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New Hothouse Reconnects Israel's "Hidden Dropouts" with Society
Like many kids their age, Aaron, Abe, and Maor were often up to mischief at school. But unlike veteran Israeli adolescents, the three youth face cultural and social barriers that make their overall success in school that much more challenging. Born in small villages in rural Ethiopia and raised in homes where Hebrew was not the spoken language, the boys had to work additionally hard simply to earn passing grades, receiving little assistance from their teachers or parents, who themselves are new to the Israeli school system.
Having made the transition from the familiar agrarian lifestyle of Ethiopia to the alien ways of Israel's city life at a formative age, the boys were literally torn between two worlds. At school, they felt pressure to forget their old culture and assimilate in an effort to fit in with their veteran-Israeli peers. At home, their new cultural identity put them at odds with their parents, who tightly hold on to the culture they knew. Trapped within what social theorists call a "doubling of identity" Aaron, Abe, and Maor were on a downward spiral. At odds both with their 'old' and 'new' cultures, they chose to opt out of both, becoming 'hidden' dropouts. They would leave their homes as usual in the morning but hang out on the street instead of going to class. Disconnected from both home and schools, without due intervention, these boys were headed for a life spent on the margins of Israeli society. JDC's Ogen ["anchor"] program ensured that Aaron, Abe, and Maor did not slip through the cracks. Targeting youth who have all but officially dropped out of school, Ogen's approach is to find extracurricular ways to engage them, reconnect them to their educational framework and place them back on track to a productive and successful future. In each participating school, Ogen appoints a teacher as a volunteer coordinator who devotes a number of hours a week to identifying 'hidden dropouts'. The coordinator then matches youth with teachers who volunteer their time to work on special projects with students. Projects are selected on an individual basis and range from building school websites and running a local kiosk to organizing a choir, or working in a nursery for children with special needs. Each of the projects is selected with the students' unique needs and circumstances in mind, helping to instill a sense of self-worth and accomplishment in each of the participants. And projects are selected based on students' interests, offering them the opportunity to excel — often for the first time in their lives. In Aaron, Abe, and Maor's case, a teacher at their school named Uri agreed to organize a hothouse project for them on the moshav (agricultural settlement) where he lived. By planting a range of both short- and long-term crops, Uri hoped to show his three students that while hard work sometimes begins to show results immediately, other times it can take much longer. The hothouse project succeeded on many levels, including exposing the boys to many 'academic' subjects that they would not otherwise have shown interest in, such as geography, ecology, meteorology and statistics and arithmetic. "If we can succeed at planting through hard work and patience," said the boys, "then we can also succeed in our schoolwork." By fueling their confidence and teaching them the importance of patience and persistence, the boys learned important lessons, as evidenced by their improved grades in school — a trend which has carried over in Ogen projects throughout the country. The hothouse project had the added benefit of connecting the boys to their parents' agrarian pasts in Ethiopia and giving them an appreciation for where their parents came from. Uri encouraged the boys to invite their parents to see the project firsthand; they were visibly proud to see the fruits of their children's labor, recreating the parent-child bond that had been eroded since their arrival in Israel. The hothouse project was particularly successful because Uri placed the responsibility on the boys — a concept which Ogen continually tries to reinforce for its participants. If the students failed to show up one day, then Uri also 'failed' to tend to the hothouse, meaning the crops were likely to wilt. By understanding that it was ultimately up to them whether they failed or succeeded and that making up excuses or blaming others would not help their plants to bloom, the boys learned to take control of their own fates. They realized that ultimately, no one could help them as well as they can help themselves by putting forth effort. Originally piloted in 2002 at 10 junior high schools, in the four years since, Ogen has expanded significantly and now operates in 130 schools throughout Israel. Understanding the need to help staff understand how to work with these youth, in addition to providing a volunteer coordinator, Ogen provides coordinators with special training from mental health and behavioral professionals as well as opportunities to meet with coordinators from other schools to compare notes and pool resources. While any student is eligible to become a part of the program, it is predominantly Kavkazi and Ethiopian-Israeli children who are selected to participate due to the increased challenge faced by children from these communities in acclimating to Israeli socio-cultural norms. Ogen is run in partnership with the Ministry of Education's Division for Immigrant Absorption November 2006 |
