Statistics

I recently got a copy of the 2006 Education and Culture Data from the State of Israel. Some interesting statistics (all data from Statistical Abstract of Israel, 2007).  

The average years of schooling in Israel are 12.5. Jews on average have 12.8 years of schooling and Arabs have 11.1. Jews aged 25-34 have on average 14.3 years of schooling while Arabs have 11.2 years (pg. 370-372).

29.5 % of Jews reach Academic Levels of School (University) while only 12.3% of Arabs reach that level. 39.0% of Arabs do not study after Secondary School versus 25.0% of Jews (pg. 374).

Class capacity levels are similar in both the Jewish and Arab sectors, with the average amount of pupils per class in a Secondary School being 26 for Jews and 29 for Arabs (pg. 378).

The GEM (Growth and Effectiveness Measures) is a standardized test that Israeli citizens take in Grades 5 and 8 in a variety of subjects: Mother Tongue (Hebrew or Arabic), English, Mathematics, and Science and Technology). GEM Average Scores: 

Grade 5- Mother Tounge: Jews 70.2, Arabs 54.2 

English: Jews 72.3, Arabs 68.5

Mathematics: Jews 73.3, Arabs 56.5

Science and Technology: Jews 71.9, Arabs 55.6 (pgs. 386-387). 

Grade 8- Mother Tongue: Jews 65.2 (excludes religious students), Arabs 66.2

English: Jews 74.5, Arabs 48.9 

Mathematics: Jews 60.8, Arabs 44.4

Science and Technology: Jews 77.0, Arabs 58.3

On average, girls score 6.425 points higher than boys, but Arab girls score 9.75 points higher than Arab boys (pgs. 388-389). It seems from the data that an achievement gap exists between Jewish and Arab students that increases as the students age. 

More stats to follow this post. 

Teaching in Sha'ab

Recently, I began teaching English once a week at a high-school in Sha'ab. Sha'ab is an Arab village that was captured in the 1948 War that is now in the north of Israel. 

Something that some people may not know about the Israeli school system is that the schools are segregated between Jews and Arabs. So the students at the Sha'ab High School learn mostly in Arabic, which makes it sometimes difficult to teach as my Arabic is nowhere near my Hebrew, which makes for some funny moments. The interesting thing is that while Jewish students are not required to take Arabic for more than a few years, Arab students must take Hebrew until they graduate. 

Unlike Jewish students who go to the army after high school, Arab students follow a trajectory much more like students in the US who generally go to college when they are 18. It's interesting to sit with these kids, who are all around the age of 16, and talk about their futures and what they want to be when they grow up. Many of them want to be doctors or surgeons, study science, computers, which makes sense because those are some of the best ways to make a living in Israel today. IBM, Google, Intel, Yahoo, and Microsoft all have Research and Development centers in the country, specifically in Haifa, where I live. 

 

 The students I teach share a love of music, action movies, books, and surprisingly enough Enrique Inglesias. Many of them live in houses with their entire families, and many of them will probably never live any other place than Sha'ab. When I told the students the first day that I'm Jewish, many of them were surprised that I had any interest in helping them out.  But I think I have gained most of their trust over the past couple of weeks, and they seem to be more open to me the longer I work with them. 

The students are a lot of fun to work with, and as we get into some deeper and more political discussion topics in the classes, I'll be sure to post some interesting viewpoints on the blog here. 

The Story So Far

Here's how Notes for Peace came to be, and what we have accomplished so far: 

In fall 2006, after traveling to Israel the summer before, I approached some people at NYU with the idea of creating a non-profit that would host a music related peace-camp in the Middle East, which was met with support, but the timing just did not seem right. I let the idea sit a for a while,  and a year later, after spending summer 2007 living in Haifa, Israel, I started decided to go ahead with the project. A friend of mine, Alex Lehrer, helped me come up with the name Notes for Peace. 

First, I reached out to organizations on NYU's campus in order to recruit students to form the Board of Directors. A few good friends and I sat in a cafe for days, interviewing people who would become the core of Notes for Peace. Finally, about two weeks later, we had our initial Board, and were able to start our meetings. 

In our first couple of weeks in existence, we managed to accomplish a lot. We met with members of the music industry at the College Music Journal Festival and Audio Engineering Society Convention in New York, and even managed to drum up a bit of press--even getting a feature on NBC News. It seemed like everyone we talked to supported the idea--the problem was, however, that we weren't actually a legal non-profit yet. 

I'll spare the details of how things came to be, but by the end of January 2008, we had incorporated as non-profit in New York State, received fiscal sponsorship via Fractured Atlas (so we could take tax-deductible donations), and began our application for 501 c tax exemption.

In January, I flew out to Israel, where I'm now living in Haifa as I study at the University here. It's great to be here because it is letting me do ground research as the Board continues to meet back home, led by our Vice President Farva Jafri. Farva and I speak often to discuss our progress. Currently, the Board is working on two major projects: a Jewish-Muslim-Christian Passover Seder and a benefit concert with World Faith, a faith-based non-profit. 

I'll be updating the blog from now on with what happens as Notes for Peace develops further. 

Notes for Peace Goals

Notes for Peace has four main project goals: 

  1) A summer camp in Israel, where Jewish-Israeli, Arab-Israeli, and Palestinian youth would come together and be taught by well-known artists from around the world in the interest of building tolerance, coexistence, and peace. 



  2) To serve as an intermediary between institutions of higher learning in the United States and public schools in Israel and public schools in the Palestinian territories in order to provide donated arts technologies (i.e. computers, musical instruments) to these schools for use in arts-education initiatives.



3) To provide scholarships to youth from Israel and the Palestinian territories to come and study arts majors at US institutions of higher learning.



4) To raise awareness about the importance of tolerance and arts education by encouraging interfaith and interethnic dialogue programs on college campuses and at community centers in the United States, Israel, and around the world.

Notes for Peace Blog Begins

Hello there world, 

         Welcome to the brand spankin' new Notes for Peace blog. My name is Andrew. Notes for Peace is a non-profit project that I began this fall at NYU that aims to bring Jewish-Israeli, Arab-Israeli, and Palestinian youth together to promote tolerance through artistic collaboration. 

Getting Notes for Peace up and running has not been easy. This blog is where you can come to come to follow Notes for Peace's progress as we go through the ups and downs of creating a viable non-profit and try to make a difference in the world!

I'll post more information on the progress till now, and our specific projects in the next couple of posts. 

And seeing as we can always use donations, you can go to www.notesforpeace.org/donate.php if you would like to help us out monetarily, it would be greatly appreciated.