Research
An Encounter with Israeli Pedagogy
The NCJW Research Center for Innovation in Education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, headed by Prof. Gadi Yair, was commissioned to conduct an in-depth study on I Belong Israel’s influence on students’ identity formation following the 6-day journey.
People look at their lives from a different angle. I don’t know whether they look at people from a different angle, but they develop their own answers. About their state, about their country, about their society. They are open to influences by other acquaintances, other partnerships, and other points of view, to tolerance, to listening and doing. When you spend a whole week with a group you have to interact. You have no choice, whether you like it or not. Even if you were rather shy when you arrived, you open up. This is not a story of guidance, study and explanation, but a path of direct discussion, a path of interaction, a path where you discover things on your own… I think the great thing about I Belong Israel is that it generates its own dynamic through self-discovery, and honest discussion… And this isn’t through lectures with explanations, but through interpersonal interactions, through a process, through getting to know things for yourself. There are several angles, and I can’t tell you which is strongest, but the entirety – of the group, its content, the techniques we use to achieve it – the fact that we are fully interacting with the land – that’s very powerful.
(General (ret.) Shkedi, Board Member, I Belong Israel)