its educators and counselors.
Yes, on the face of it, this seems like another honorable achievement for the rights fighters from the teachers' union, and who doesn't want their children's teachers to get the best conditions; But when you look at it from above, you find that in one calendar year, Israelis have the smallest number of vacation overlap days between adults and their children among Europe's leading countries. We miss work days left and right, we move from holiday to holiday and scramble work days.
And it's not just our bank account that gets screwed, but also the entire Israeli economy. Because at the end of the day, one parent has to stay home even if grandparents are enlisted as an auxiliary force to fight in the trenches of playgrounds and diapers, while parents try to salvage what's left of their careers.
The parental sector finds itself anew with fundamental questions about employment, self-fulfillment and parenting burdened with anguish of conscience. We look at our children, their teachers, and then at night before bed, we also look in the mirror. The never-ending obstacles we face once again raise the question of this place. Yes, perhaps not on crucial issues such as democracy and land settlement, but "overall" on education.
Are we really giving our children the best? Will the fear that the beloved teacher won't continue next year because he, too, will break down at some point? What do you say to a principal who announces that there is no budget for another assistant even though it is obviously necessary, and that the math teacher will also be the English teacher? Unfortunately, in our hearts we know the answers.
There are children in the Israeli education system who do not receive the good they are supposed to receive in the most important years of their lives. Yes, I know, they wrote similar things when I was a kid. So what? A company is supposed to step forward, not stay where it is. While in the struggles for the identity of the state it is easy for us to mark the bad guys and the good guys, our camp against theirs – when it comes to education, there are no good guys and no bad guys.
Even never-ending activists like Ran Erez have the backing of the public that follows him, even the most problematic child in the class is ultimately a child, and the sometimes intolerable parents – in the end they are parents.
And the worst part is that this struggle always gives the feeling that everything we teach our children is wrong: yes there are losers in this story, yes there are those who pay a heavy price, yes there are those to whom we fail to keep our promise. At the end of each school year.
But who has the courage to look into their children's eyes and tell them that it is they who are breaking their promises?
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