Once students, today teachers: educators who returned to the school where they grew up
Closing the circle: teachers who return to teach in the place where they were once students. For the student who once sat in the back row by the window, and perhaps sometimes struggled to concentrate, standing in front of the class with a dry-erase marker in hand is a personal victory and a statement of intent.
Closing the circle: walking through the familiar corridors, the ones where they ran during breaks and waited impatiently for the saving bell, takes on a completely different meaning when you do it from the other side of the barricade.
For a number of educators across the country, the current school year is not just another routine start of the year, but an especially moving closing of a circle: they have returned as full-time teaching staff to the schools where they grew up as students. For the student who once sat in the back row by the window, and perhaps sometimes struggled to concentrate, standing in front of the class with a dry-erase marker in hand is a personal victory and a statement of intent: to be an anchor for students who are experiencing similar difficulties.
Israel Arts and Science Academy (IASA) in Jerusalem | After 30 years: the student who returned as the boarding school director
"The place hasn't changed much - the DNA remains the same DNA"
When Yaron Yitzhak (46) was a teenager and looking for an educational framework of the highest level, he did not imagine that he would one day return to it as a director. Yitzhak, director of the Israel Arts and Science Academy (IASA) boarding school in Jerusalem and father of three daughters, closed a 30-year circle.
He arrived at IASA, a boarding high school for the gifted and talented, as a 14-and-a-half-year-old boy. "I grew up in Moshav Pri Gan in the Gaza envelope and was looking for a school suitable for curious students who love to learn. That's how I got to the boarding school," he says. After his military service, he returned to the place as an instructor for four years, and later headed the "Melach Ha'aretz" pre-military academy. About a year and a half ago, Yitzhak returned to IASA - this time as the boarding school director. "The place hasn't changed much. It has gone through 35 years of processes, there is development, but the DNA remains the same DNA."
Alongside the boarding school, which won an excellence award, is the Israel Arts and Science Academy (IASA) high school. Today, Yaron lives with his family in the boarding school, and his daughter Tama (15 and a half) studies at the high school in the art track. Teachers who accompanied him as a student still teach on the school staff: "There are very veteran teachers there, from the first day of the school. They were my teachers when I was a student, and today I manage the boarding school and work alongside these special teachers. The goal of the boarding school is to take gifted and talented students from all over the country and educate them in social education, so that later they will take their talent and do things for the benefit of society."
When asked if he planned the path, he says: "I didn't think such a thing would happen. It's an opportunity that arose, and it's very exciting and a great honor for me. I grew up here for many years, both as a trainee and as an instructor, and it is completely home."
There are currently about 220 boarding educational frameworks operating in the education system, from all sectors, where tens of thousands of students are educated. Among them are a wide variety of boarding schools with unique characteristics, such as boarding schools for police, fire and rescue studies, seamanship, music and arts, sports academies, agriculture and environment, technology, and more. According to Dr. Saar Harel, director of the Administration for Settlement, Boarding and Youth Aliyah Education at the Ministry of Education: "The boarding education teams are significant figures in the educational process, and they accompany the students 'around the clock' and lead to their success together with the school staff. During the Swords of Iron war and the campaigns against Iran, many boarding schools remained open and continued to provide, with exceptional dedication, a continuous educational response to thousands of students."
"Amit Atidim" Education Center in Or Akiva | 15 graduates of the school teach there today
"From the same village and from the same class - a real home for life"
15 graduates of the "Amit Atidim" Education Center in Or Akiva have made the path back within the walls of the school. One of them is Noy Hershkovitz, a 2014 graduate, who will enter the classroom at Atidim this year for the first time as a teacher: "It is a great honor to teach shoulder to shoulder with a staff that accompanied me in my childhood. For example, the grade coordinator who I had as a student is going to work with me now on the same staff. The status of a teacher was for me something sublime, and working with them is an amazing feeling."
Hershkovitz is expected to teach and prepare students for matriculation exams in the track where she studied. "I grew up in Or Akiva and grew from the place where I am going to work. I speak the language special to the community and know the dynamics. Ready and full of anticipation to start working."
According to Amir Malka, director of the "Amit Atidim" Education Campus: "There is no more exciting identity card for a school than graduates who choose to return to it as staff members. The return of 15 teachers to the place where they grew up as students is the best proof that the education the school provides does not end with the years of study, but remains engraved in the heart for years. When our students see teachers in front of them who grew up from the same village and from the same class, they get a demonstration that the school is a real home for life."
Among the graduates who returned as teachers are also Noy Levi, Coral Krif and Elinor Elimelech, Liza Abayev and Maayan Simani, who have been teaching English for over a decade, Shiran Tzachik, who teaches literature and Hebrew, and Chali Saraf, a grade coordinator and expression teacher. The mathematics field is led by Yarden Abergil, who has been teaching at the school for three years, and Alona Barda, who joined this year as a mathematics teacher after retraining. Roza Shamialov is the history teacher, Mor Revach is the teacher for Jewish law and Tanakh, Yasmin Isakov is the civics teacher, and Agam Shamayev joined this year as a teacher for humanities subjects. The list is completed by Ben Ajami, who is teaching special education and language for the second year.
According to teacher Noy Levi, "I tell the students that even when I sat in their chair, the teachers who stayed remember me as a student. The feeling that you are returning to a familiar and beloved place where everyone knows you gives enormous confidence." Teacher Elinor Elimelech adds: "There is something in this school that when you enter the door you feel the heart."
"Atid Yoana Jabotinsky" Agricultural Youth Village in Be'er Ya'akov | 14 of its students returned as staff members
"I was afraid to enter the teachers' room as a teacher - I didn't dare to enter it as a student"
In the "Atid Yoana Jabotinsky" school, no less than 14 graduates of the institution are currently employed: five teachers, four boarding school instructors, two secretaries, two laboratory technicians and a farm manager - all of them sat in the past as students in the classrooms, feared the approaching exams, the parents' day and the anger of the teachers. But alongside all this, they loved the school where they studied, and finally returned to it.
Who will start teaching this year for the first time at the school as a full-time teacher is Etel Brodsky, whose story with the institution where she teaches today is complex. "My father insisted that I study here because he thought I should study in an excellent school. I was angry because I wanted to study with my friends. I started studying, and at the end of 8th grade I left to return and be with my friends. But then, when I already returned, I understood that I made a mistake and that my father was right. I returned here, finished 12 years of study here and after them I continued to Atuda, so I also became a teaching assistant. After I studied for a degree in electrical engineering, I decided that I am returning to the place that shaped me and will teach in it. Since then I am here."
Julia Bobovich was a master's student in educational psychology. A graduates' meeting held by the school brought her back within its walls, and today she coordinates the computerization issue and also serves as a class teacher. "In my first days as a teacher, I was afraid to enter the teachers' room. It was a place I didn't dare to enter as a student. Today my best friends are the teachers who taught me when I was a student." Among the teachers who returned to the school: Rami Chuchashvili, Nicole Gurvich, Victoria Smolin, Dima Zasiflov, Tamar Abayev, Polina Gaiduk and Nikita Shlumin.
Veronika Kuper, the director: "The school succeeds in creating a deep sense of belonging, a place where students feel that they are seen, believed in and given a place to be who they are. The most beautiful proof of this is the fact that many teachers who teach at the school today were themselves students in it. They chose to return to the place where they were educated, this time from the other side of the class, and to be part of the educational work. For us, this is significant evidence of the school's power and the special connection created between the people and the place."
