Beginning with the first day of pre-pre-pre-kindergarden- kids start their formal education here when they are two years old, if not earlier- and through as recently as last semester - the homeroom teacher is in reserve duty for the first month of school, the math teacher is on maternity leave, my teenage son is taking movie production, or what they call “communications” as a major — there have been plenty of shocks.

Hava with her younger son, Tsuri.

One positive shock- which spares the kids much of the trauma and sick stomachs that I went through in school- is that pupils, for the most part, stay together throughout elementary school, and then through high school. None of the first-day-of-school anticipation of who’s going to be in your class, or whether you’re going to be with your friends. Sure, there are problems with this too. Yet, I find that the group of friends my children have grown up with and shared experiences with over the years have learned to look out for each other. This has been a stabilizing factor in their lives. These friendships have become even more important now that that they’ve finished school and all gone off in their own separate directions. On weekends, it’s always the same gang trooping into the house and cleaning out my fridge. This stability also eliminates one more hurdle from the beginning of each school year, which suffers anyway from hiccup-like disruptions with the Tishrei (Rosh HaShana-Shmini Atzeret) holidays.
I don’t think there’s been anything traumatic about all this for my kids, even for Tsuri who, entering the system at age 3 after we’d been in the States for a year didn’t speak Hebrew. For them it’s been a real party. At first I couldn’t understand how they were going to learn anything in a 5 hour school day, which included snack and recess, kabbalat shabbat on Fridays, frequent field trips, and classes of 35 students. I thought that the fact that they went to school every day without a fight must be a sure sign that no learning was going on there. But the end result is that they read Grisham, Woody Allen and J. K. Rowling in English. As a result of their intensive gemara studies, they can build a convincing argument for not being grounded when they stay out after pumpkin hour. They can answer the million- dollar questions on “Who Wants To Be a Millionaire.” So, obviously, and perhaps miraculously, the system works.
The Israeli school system has always been known for its excellence in math instruction, and I witnessed the results first hand. It was early spring and my youngest was in first grade. I was calmly getting dinner ready, when he asked,“What time is it exactly ?” I told him it was exactly 6:17, to which he replied, without skipping a beat,“Then you have exactly 13 minutes to get to the parent teacher meeting ...” As I drove as fast as traffic would allow at that hour, I thought:“ Wow, I’ll have to compliment his math teacher, if I ever get there alive.”

Hanan Shoffman

Another amazing thing about my experience with school here is the homework. I know it may not be true for everyone, but having grown up constantly having to come up with excuses for not doing my homework, I was amazed at how little my children seemed to be sweating over this. I learned that the homework assignments were relatively few, not too time consuming, and preparation was more or less on the honor system. If the students chose not to do their homework, they would not be punished or have to make excuses, however they would suffer the natural consequences when exam time came around. Eventually, they learned on their own where they needed to invest their time, and instead of coming home and spending more time on school work, they could fill their day with other activities. Some of these, as luck and parental guidance would have it, turned out to be educational. They were always more enjoyable than arguing about homework. And in a country where our kids are required to become adults on their 18th birthday, I find that this additional time for them to be kids is a real treasure.
Having additional free time and plenty of options for extra-curricular activities (the selection here is boundless: everything from Tai Chi to English to reptile studies), together with the fact that some parents must be at work even after the kids are home from school, encourages kids to develop their independence early. By third grade, they could cross town by bus on their own. Another shock: I was actually comfortable with this independence, and so were they, knowing that if they ran into any trouble or got lost, there would always be an adult nearby willing to come to the rescue. As they got older, they assumed the responsibility of helping others in “distress”, taking the hand of lost children, carrying packages for elderly — the up side of “what goes around, comes around.” When Hanan was 10 years old, my parents came to Israel for the celebration of my eldest’s Bar Mitzvah. While I was busy with preparations or work, Hanan took charge of showing them around Jerusalem. With total confidence, he took them on busses to the mall, the Supreme Court, the Western Wall, to the town center for lunch, and hailed cabs for them when necessary — making sure that the driver turned on the meter. My parents were impressed. A 10 year old in Yardley, Pennsylvania can’t go much of anywhere without being chauffeured by his parents. This experience led my father, who has yet to make peace with my aliyah, to whisper to a friend, “Don’t tell Hava this, but I’m glad my grandchildren are growing up in Israel.”

By: Hava Shoffman