Haredi education faces many problems: discrimination, seminars, overcrowding, lack of budgets, core studies, and harassment of the 'pure oil can'.
These days, a new minister has taken the place of the minister from Yesh Atid, Shai Piron: Naftali Bennett, a member of the Jewish Home. Bennett is not necessarily an ultra-Orthodox figure, but he nevertheless manages to arouse much less antagonism than the minister who belonged to Yair Lapid's party. What's more, Meir Porush from United Torah Judaism will serve as his deputy. Have the "days of satiety" arrived, as some of the Haredi media outlets have chosen to proclaim? Or is there still room for improvement in Haredi education? Haredim 10 contacted ten leading educators and media figures, and asked them to map the deficiencies - as they see them - in Haredi education, along with suggestions for improvement.Dear Minister of Education,
You are now entering your new role. An undesired role. Many would have given it up without a second thought.
Who is ready to go to bed sick?
you.
You were ready for this and took power into your own hands. And now you will fulfill everyone's wishes, requests, and desires.
I wanted to ask you for a special request on the occasion of your taking office.
I thought about what I would ask for the future generation? For our children - our grandchildren, ultimately for ourselves, and I didn't know where to start.
Maybe I should ask for a free education that would also include the expensive textbooks, the not-at-all-cheap uniform, the payments for trips and parties, and a few other things that turn out over the course of the year to be not included in the free basket?
Maybe I'll ask for the big vacation days to be shortened, those days that no one can understand where they came from, who sentenced them to vacation, for what and why.
Maybe I should ask for air conditioners in all the schools that lack this basic product? And if not air conditioners, then at least active fans?
Maybe I should ask you to prohibit the occupancy of more than 25 children in a class? And if the class already has 26 children, at least increase its area? Its teachers, add assistants?
Maybe I should ask you to allocate more play areas for recess, so that the girls don't play with rope and jump on each other's heads instead of on the concrete floor?
Maybe I should ask for more projectors, more smart boards, more laptops for all the children who haven't received these? And boy, in our schools, who has already received them?
I didn't know what to ask for. I knew it was a time of will from you, Minister, but if I ask for too much, I certainly won't get anything. That's how it is in life.
I decided to ask for something else. Something that won't be measured in money or even time, thanks to which you might find time to deal with the important things I mentioned earlier.
I want to ask you to open your eyes and see. I want you to see what I see.
As a writer, I am invited to schools to meet with students. In our schools, I do this more in girls' classes.
You enter the classroom, and in front of you are sitting very closely packed girls and more girls, but even though they are so crowded, the feeling is one of spaciousness.
It's impossible to believe that there are so many girls in the classroom. Not a sound is heard. This is true for the first grade of elementary school, the fifth, the ninth, and even the twelfth. Absolute silence, the sound of a thin silence in the classroom.
The girls stand up for me, as they do for any guest. Standing quietly when the teacher enters, standing again because the principal is coming. Everything is modelly quiet, without complaint, without sighing.
I talk to them, give a lecture - they listen in silence.
When they address the teacher, they do so respectfully and politely: "Teacher, can I please...""
They pray silently and with reverence.
They study in a classroom that is too hot, or too cold, and hardly complain.
They shout: "Steal, steal!" to a girl who wants to use the colored markers without permission. And they write "Shabbat lost" in huge letters when they find a sharpener whose name is unclear.
Yes, I know that you can find those who don't. I see them too. But Honorable Minister, in days like these when we never stop agonizing over the loss of the basics of proper behavior in public schools, when we search the schoolbags of young children and find dangerous objects in them, in days when we call the teacher by name – I only ask for one thing: Open your eyes and see!
And after you see, maybe instead of teaching us what else we need to learn that we're not learning - you'll find a way to teach other schools how to respect teachers; how to make children care about others and the school itself; and how to make children study diligently even though during recess they barely managed to move a leg due to the crowding, even though there's no place to put a schoolbag, and at the table sometimes three children huddle together shoulder to shoulder in silence.
Yes, the excellence you strive for is very important. Innovation and curiosity are cornerstones, respect for the child is certainly unquestionable, but it is impossible to achieve all of this without instilling minimum values.
Not by might, not by force, not by heart or by metzav, not by loud voices or by wealth will we bring prosperity. By instilling Jewish values in future generations, we will save the young souls who, unfortunately, are going astray.
The Honorable Minister of Education,
Open your eyes and see, go out and learn and bring the great good news to the people of Israel.
This is what I can ask of you when you take office. This is what I have found to ask for the sake of the future generation.
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