In the video: Students from Kiryat Shmona at a school opened for them at Tel Aviv University, November 8, 2023/Reuven Castro
The timetable here is adapted to the new reality. In elementary school, math and language, reading and writing are concentrated, and many hours are devoted to "respite classes." In high school, lessons are dictated by the teachers who arrived and the subjects they know how to teach. From time to time, one of the children leaves the classroom for a personal meeting with counselors and psychologists. "The goal is not to get enough material, not to prepare them for adulthood – the goal is to restore routine to children who are still living in fear. One of them anxiously asked if there would be booms here too," the managers said.
The students at the school for evacuees opened at Tel Aviv University complement with one voice the principles presented by the teacher. "Thinking" - "positive", "believing" - "ourselves", "looking at the glass half" - "full". The lesson is an entrepreneurship lesson. The message, and not accidentally, is more relevant than ever.
There are hundreds of the 54,29 students evacuated from their homes in the north and south, according to data provided Thursday by the Education Ministry at the request of Walla!. Of these, about <>,<> students are staying in the evacuation centers, while the rest have found other solutions, such as staying with relatives. The result is that the Ministry is currently required to meet the challenge of introducing another third of the average national stratum into the education system. Little by little, order begins to be seen amidst the chaos.
Students from Kiryat Shmona at a school opened for them at Tel Aviv University / Image processing, Reuven Castro
One month after Hamas's surprise attack, educational solutions for the evacuated children are becoming more regular. Step by Step. The musicians and TV stars are replaced by teachers, the respite and emotional processing are integrated into educational content and core lessons. A drop of routine, amidst a mountain of trauma and uncertainty.
Currently, there are 340 education centers operating in the evacuation centers, with a principal, educational staff and therapeutic staff. Alongside them, about 15 schools are being built from scratch, in 150 mobile buildings, including in the Tamar Regional Council, Eilat, Ra'anana, Tiberias, and Mateh Yehuda. Existing educational institutions throughout the country have also moved to serve the evacuated students as well. In Tel Aviv, for example, two rounds of studies began in the building – a morning school for the regular students, and an afternoon school for the evacuees. Later they were integrated into classrooms and regular hours in four institutions in the city.
The Ministry and municipalities are beginning to step up efforts to give children displaced from accredited schools, their beloved teachers, sometimes their friends, a decent alternative. It won't replace what was lost, at least for now, but it tries to bring some peace to a life that has been brutally interrupted.
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A little quiet for a life that was brutally disturbed. University School Students / Reuven Castro
Omer Schnefer, a tenth grader, was evacuated to a hotel in Tel Aviv from his home in Kiryat Shmona. "On Black Saturday we woke up in a panic because we know Hezbollah is always knocking on the door," he shared. "We were in a lot of anxiety, as well as compassion for the residents of the envelope. Both we and they live on the confrontation line." In the first week, residents of the north heard Hezbollah's drizzle battles up close. Gunfire followed by IDF artillery shelling, and then again. "My younger brothers experienced it badly. My father is still there, an essential worker at a water plant, and he's bound by a contract with the Ministry of Defense. He photographs the house every time and makes him long."
After weeks of enforced leave, he began attending the university's school yesterday. "You're trapped in one room, a kind of golden cage. I go out from time to time to breathe air, but it's not routine," he describes life at the hotel. According to him, the educational framework is significant, "even if for two or three hours." His friends are scattered throughout the country, some of whom he met again for the first time only in class. "Yesterday, on the first day, I felt like I was going up to first grade. Now we have been introduced to the Beatles quote - All you need is love. At this time, love and warmth between us and our people is the most important thing."
