For 10 days, 57 Teach For America corps members will explore Israel’s education and social justice systems, gain exposure to top Israeli leaders and thinkers, and uncover and recommit to the values that drive their passion for public service. Follow along on their REALITY Israel Experience!

The last leg of our journey was truly amazing. We spent Thursday morning at a school in Jerusalem with students and teachers from a variety of alternative Israeli schools: The Rogozin-Bialik school in Tel Aviv, recently featured in the Academy Award-winning documentary, “Strangers No More,” whose students come from 48 countries around the world; the Du Leshoni School in Jerusalem, made up of Jewish, Arab and Christian students; and the Keshet School in Jerusalem, made up of both secular and religious Jewish students.

We also heard from a panel of esteemed educators and administrators, including a school superintendent, the principal of the Du Leshoni and Keshet Schools, and an educator at the Rogozin School. The chance to interact with students and teachers from such a wide spectrum of backgrounds and perspectives was inspiring and invigorating. Read More »

For 10 days, 57 Teach For America corps members will explore Israel’s education and social justice systems, gain exposure to top Israeli leaders and thinkers, and uncover and recommit to the values that drive their passion for public service. Follow along on their REALITY Israel Experience!

We have entered the third leg of our journey, shifting from exploring models of leadership and our own values to inequities that exist in society, beginning with learning about Israeli Arabs living in the mountainous Galilee region.

Our seventh day began with a visit to Moshav Shorashim, a small community founded in the early 1980’s by a group of young American immigrants seeking to build a model of civil society using informal education and programming like a Jewish-Arab youth circus and a Hebrew-Arabic regional internet newspaper.

We met with leaders of Shorashim, and then visited a teacher training school in Sachnine, an Israeli Arabic town where we met with a recent graduate and several students to learn about their views on education, Israeli Arabs role in Israeli society, pop culture, cultural norms and their futures. Read More »

For 10 days, 57 Teach For America corps members will explore Israel’s education and social justice systems, gain exposure to top Israeli leaders and thinkers, and uncover and recommit to the values that drive their passion for public service. Follow along on their REALITY Israel Experience!

Where to begin??? So much has happened since our last update!

Friday morning began in the wee hours with a climb (well, a cable car ride because of the heat alert) up Masada, the mountain overlooking the Dead Sea that served as the stronghold for a group of Jews who refused to submit to the Romans in 72 CE and held out a valiant amount of time before committing suicide just as the Romans breached the walls.

From there we went to the Dead Sea, floated in the salty water and had a chance to enjoy a spa. Afterwards we heard from Gidon Bromberg, the Israeli Director of EcoPeace/Friends of the Earth Middle East, an organization that works to bring together Jordanian, Palestinian and Israeli environmentalists around a variety of issues, particularly the water shortage in the Middle East. Gidon underscored to us how water is the one bridge among Israel and its neighboring Arab states and what we, in our home communities in America, can do to help. Read More »

For 10 days, 57 Teach For America corps members will explore Israel’s education and social justice systems, gain exposure to top Israeli leaders and thinkers, and uncover and recommit to the values that drive their passion for public service. Follow along on their REALITY Israel Experience!

Day 2 started with innovation in the classroom. We visited Time to Know, an Israeli company that has created a Digital Teaching Platform to helps schools improve the quality of teaching through the incorporation of computing. It was an eye-opening experience and gave us much to consider about the use of computers in the classroom, the way the classroom will look in the future and ways to integrate new technology while maintaining the personal connection between teachers and students.

After such a thought-provoking morning, we ventured out on our own to explore shuk HaCarmel, Tel Aviv’s colorful market full of vendors and little falafel joints and restaurants. Read More »

For 10 days, 57 Teach For America corps members will explore Israel’s education and social justice systems, gain exposure to top Israeli leaders and thinkers, and uncover and recommit to the values that drive their passion for public service. Follow along on their REALITY Israel Experience!

After a great day of preparation and welcome to the REALITY community from past trip participants, we arrived in Israel this morning.

Despite the long flight, we wasted no time getting started. Straight from the airport we went to a nature reserve between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv called Naot Kedumim where we … herded sheep! Set against a stunning landscape, ripe with Biblical and modern-day Israeli history, our 60+ participants and staff learned about leadership through the art of herding sheep and goats.

Such an activity sparked much dialogue and self-reflection, which gave everyone the chance to learn more about ourselves and our challenges and assets in the process. Read More »