The Mandel Center for Leadership in the North hosted 120 Ministry of
Education supervisors from the northern district for an in-service
training day on February 12. The diverse group of educators - which
included representatives of Jewish, Arab, Druze, and the
state-religious school system - ranged from supervisors of kindergartens
and special education to professional liaisons and Society & Youth
Administration personnel.
The day, planned by MCN
in cooperation with Anat Cohen, who is responsible for professional
development in the region, was the first in a series of three seminars
under the center’s auspices on the subject of meaningful learning. The
opening remarks were delivered by Dr. Danielle Shani, the center’s
director, who presented the Mandel Foundation, the northern program, and
its underlying vision. She was followed by Dr. Ayman Agbaria, director
of the Mandel Scholars in Education program in Jerusalem for outstanding
doctoral students, who spoke about “Policy, Values, and Meaningful
Learning,” introducing participants to texts by the medieval Islamic
scholars al-Farabi and al-Ghazali. Many participants noted that this
exposure to an unfamiliar philosophy was very meaningful for them.
Following the lecture, workshops led by Adi Nir Sagi, Dr. Smadar Ben
Asher and Dr. Nitza Raskin from the Mandel Center for Leadership in the
Negev, and Ayelet Ilany and Dalit Caspin from the center in the
North, explored the ultimate objective of learning and the educational
process in the school setting. The day concluded with a poetry-writing
workshop.
The remaining two seminars in the series will take
place on March 20 and May 22. The program in March will deal primarily
with learning in the urban space. For this purpose, Akko’s Old City will
be transformed into a giant classroom, which the supervisors will
crisscross in small teams. The day is being planned in conjunction with
Even Derech, a company specializing in experiential learning.