"We were very anxious." Omer Shenfer/Reuven Castro
Two years below him, Yuval Azoulay is studying. "We left on the second day of the war and went to my uncle in Ramat Gan. My father works in the police, heard what was happening and said we had better go. I have friends who stayed there when there were falls," she recalls. The teacher stayed in touch with her and the rest of the class, mostly via Zoom, on processing calls. "No one was in a position to learn. Everyone is stressed, under their own pressure," Azoulay shares. "I was in a kind of strange freedom. At first I didn't want to go back, what school had to do with it, and more about university. I saw that my friends were here and decided to come, to distract myself from the news." She didn't have much time to pack. Her parents took care of the clothes, and it was important for her to take two things: "My phone and a charger. Most importantly."
Student attendance is still missing. In the shadow of war anxiety, some parents find it difficult to free their children to go to school alone, without close supervision. Some, parents of young children, entered the classroom with them and stayed throughout the day. The temporary elementary and high school principals estimate that about half of the students have arrived so far.
Ofer Zafrani, principal of the six-year ORT Danziger School, and Shula Shitrit, principal of Tzatodot elementary school, both in Kiryat Shmona, are jointly leading the effort. They run from class to class, from one dignitary to another who have come to examine what is happening. The new classrooms involve students from all institutions in the city from which they fled. "There's a lot of complexity," they admit.
"Everyone is stressed, under their own pressure." Yuval Azoulay/Reuven Castro
The team is also based on Kiryat Shmona teachers who were evacuated to Tel Aviv. "Recruiting them required a great deal of strength," the managers continued. "The crew is dealing with the fact that they themselves are being evacuated. Nevertheless, there was an amazing mobilization. We even created a babysitter for the teachers' children to help them."
The building where the classroom is located is usually used for computer science studies, but on one of its doors sticks a piece of close-knit history. On the "Respite and Personal Conversations" room is another sign, the one that appears on normal days - "Seminar Class, in Memory of Liran Saadia". "He was a student of mine," Zafrani says excitedly. "I was a teacher in Danziger at the time. Liran became a soldier in the Egoz Patrol and fell in the Second Lebanon War. The sign was found because he was here for a summer course."
The teachers' room acts as a war room. The news is constantly in the background, on a large panel, straight from the projector. A secretary, a technician, a house master and a math teacher lean over two computers for consultation, as if before an operation. The objectives: duplication of worksheets, entering students into the Ministry of Education system, checking that the printer is working, and operation of the coffee station. "The teachers are walking over coffee," laughs the principal.
"Anything to free the students from the pressure." Students from Kiryat Shmona at the Tel Aviv School / Reuven Castro
All in order to free the students from the pressure. Some of the little ones play, or at least try, piano and guitar in the Music Room, the art room under construction. There are no school shirts available and classes are light. The Compulsory Education Law does not apply here.
From time to time, tours pass through the classrooms and serve as a reminder of the unusual situation. The Director of the Northern District of the Ministry of Education, Dr. Orna Simhon, moves between the evacuees from the area under her responsibility and those evacuated to the safe parts of it from the south. "Ten thousand children have been scattered across the country, and the province now has 6,800 children from birth to 18 years old. We took in children from four communities in the envelope. These could be orphaned children, or their parents kidnapped," she says, boasting that "two children with special needs came to us and spent 11 hours in the shelter until they were rescued. They needed unique computers with which they learned. Within four hours, I had two iPads to give them."
You get a reminder of the unusual situation from time to time. Students from Kiryat Shmona at the Tel Aviv School / Reuven Castro
The seventh grade class is attended by Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai and University President Ariel Porat, each with his entourage. "Where is more fun, in Kiryat Shmona or Tel Aviv?" asks the university president. "Kiryat Shmona," they reply in chorus, almost unanimously.
At the same time, Schnefer's class is having a lesson about love. At Danziger, the teacher teaches a biotechnology track. Today she gives a presentation and explains evolutionary differences between a man and a woman. "Men think about sex more than women. Testosterone is secreted at a higher rate in them," she explains. "It's just sex in their heads," one student throws. "What about you?" a friend replies. At the end of the lesson, the teacher concludes with the question: "So should you fall in love?" Pause.
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