Accidental educator

Accidental educator He entered education by accident, when Professor Alice Shalvi, founder of the Pelech Experimental High School for Girls, invited him to teach at her school. There, he became hooked on education. In the late 1980s, which started the liberal stream in Israel's religious school system; over the years, this movement became associated with ultra-Orthodox Zionism. He founded Re'ut in 1999, leaving Dror and its more than 100 students in the wake of an ideological dispute with the school's network. He considered this the climax of his disgust with the nonstop focus on the "length of skirts and the size of kippot." Meanwhile, he began developing political views that were very different from those of the national-religious school system. The search for spiritual identity is one of the most prominent features at Re'ut. The school day begins with prayer services, meditation and Tai Chi, and the student body consists of religious and secular Jews. Re'ut's students come from middle- and upper-class homes, the Beta Israel Ethiopian community and Russian immigrant families, and also includes teens with special needs. Only 40 percent of the students pay full tuition. "out of commitment to the community - but we don't check to see who is praying and who isn't." Geiger totally opposes the Israeli school system's approach of placing the focus on the child: He calls this a "selfish capitalist perception that sacrifices the concept of a value-based education." organization of ceremonies and voluntary projects. However, emphasis is placed on the relationship with the surrounding community: The students operate Re'ut's soup kitchen, distributing hot meals to other Jerusalem schools and the needy. Geiger believes that there is a contradiction between value-based and achievement-based educations. He is completely against matriculation exams and the emphasis on scholastic excellence: "Matriculation exams are bad for the student's health. They are a utilitarian tool whose purpose is merely to screen candidates, and they provide a minimum of intellectual stimulation. There is a negative correlation between mental health, happiness, development of skills and intellectual depth, and academic attainments." That is why he founded Ometz Chinuchi, an organization of 500 principals who have developed their own ethics code and want to free themselves from the teachers' unions. He believes however, teachers' salaries must first be raised. Next week, it will ask the court for a restraining order against the Education Ministry, which is currently negotiating with the teachers' unions. "I have worked in education field for 30 years, and I loved every youth and adults. Instead, we see alienation and the attrition of teachers and principals. I visit many schools and see many good people with a fine intuition for teaching, for communicating with children, but the system is all clogged up. I also see children who are looking for this connection, but it is so hard for people to find the way, even to talk about the absence of a connection."