In recent days, as Israel’s public schools opened for the year, many a government minister and official commented to the media regarding the high caliber of Israeli teachers. The daily newspaper Yisrael Hayom decided to probe just how much knowledge Israeli teachers maintain regarding to the history of the Jewish People and State of Israel.
A poll commissioned by Yisrael Hayom and conducted by New Wave Research set out to determine just how knowledgeable Israeli teachers are. The poll was conducted on August 16-25, 2015, in which 500 Hebrew-speaking teachers were asked to respond to 15 questions without looking up the information. The questions as seen below were not multiple choice, but teacher had to write a complete answer.
Yisrael Hayom explains that based on its assumption that all teachers should know the national anthem, questions that were answered partially or incorrectly were marked incorrect. The average grade achieved by the teachers was a worrisome 33%.
So what were the questions?
What is the Green Line?
The response were absurd, including “demarcating the 1969 borders” and “something related to Israel’s borders”. Only 43% of teachers knew the answer.
What is the date of the Rabin assassination?
One must remember that the nation’s public schools hold a Memorial Day event annually to mark the November 4, 1995 assassination of Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin yet only 77% knew the date.
Please write the first four lines of Hatikvah, the national anthem.
Only 68% of the teacher were capable of doing this. The others did not respond at all, or only partially or incorrectly.
What are the 5 Books of the Torah?
Only 68% knew.
What is the significance of November 29th?
Only 31% knew it to be the day on which the UN General Assembly approved the partition plan and called for the creation of the Jewish state.
Who was Israel’s first president?
Among high school teachers: 41% knew it was Chaim Weizman.
Among junior high teachers: 48%
Among elementary school teachers: 41%
The other questions are going to be released in the newspaper’s weekend edition.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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2 Responses
” im ain torah ain…………
Israeli President Reuven Rivlin visited an elementary school in the community of Peduel in Samaria Rivlin said the hilltop community has come to symbolize Israel’s historical and geographical connection, from the sea to the hilltops, from the past to the future.
“It connects the biblical kingdom of Israel with the modern state,” he said. “Those who live here know that we will never again lend our hand to the dissolution of Jewish sovereignty.”
“We did not come to Israel because we fled the Holocaust or pogroms, we came and we will continue to settle it out of happiness and joy and the understanding that this is our land,” said the president. “Every stone and tree tells a story. The geography, much like the archeology of Samaria, is like the photographs of a family album. Those who live here live in the middle of a lesson in history, in Bible, in citizenship and love of the land. But the most important lesson learned here is one of unity,” Rivlin said.