Back to School – Values Education or Indoctrination

As the school year begins, the idea of values education is much in the news in Israel

The recent spate of violence that has made the headlines in Israel has given rise to a discussion about the role of values education in the school system. Can values education reduce violence in the schools and on the roads, for instance, or is it, by definition, indoctrination?

In a Jerusalem Post opinion piece, Shalom Hammer, a teacher at the Hesder Kiryat Gat\Sderot Yeshiva, who also lectures on Jewish education, reiterates the need for values education. Lamenting both the lack of regard for others and the focus on quantitative rather than qualitative learning in Israel, Hammer states: “Back to school, should mean back to basics; basics that implant a desire in our students to explore and experience. Once this desire is rooted, our children will value a society of patience, tolerance and human decency. When this happens one less bottle will be disposed of in a stream, one less person will be rudely interrupted and one less person will be made to swerve in his lane after being aggressively cut off.”

“I teach in a hesder yeshiva, a post-high school institution of higher learning, and my students are incapable of introspective analysis. It is difficult for them to express and develop their own opinions. This is because Israeli education is predicated upon quantitative education as opposed to qualitative education. This system (or lack thereof) does not propagate sensitivity to intellectual or behavioral patterns and by default desensitizes a person to his surroundings. Our schools are engrossed with the importance of capacity as opposed to compassion. They program our children to amass volume as opposed to embracing values, and this breeds a society of ego-centricity.”

For the entire article

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1251145154573&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Since the reports of these commissions were published, one education minister after another has reinforced the need to impart Jewish, Zionist, and democratic values in the schools. The present Minister of Education, Mr. Gideon Saar, is no exception. He recently explained his vision for the Ministry at a meeting of the Knesset’s Education Committee, touching, among other issues, on the goal of educating toward “Jewish, Zionist and democratic values as well as promoting excellence, narrowing social gaps and encouraging army recruitment.”

For a summary of the Minister’s statements, see the Y-Net article

 
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3767291,00.html
 
 
In response to the minister’s statements about his goal of teaching values, Haaretz columnist Avirama Golan wrote an opinion peace, questioning the brand of Jewish and Zionist values that would be taught and branding this type of education as indoctrination. “… Sa´ar wants to replace scholastic subjects with indoctrination.”

For the entire article

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1110384.html

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