Teacher for Democratic Life - Part 1

Meir Baruchin, a civics and history teacher who was fired by the Petah Tikva Municipality over Facebook posts but was reinstated following a court ruling, doesn’t hesitate for a moment. He knows exactly what he wants to impart to his students – a democratic awarness. To mark the start of the school year, we sat down to talk about education, values, and democracy.

I’m sharing the first part of the conversation today, with the second part coming next week.

Ayala Shalev, Editor, That’s About Us

---

Teacher for Democratic Life / Part 2

Teacher for Democratic Life / Part 1

Hi Meir, congratulations on the start of another school year. Are you teaching this year?

Yes, definitely. I returned to teach at the same school in Petah Tikva that fired me, after a court decision to reinstate me.

Congratulations… but I saw you posted on Monday, September 1st, a tough question: "If the Ministry of Education wouldn’t have removed chapters on liberal democracy from the civics matriculation curriculum, does that mean Israel is a democracy?"

Is that meaningless to you? If today we’re seeing a generation, maybe two, that grew up in a reality with no political process, where all talk of peace simply stopped – now a generation will grow up that won’t even learn about democracy and rights, right?

No, it’s much worse than that.

It’s not one generation; it’s entire generations who not only don’t know what democracy is but have no problem with Israel not being a democracy. Even more, as long as there’s Jewish supremacy – it’s perfect! So who cares if there’s no democracy? That’s the mindset.

‣ Either "I don’t care that we’re killing women and children in Gaza! After what they did to us on October 7, they deserve it."

‣ Or, those claiming to be humanitarians and liberals say, "It’s very sad that we are killing innocents in Gaza, but Hamas is to blame, Israel is not responsible."

That’s the whole range of discourse.

Even among those school principals who released that video, the moral statement is quite implicit, especially since it came after a year and ten months! They talk about their obligation to care for their students' mental and physical health, but what have they done until now? What happens to those 12th graders – where are they sent? They avoid advocating for refusal because that’s illegal, but that is precisely the point – you can’t win when your opponent sets the rules, incites against you, and delegitimizes you. If you’re still going to fight, you must break the law. And when you truly fight, you should take into consideration that there will be a personal price to pay – shaming, dismissal, arrest... You have to be aware of this, otherwise you do nothing and only play into your opponent's hands.

I spoke with some of those principals and asked them, "What claim can you possibly have against a school principal in Frankfurt in 1936 who said, “It’s terrible what we’re doing to the Jews, but I can’t say it out loud because I’ll be fired, and I have small kids to support at home”?

Don’t you think there’s some awakening among the general public about the destruction we’re causing in Gaza? Some kind of process? Before, they didn’t see anything; now they’re starting to understand, and maybe eventually they’ll even begin to really resist?

No. That’s exactly the point. They saw everything from the beginning, and waited a whole year and ten months! I don’t want to imagine how many lives were taken while they were waiting 22 months until they finally decided to raise their voices.

Their videos circulated online, and people told them they were moral exemplars, that they are principled, honest, brave... I don’t see it that way. What kind of integrity and courage is it to say these things after a year and ten months? True courage is saying it from day one!

So it’s not that I’m pushing them away. I’ll talk to them, collaborate, protest with them – that’s all good. But I’m not taking lessons on moral commitment from them. I say to them, “Look, we started before you came, but have a seat and join us. Let’s work together”.

Let's talk about education. I think it’s one of the most important battles. It won’t stop what’s happening right now, but it can create a different generation in the future. If what we see today is the result of years of right-wing education, then a different kind of education can create a different reality. Otherwise, how will we change?

Look, the core of my lesson is dialogue with the students, a democratic dialogue.

Whenever it comes to relations between Jews and Arabs, no student can or wants to voice the Arab perspective. When everyone speaks with one voice and thinks the same way, you can’t have a democratic dialogue. So I take it upon myself to voice the Arab perspective. At first, some students really feel uncomfortable and even react to it. But over time, a very good dialogue develops that stays with the students years after they finish high school. I know this because they write to me.

With this dialogue, there are a few key points I think teachers must keep in mind. Democratic dialogue is a dialogue of argumentation, and there are several barriers:

1. The first barrier is when one side controls the conversation, dictating and setting all the rules by themselves.

2. Second, you can’t have a democratic dialogue in a hierarchy, because that’s a one-way communication from top to bottom. This mostly happens, of course, in military contexts, but not only there. There’s no interaction; one party gives orders and doesn’t expect opposition, argument, or even a response.

3. Third, democratic dialogue can’t happen if one side undermines the legitimacy of what the other says. There can be no democratic conversation between parties if one sees the other as a traitor. And there’s no room for critical thinking then – thinking that challenges boundaries, breaks conventions, and questions centers of power.

