‘Actualiya learning’: a bottom-up construction for civic education in two of Israel’s ‘educational Islands’

ABSTRACT

Contemporary literature reveals that many educators, especially those in elementary schools and in conflict-effected societies, are reluctant to engage in the teaching of current public issues, even more so social controversies. However, this qualitative study examined the successful experience and the perspectives of educators from two elementary schools in Israel who avoided the tendency to bypass these issues and instead embraced them within the framework of ‘Actualiya’ learning. They also trained their students to search for controversy, to identify its rational and emotional origins, to spend time seeking their own opinions and to accommodate the tensions it evoked. The cumulative effect of containing the tension the controversy evoked fostered a complex experience of democratic citizenship with particular and universal affinities. This research enabled us to learn inductively about the pedagogical principles required for an updated civic education instruction in politically challenged societies.

KEYWORDS:

• Civic education
• current events
• controversial issues
• bottom-up educational construction

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank Professor Mira Karnieli [Oranim College, Israel] for her sensitive and professional academic advisor; Dr. Liat Yosefsberg and Professor Elit Olstein form MOFET institute for their wise remarks; PRS for their proof reading services, and the research participants for making this research possible.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. While there were less successful lessons and challenges and difficulties that occurred in the application of ‘actualiya’ learning in practice (and this article refers to some of the main challenges and difficulties involved), the focus of this paper is on successful experiences of ‘actualiya’ to explore ways of ‘doing it well’.

2. According to the interviews and to the actualiya lessons I observed, these lessons dealt with controversial issues such as: Palestinian protests in Gaza, #MeToo protests, soccer and politics, the Prime Minister’s investigations, and seemingly un-controversial issues such as: realty shows, ecological risks, scientific innovations, space discoveries, animal rights, prostitution, children’s rights etc.

3. ‘Repair’ was elementary school till the 6th grade and ‘Improvement’ was elementary school till the 8th grade.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the MOFET institute.