RUTHFULLY YOURS

Merryl Tisch, the Chancellor of the New York State Board of Regents has been outspoken in her criticism of how our educational system handles its most challenged students, particularly those learning English of whom only 7% graduate from high school on time. This statistic alone is sufficient reason for everyone involved in education, psychology, sociology, immigration policy or humanitarian causes to watch an Academy Award winning documentary (now playing on HBO Demand) titled “Strangers No More.” It details the lives and educational progress of students from 48 different countries – mostly war-torn and benighted – at the Bialik-Rogozin School in Tel Aviv. The film is as much about the teachers, the principal and the Israeli commitment to help refugees as it is about the kids and their horrific stories involving wars, genocide, relocation to refugee camps and other major traumas. Under the stewardship of a dedicated staff, the school is open all day and is considered a home and a family for children who have lost their own.

Following the classic ulpan method of study, involving immersion in the language and culture of Israel, the children succeed in learning Hebrew within six months. We see how students are considered not just from the standpoint of formal education but in the larger context of health, emotional needs and even the needs of their parents. Some of these students have never been to any school before and are now transplanted to a completely alien society with an unfamiliar alphabet, language and rules of behavior. Teachers try to utilize the older students coming from the same country to help the newer ones adapt. One teacher gives a 12 year old boy a bicycle to encourage him to explore his neighborhood and hasten his feeling of connection to his new adopted country. A nine year old girl who refuses to admit that her mother is dead is allowed the breathing room to deal with that in her own way, eventually leading her to write about her feelings and experience cathartic  relief. The sensitivity and encouragement of the principal and staff are apparent – the sixteen year old boy who saw his father murdered in Darfur graduates at the end of the film and hugs the principal telling her, “ I am your son.” “Yes,” she responds, “you are my son.”

In watching this film, I thought about what lessons could be applied to the many children from disadvantaged homes in our own city. One obvious difference in our methodology is that here, children who speak another language are given the option to take English as a Second Language classes. These promote separation instead of inclusion. What is accomplished in the Bialik School in six months doesn’t get accomplished in six years in New York. Rather than directing children to assimilate into their new culture and environment, multiculturalism dictates that they need to honor their own language and traditions – an inhibiting factor in moving ahead both in school and in society. Where once the goal was a melting pot, now the goal is asserting one’s own identity whether it be religious, cultural or gender-related. We celebrate our differences as opposed to our commonality. In Strangers No More, we see many scenes of children singing Hebrew songs together and it’s clear that this is a binding experience. In our school system, we have ongoing legal bickering about whether students should be required to even say the Pledge of Allegiance. The feeling of gratitude for the freedoms of America has been discarded, eclipsed by an ever-growing list of our shortcomings which permeate our curriculum as well as  our media and popular culture.

Children succeed in an atmosphere of encouragement and collegiality – too many of our schools have lost both. Children must know that there are defined standards which they must master – learning a language is a graphic example of one. Allowing them to be pushed forward year after year without speaking English is admitting that we hold no expectations of them and cheating them of their future. Considering all the money that has been invested and wasted in ESL programs, why not create pilot projects that are patterned after the proven successful methods of the Bialik-Rogozin School and see whether they would work with foreigners in New York as well as they do in Israel. With the 7% graduation rate that we currently have, there seems to be very little to lose.   For those critics of Israel who accuse her of apartheid, “Strangers No More” stands as an indelible rebuke and a powerful reason to remember why this tiny country is such an important ally of the United States.