the Approach
The organizing principle of the Ministry of Education in honor of the 70th anniversary of the State of Israel: "Investigate the past, cherish the present, and predict the future."
In this framework, Windows' educational staff offers to share with schools the vast experience we have accumulated by coping together – Arabs and Jews with the recent and distant past, and with the challenges that we face today and will face in the future.
In our view, in order to advance to a safe and fair future for us all, the central question to be addressed is “What do shared lives mean for all of us?” And next to it questions to be asked are: “why should we share?” “What if there is no shared future?” “What enables it?” “What impedes it?” “What can we give up?” “What are red lines never to be crossed?”
Our experience shows that it is important to cope with each and every topic, as sensitive and painful as it may be, and that it is possible to do so with the right educational tools.
The Need
There are numerous reasons for the many clashes we have in our society and we will write more about this later.
Here we present you some data from a study* of youth and democracy:
- About 40% of Jewish youth are unwilling to study in a mixed class of secular and religious students.
- About 41% of Jewish youth are not willing to live in the same building with an Arab family.
- About 45% of Jewish youth and 30% of Arab youth respectively are not willing to study in a mixed class of Jewish and Arab students.
*Smith Institute, 2015
We have a lot to say about it! Coming soon...
Theory OF Change
The encounter between participants from different backgrounds carries not only an inter-personal meeting but also the historical baggage that each participant carries with her; the world of knowledge she built following the sources of information she was exposed to, her daily life experience and her perception of the future.
They come to the meetings not only from a different reality (with some exceptions), but also from a different place in the social/political hierarchy.
In order to change their attitudes and behavior towards a fair shared life, a change must be made in feelings and perceptions first. Building an effective program requires thorough familiarity both with the processes that lead to the creation of the different communities and the tensions between them as well as with the complex processes that make these changes possible.
Methods
Windows' educational program has been developed over the years, in response to the needs raised by the young journalists of the Hebrew-Arabic magazine "Windows".
In the first stage, as part of preparing the founding generation of the magazine, in the early 90's, to act as journalists, we developed a program for journalism and media studies, which emphasizes both the right to free expression and the right to know.
Later on, we responded to the difficulties arising from the information that young journalists from different backgrounds shared with each other by developing tools for emotional coping, and for analyzing and organizing information. The tools grew out of journalism and are based on writing and correspondence, interviews and journalistic research, teamwork towards a common goal, and more.
