Last March the city of Bat-Yam won the Nation Educational Prize from the Israeli Minister of Education, Professor Yuli Tamir.

During the event, Tamir declared that next year 50 schools in Israel will operate according to the "Bat-Yam Model for Education," which makes the student, not his or her grades, the focus of the school.

Although new in Israel, this model was patterned after a well-developed U.S. model.

Three years ago a delegation from Bat-Yam, including its Mayor Shlomo Lachiani, went all the way to Chicago to learn first-hand from the success of Small Schools and Big Picture Schools in the U.S.

Although Bat-Yam is a small city near Tel Aviv, they came back full of big ideas and launched a one-year pilot program in three middle schools.

This past year, all the schools in Bat-Yam joined the program.

To share these ideas with more Israeli educators, the Bat-Yam municipality organized a conference and invited the educators who most inspired this model to share their concepts. One of them was Elliot Woshor, Ed.D., the co-founder and co-director of the Big Picture Company in Providence, Rhode Island.

Woshor has recently selected as one of the Twelve Most Daring Educators.

Woshor believes learning should be connected with the real world, thus students would not get bored.

"Students can quite instantly distinguish whether something is real or fake," he said, "and most schools lack authenticity and relevance."

He claims that, "A student can be most special on a specific issue, yet the system is average, so he or she becomes the margin [exception]." That is why the Big Picture schools he runs go with the students' abilities, allowing the students to specialize in unique disciplines they themselves have chosen.

In most cases, it motivates them to learn other disciplines as well. "Our schools are full of energy," said Woshor, "and lots of questions are being asked."

The other educator who inspired Bat-Yam's delegation was Michael Klonsky, PhD, the national director of the Small Schools Workshops in the U.S.

This kind of school, with 100-140 students each, never treats the student as a "problem." The belief is that "where the problem is, there lies the solution."

Klonsky gave an example of a student who was interested in nothing in school, except in being a singer.

The school found a professional singer to teach her. Later on it turned out she was not at all suited for the profession.

However, the Small Schools process allowed her to stay in school, refocus, and switch to other disciplines without frustration.

"In good schools," Klonsky stated, "if you ask a student if he or she trusts the teacher on the human level, and can share his or her problems, the answer will surely be,'Yes.'"

Source: en.epochtimes.com