Kibbutzim College

ABSTRACT This study investigates adults’ geometrical knowledge for supporting young children’s identification of triangles and circles, as well as how they would respond to children’s reasoning. Questionnaires were handed out to 142 adults, none of whom were early childhood educators. Participants were requested to identify various examples and nonexamples of triangles and circles, and explain their reasoning. They were also requested to evaluate the identifications and accompanying reasoning of a fictious kindergarten child regarding those same figures. Findings indicated most adults correctly identified the figures, except for two non-intuitive nonexamples that adults identified incorrectly. Most explanations given for correct identification were geometrically sufficient. When evaluating a fictitious child’s identification and reasoning, some adults who correctly identified figures and who provided geometrically sufficient explanations, were willing to accept insufficient explanations from children. Adults’ reasons for accepting both sufficient and insufficient explanations are discussed.

ABSTRACT Samuel Taylor Coleridge maintained a deep relationship with Hebrew. In this article, I examine the Hebrew infrastructure of his poem “Kubla Khan” (1816) and the translations of this poem into Hebrew in light of Coleridge’s translations from Hebrew. These will serve as keys for a threefold argument. My first goal is to obtain new insights into Coleridge’s poetry and thought through the prisms of Hebrew and translation, especially through the intersection of Kubla’s “pleasure-dome” with the biblical “House of the Forest of Lebanon” and Coleridge’s Hebrew-English mini-lexicon. The second goal is to map the mutual shaping power of English Romanticism and Hebrew Enlightenment through the possibility that Coleridge was influenced by the European Hebrew scholar-poet Solomon Löwisohn (1780–1821). The third goal is to investigate the translations of Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan” into Hebrew in view of his choices in translating from Hebrew, his insights on Biblical poetry and the Hebrew language. These three threads, linking the study of language, poetry, translation, and history, open new paths to understanding Coleridge’s work, offer a complex perspective on the relations between European Romanticism and Hebrew Enlightenment, and hint at new possibilities for the prismatic translation of Coleridge’s poetry into Hebrew.

ABSTRACT This study analyzed sixth-graders' perceptions of a year-long education program promoting activism for climate change in Israel. The program aimed to encourage students to lead activities mitigating and adapting to climate change. The research questions were: 1) What are sixth-graders' attitudes towards climate change education? and 2) What program components foster proenvironmental behavior and willingness to reduce the impact on climate change? Qualitative analysis used written summaries, drawings, and focus group feedback at four intervals. The results showed that while students' climate change concerns remained, they developed a sense of self-efficacy for leading activism. They recommended continuing the program, expanding it to lower grades, and providing opportunities to experience activism. The study suggests promoting behavioral change regarding climate change in sixth grade may be effective as children develop their environmental attitudes and perspectives. The research highlights the importance of climate change education, which can encourage activism to mitigate and adapt to climate change among young children.

Emotion is a central aspect for protecting the environment in environmental and sustainability education (ESE). As such, positive emotions toward nature can increase motivation to learn and take environmental action. This qualitative case study explored the complex interrelationship among place-based education, emotions and values related to ESE, academic social and emotional learning, and explored the situated notion of emotions in the context of environmental citizenship. The emotions of 59 fifth-grade students, who were engaged in a program to protect the Lesser Kestrel, were explored. The findings suggest that the outcomes of the Lesser Kestrel program were complex and mostly positive in activating students’ emotions. The results indicate that ESE programs should focus on situated emotions, due to their important role in promoting powerful learning experiences and environmental citizenship, which may mitigate the environmental crisis, along with moral issues that affect the well-being of the individual, and social and natural environments.

An instrumental case study examined the experiences and emotions of fifth-graders, aged 10-11, following their service-learning, which was designed to help the Lesser Kestrel, an endangered species in Israel. The case study methodology used three research tools that included analyses of drawings and explanations, personal reflections, and focus groups. The research revealed four processes that students went through: emotional, social, cognitive and behavioral. These processes supported the creation of an educational setting that allowed students to develop as independent learners with responsibilities towards their peers and a high level of empathy while experiencing environmental citizenship. In addition, the successful experience generated a positive feeling together with pro-environmental behavior leading towards biodiversity conservation.

ABSTRACT As the number of Israeli vegans grows, so do the restaurants that cater to them. In this context, this article looks at how vegan restaurateurs in Tel Aviv construct discourses on veganism. Rather than emphasizing the uniqueness and distinctiveness of veganism, these restaurants tend to contextualize it as part of two complementing discourses: the discourse of health and the discourse of environmentalism. By contextualizing veganism in discourses external to the dining sphere, restaurateurs see the consumption of vegan food as individual acts that actualize communal responsibility, translating it into good citizenship, but detached from ethical considerations for animals’ wellbeing. At the same time, restaurateurs engage in the “mainstreaming” of their restaurants by concealing their vegan identity and/or serving imitations of animal-based foods. This action dilutes the potential to critique the dominant social food norms embraced by a neoliberal economy that encourages consumption.

The aim of this special issue, “Learning Assessments for Sustainability?”, is to examine the interaction between the environmental and sustainability education (ESE) movement and the international large-scale assessments (ILSAs) movement. Both global educational movements emerged in the 1960s and their simultaneous work have affected each other since then. While the articles in this special issue highlight the potential benefits of ILSAs as a source of data for secondary analysis, they also demonstrate the limitations of ILSAs and their negative consequences to ESE. As such, we call for more research on the interaction between ESE and ILSAs and for a serious consideration of how test-based accountability practices might work against meaningful engagement with ESE. This introductory article includes three sections. The first section provides context about the movements. The second section presents an overview of the articles and alternative ways for reading them. The third section discusses lessons learned from the collection of articles. We conclude with a call for further research and reflection.

Environmental education (EE) is recognized as an important way to improve the environmental crisis. It seems that international and national educational assessment and accountability ideas are working against EE. By examining the perspectives of Israeli teachers, who are important change agents in society, this qualitative case study seeks to understand the potential of EE, when paired with citizenship, to foster a more equitable society in the context of the global educational reform movement. The study focuses on EE implementation in two Israeli schools, asking, “How do Israeli elementary school teachers understand EE’s role in fostering citizenship in the context of assessment and accountability?” The findings contribute to the literature by exploring the relationship between EE, assessment, and citizenship. They also suggest that a school’s ontological perspective on knowledge, namely the constructivist approach, enhances pro-environmental behavior, while the positivist approach matches the EE scientific approach that focuses more on assessment. A whole-school approach to EE deepened the active involvement of participants and enhanced their sense of citizenship more than an inquiry-based learning approach. This study recommends integrating the social component of EE and developing action skills for citizenship, taking into consideration the global assessment movement and accountability context.