Israeli bilingual school breaks stereotypes
JESSICA STEINBERG
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
A 6-year-old student runs into Ala Hatib's office at the Jerusalem Bilingual School to tell the principal that he hurt his back, with half the sentence in Hebrew, half in Arabic.
Hatib chuckles at the bilingual jumble.
"I see it every day, every minute, every hour," says Hatib, who joined the school as co-principal this summer.
But what still surprises him is how quickly he has become attached to the school and its ideals. After a Jew and an Arab founded the nonprofit organization in 1997, the organization established its first school in the Galilee in 1998 and the Jerusalem school a year later.
Bilingual skills form a major component of the school curriculum - all subjects are taught in both Arabic and Hebrew by Arab and Jewish co-teachers - but what most attracts parents is the educational opportunities of a multicultural school.
"We want our son to grow up without stigmas, without stereotypes," says Rema Jebara, a Muslim whose son is in the second grade. "For us, it was important for him to go to a liberal school where he can say what he wants to say and accept others who are different from him. I want the school to help sculpt his personality."
Indeed, that's the goal for both students and parents. The school fosters close relationships among the families as well.
"Our students learn to see things in a non-narrow-minded manner," says Dalia Peretz, Hatib's Jewish co-principal. "They learn to think differently; they can't run away to black-and-white options. They grow up realizing that isn't an option."
While the demands of bilingualism mean the school needs twice as many teachers as normal, the Education Ministry covers nearly 75 percent of the school's budget.
The state support is "incredible," says Paul Leventhal, associate director for resource development at the Center for Jewish-Arab Education in Israel, a nonprofit organization based in Jerusalem.
The other 25 percent comes from coexistence funds, North American Jewish federations, the Jewish Agency for Israel and other private donors.
No Arab groups or donors have given to the school.
Each class is comprised of an equal number of Arab and Jewish students, which hasn't always been easy to achieve. Last February, only a handful of Jewish students had signed up for kindergarten. But an ambitious parent set out to sign up the full allotment of Jewish students, and succeeded.
That's a reflection of the times, Peretz says.
"It's not Oslo and the peace accords now," Peretz says. "It's a tough time to make people believe in coexistence."
There have been problems, including a 5 percent dropout rate in the first year because of a crisis over how to observe Israeli and Palestinian national holidays.
Almost everything in the school is an experiment. There are no books, because none exist that would be appropriate for the mixed population. Instead, the teachers create their own materials, using books from the Jewish and Arab school systems as sources.
The school's first-grade classroom is a cozy, carpeted room whose walls are lined with brightly colored letters of the alphabet in Arabic and Hebrew. Inside, 15 children sprawl on the floor with their teachers after having written out a series of words in Arabic.
They speak to their Arabic teacher in Arabic and their Jewish teacher in Hebrew. They begin learning both languages in kindergarten, and it takes about three months for them to adjust to the bilingual classroom, administrators say.
"It takes time," Hatib says. "They get confused, but eventually they figure it out."
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