Astonishment would not be the word one seeks to describe this story. A parent happened to look at a book used by his first grade child attending a public school in the center of the country. Outraged over what he saw, he posted the story on Facebook and it has been making rounds in various social media networks in Israel and elsewhere, leading to outrage against the education system.

The story given to first graders speaks about “Ayala stabbing Dan in his hand”, then questioning the student to determine his/her level of comprehension and the use of vowels.

Parents are trying to understand why children in the first grade are being introduced to such acts of violence and who approved this text.

Prof. Dorit Aram, Associate professor in the Department of School Counseling and Special Education in the School of Education at Tel Aviv University explains she saw the posting on social media and believes the lesson intends to teach children the proper use of the vowels ‘kamatz’ and ‘patach’. She laments the content chosen to get the message across however.

Maariv quotes a source in the Education Ministry saying “We are dealing with an excellent teacher who seems to have taken outdated material. Parents complained to the school and the teacher state she does not recall where she got the text from”.

Ministry of Education Tel Aviv District officials add, “The teacher made a bad mistake selecting text for her students. She was summoned to the principal and reprimanded. She apologized and admitted her judgment in this case was poor. As a result, talks were held with teachers in the district to prevent such an incident in the future”.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)