Where's the education?

She certainly deserves well wishes and encouragement, but in order to promote education and turn schools into places that are good for students she needs a prime minister that believes in the importance of education today and for the future.

She also needs a finance minister who realizes that investing in education is more important than additional sorties by jet fighters that target suspects (there's no evidence against them and no trial, and those wanted suspects are killed along with whole families and passersby – at a cost of thousands of dollars.)

During my tenure as education minister, my government's orientation was for dialogue and breakthroughs for peace. The prime minister and finance minister were partners to the path of "Israel believes in education" and the education budget grew by 70 percent in real terms (when it comes to dry figures it doubled itself, but we had inflation back then.)

Money won't solve everything

One of the important aspects is boosting the standing of teachers in their own eyes and in the eyes of their students. But the money won't solve everything. Teacher associations should invest effort, time and training not only in teachers' budgetary and personal needs, but also boost the level of teaching.

It is important that the teacher's lounge become a lounge of studying, with teachers getting further training and developing empathy to the school, to teaching, and to the students. Despite the crowded classrooms, teachers who love the subject they teach will have their students' attention.

Teachers who get students to participate and assign them tasks related to the studies will ensure that both students and teachers will be satisfied. It is so easy today to task a student with preparing a lecture on a section of a history lesson, be it the American or French revolution, and perhaps also the Human Rights Convention, or hold a discussion about the "Four Mothers" movement or about the story of Isaac and Rebecca.

There's no subject area where students cannot take part in preparing material for class: Herzl, Bialik, Ben Gurion, and even Golda and the Yom Kippur War. Curiosity can be aroused even in a classroom of 40 students, as long as teachers love and respect the profession.

As to the crowded classrooms, it's a disgrace that the small classes in ultra-Orthodox and religious schools enjoy the same resources as the crowded ones. The time has come to establish a per-student norm. Today, a classroom of 17 students enjoys the same services, number of hours, and number of teachers as a 40-student classroom. This arrangement may be good for coalition purposes, but it's not very educational.

Values cannot be taught through preaching

And another note: It's impossible to teach values through special classes and preaching. Values are taught through general teaching, general discussion, and summary of the discussion.

Here's a small example: From young age it's possible to teach responsibility while provide the students with a sense of self-worth. There, even at a young age bible is taught starting from Genesis.

Question: Why was Adam banished from the Garden of Eden? Answer: Because he ate from the Tree of Knowledge…well, not exactly. For disobeying that order they were already punished: "By the sweat of your face you will eat bread, you will bear sons in sorrow…"

We should know that one is not punished twice for the same offence. And there, in Genesis 3:22 we learn: "And God said, 'The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.'"

That's the answer to the banishment from the Garden of Eden. Man, like God, distinguishes between good and bad.

Man knows to choose between what is right and what is not, and therefore is responsible for his actions. All of us, each one of us, parents, students, teachers, the principal, the education minister, the prime minister, army chief, and even president, we all know what is allowed and what is disallowed, what is right and what isn't.

Therefore we must remember this: We indeed enjoy the freedom of choice, but we're responsible for our choices, because all of us, by virtue of being human beings, possess the human characteristic of distinguishing between bad and good.

"By virtue of being human beings" – the sages address this as follows: We're all decedents of Adam, and therefore none of us can say: My ancestry is grander than yours. Therefore, we must also ensure equality between all people. And, by the way, when we talk about people we mean both Adam and Eve, man and woman. "He created them male and female, and blessed them, and called their name 'Adam,' in the day when they were created." (Genesis 5:2)

This is only one example of teaching values – while learning – both about responsibility and equality as well as about the self-worth of the student and teacher.

Shulamit Aloni is the former Education and Culture Minister