4. Fourth, democratic dialogue requires honesty and credibility. It’s impossible when lies, distortions, and manipulations exist. Everyone entering the dialogue assumes all participants speak sincerely. If one side lies or manipulates, a democratic conversation cannot happen.

Dialogue is important, but it is not happening.

I’ll give you an example. Many schools hold preparation sessions for military service in 12th grade – officers come to the classes, which in itself is crazy that army officers enter an educational institution instead of the teachers doing it… Anyway, a young, nice lieutenant, 21 years old, came to my class and ran an activity called “Leadership” to encourage students to become officers.

He brought a deck of cards with leadership qualities written on them: creative thinking, stress tolerance, charisma, ability to lead… He spread the cards on the floor and asked the students to walk around and pick the card with the quality they think is most important for a leader. Then he held a conversation about the qualities, and wrote them on the board.

Then I asked the students a question: “Tell me, all those important qualities you chose that are now on the board, did Hitler have them? Boom! Silence! I continued, “Okay, so what can we learn from this? That even if a leader has all the qualities you named, that doesn’t guarantee he will be a good leader. Then we have to ask: what is a good leader anyway? Many Germans thought Hitler was an excellent leader. What’s the problem?”

But no one raises these questions for discussion. There’s no discussion happening about these questions at all.

In class, do you manage to have a dialogue with 12th graders? Young 18-year-olds, at the very end of the school system, just before enlistment, the kind of enlistment we all understand the meaning of, especially at this time?

When I try to build my dialogue with the students, I can identify a few difficulties that almost always appear.

The first difficulty is the students’ ignorance. The discussion doesn’t take place based on students’ knowledge, making it hard to have an in-depth conversation, because sometimes this leads to emotions running high or clichés like, “If it’s so bad here, why don’t you go to Gaza?” – things like that. But over time, the students begin to understand that my criticism does not come from hatred of the country but out of love for it, wanting it to be better. They realize leftists don’t hate Israel. And this ignorance is actually a good opportunity to talk about the forces that benefit from that ignorance, the forces that want to perpetuate it.

The second difficulty is when you try to draw broad conclusions from personal experiences, because the students bring their own worldviews. They don’t understand that a personal experience like “My dad told me…” is a very narrow basis, not enough to make a general conclusion.

The third problem is what’s called the “sanctity of balance.” Why do you only show one side? Why don’t you say what they did to us? Why are you brainwashing? In my opinion, this gives the teacher an opportunity to expose the weakness of the system. What’s this obsession with balance? Is the curriculum really balanced? Does the textbook present all narratives? Does it silence or suppress certain things? If there’s an agenda you don’t bring up, does that show a lack of objectivity? How much are minorities even represented in civics classes? So really, the teacher can create balance by representing the minority, by speaking for the underdog. After all, students are exposed to the majority’s perspective by definition – at home, in school, at ceremonies, in the media, in the army. They don’t hear or know the minority’s voice. I think one of the civics teacher’s duties is to make sure those unheard voices reach the students.

The fourth problem is the tension between critical learning and the desire to teach heritage. This exists in other countries too. Knowledge is always fluid. It’s not easy to connect your wish to promote critical learning with the desire to pass down the historical heritage of your side. Any questioning is seen as undermining. Criticism is perceived as weakening or dismantling. But criticism is not just opposition – it’s sharpening your thought. Democracy’s challenge is to embrace conflict. But in Israel, this doesn’t happen.

The fifth problem is guilt. This is a very critical point. When a teacher exposes students to injustices done or ongoing in their name, it can be overwhelming and may shake students, leading to strong defensiveness. Many students repress. Some feel guilt. And it’s not only about Jews and Arabs. You can talk about rape culture, and some boys will get defensive, for example. And, of course, when you bring up the occupation, there is a lot of repression.

I believe this moment gives the teacher a good opportunity to talk about the difference between guilt and taking responsibility. Between closing your eyes and taking a stand. It’s a chance to talk about a human reality that can be changed, to clarify that change depends on citizens, and students are called on to take responsibility, to create something different, not to replicate their parents’ and grandparents’ generation.

In class, I start with the most basic definitions: What is a state? What is democracy? What is a nation? What is Judaism? I begin with a series of questions: Who trusts the IDF? Of course, all hands go up, at least until October 7. Who trusts the police? No hands. Who trusts the Knesset, the government? I go through all the state institutions and write the results on the board. And at the end, I ask: “So what are you going to do about this?” And there’s always a student who will say, “What can I do?” Then I tell them, “By yourself, you can’t do much, but you and your classmates, and the class next door, and all 12 graders in this school, and in the neighboring school... together, you can do a lot. You’re a mass.” I want to encourage them to be politically active.

Part 2 of the conversation with Meir Baruchin will be posted here next Thursday.

---

Meir Baruchin specializes in the history and politics of the United States, a teacher of civics and history, and an activist for human rights.