Education for citizenship and democracy is inherently a profound process that requires consistent and practical efforts to achieve results. It necessitates imparting knowledge, providing opportunities for practice and experience, and developing skills and competencies. These endeavors demand training and support for educational staff who are currently often hesitant to engage with these subjects due to a lack of knowledge, skills, or fear of addressing controversial issues at the heart of Israeli society. This hesitation is exacerbated by concerns over potential repercussions from authorities, parents, and other stakeholders.
This project aims to create a learning and creative community of educators that builds a foundation of learning and organizational knowledge within schools and implements it with students. The project will include training the staff, with a focus on the first half of the project, and executing a peak activity developed in each school as part of the educators’ work process. This activity will be adapted to the age group and context chosen and implemented in the second half.
Half of the funding will be allocated to development and professional support, and the other half to organizing and running events. This can include a single peak event or a series of continuous events, such as a school-wide “Democratathon” spread over several consecutive days, where the entire school participates under the educators’ leadership, reorganizing the school event calendar to highlight significant civic/democratic events, and conducting a series of events throughout the year.
This community of educators can be formed within a single school or across several schools from different social groups, thereby strengthening shared life, creating a connecting value in itself, and bringing together students from different schools. We prefer to direct this initiative towards educators of 10th-grade classes, considering the students’ age, maturity, and availability for learning in that year.