Since making Aliyah two years ago, I’ve faced constant challenges. But none more so than the Israeli education system.
Clever people make Aliyah when they are
single and carefree. Or as newlyweds with babies. Or when they are older and
retired and finally breathing a sigh of relief at being kid-free.
Not so clever people make Aliyah with three
teenage children.
Those
people. Are. Nuts.
And
it appears that Husband and I are
Those People.
Parenting
three kids in a new country who feel, ‘you have ruined their lives’ and ‘are
never speaking to you again’, has been tricky. And whilst attempting to educate
them via the Israeli school system, I have found myself Totally. Lost.
Whilst
I wasn’t a SuperMom in the UK (I’ve never even met one), I definitely had the
semblance of control. I knew what school each child attended, I knew what time
they started and finished and I knew what colour school uniform I had to buy.
I picked
them up on time (unless I was engrossed in Netflix, and then they had to wait),
signed homework diaries with a flourish, was a professional Class
Representative, sometimes even remembered it was ‘dress up day’ (Ugh). And vitally,
never once received a phone call from
a teacher to ‘come in and have a chat’.
But
then I made Aliyah. And any control I thought I had, disappeared immediately,
out of the oval shaped window on the El Al plane.
In
Israel, I struggle to tell people what grade my kids are in. Is it Yud Aleph?
Kita Vav? Where are they supposed to be? And when? Where is the front gate? Is
there a uniform? When is parents’ evening? Am I supposed to go? What time do they finish?
It
transpired that each day was different. None of this organized ‘the whole
school starts at 8 and finishes at 4’ malarkey that I was used to. That would
be too easy. Sometimes they started at 8am, but this could change to 7.30am,
and you might find out at 7.25am. On a Monday they finished at 1pm, but the
following Monday it could be 2.14pm.
I finally
acquired their timetables (it would have been easier to have bought drugs) but
they were in Hebrew, (apparently that’s the language they use here).
Thankfully, I’m no fool – ex Professional Class Rep - and I succeeded in
producing masterpieces that I translated into English (Matematica = Maths.
Simples when you know how).
I stuck
them on my fridge, used yellow highlighters and sticky gold stars for important
moments and was ready to be an Israeli parent.
But
they didn’t stick to their timetables. They appeared home at all times,
sometimes even an hour after they had left. Their excuses varied from ‘lesson
cancelled’, ‘teacher had a baby,’ (in the class?) to ‘Mum, I already told you,
we only have sports every other month, and only if it contains the letter W.’
Obviously,
I knew that one of the prime responsibilities of a parent is to get your kids to school. But I was confused.
I tried phoning the school. Sounds easy. But after numerous attempts at
battling an Israeli answer machine, there are only so many times you can
angrily press ‘shalosh’ before your number is barred as an alleged phone
stalker.
But
I wouldn’t be put off. I had managed to acquire the mobile phone number of one
of the teachers (I think it was through one of my drug contacts). So I
whatsapped her in my best Ivrit enquiring ‘bevakasha, lama lo my kid not
b’school?’
It transpired
that if a child wanted to leave school premises during the day – they could.
They just sort of – left. If they didn’t want to go to a lesson – they didn’t. No
one seemed to stop them. I was not used to this. In the UK, there was a stern
chap who prevented this from happening. I think he was the Headmaster. But in
Israel the kids sort of arrived and left willy-nilly.
I
gathered over time that their non-attendance was actually marked down, and
parents were notified of their child’s ‘bunking’ at the bi-annual parents’ evening.
I had actually received the whatsapp notification about parents evening, and wasn’t
fazed that it was in Hebrew, as I had recently discovered my ‘new best friend’
- Google Translate.
I
confidently entered the message, dizzy with happiness that I finally had the
tools to parent the Israeli way. Once I had entered the text, Google came up
with, ‘The school invites you to meet the new dog, situated in the arena at the
end of the lake. It will be chilly at the time of 8.15pm’.
As I
didn't really fancy meeting the school’s new dog (I’m not a huge animal lover),
or being chilly (sunny is my preferred weather), and I’m usually in bed by 8pm
- I hadn’t gone.
This
meant I had no idea that the kids were being rather naughty. But once I did
know, I put down my best parenting foot and made them attend school on a daily
basis.
But obviously
only when the calendar month had a ‘W’ in it.
