"The success story is the change that has taken place in our school"

October 2007

"The success story is the change that has taken place in our school".

Selait
Tafnit “Start” Program Coordinator for Matriculation, dropout prevention
Zayin Comprehensive School, Beersheba

The success story is essentially the change that has taken place in our school.

The change that has taken place in our school – at management level, with the teachers teaching those classes, and with a ripple effect on all the teachers in the staffroom, and the students.

The students – they have started to see themselves as part of the school. Their self-confidence and self-image have been boosted. The most significant change amongst the students, whether or not they were eligible for full matriculation or only partial, is that they have learned not to give up on themselves, to take responsibility for their actions, to set themselves goals and, most importantly, they have learned to dream and to realize their

Dreams. The dreams are verbalized in the questions that the students have begun to ask themselves about the future – What should I do in the army? What do I want to study? What do I want to do with my life?

The teachers – without a doubt in the first year, and even last year, there were teachers who remained skeptical about the program’s success in general and the students’ success in particular. Gradually the teachers themselves experienced the sweet taste of success with their pupils and began to believe that miracles can indeed happen, with hard work and lots of faith. The teachers began to use the teaching methods and the thinking process in

many different classes that they were teaching.

The school management – as soon as the school management was provided with the tools and the chance to allow the “weak” and “badly behaved” pupils to remain in the school, they were not prepared to give up on even a single pupil, and were thus able to apply the school’s credo.

 “If you don’t believe in miracles, you are unrealistic.”

Golda Meir