Shared Society: From Campus to Community
Nationwide, Israel’s colleges and universities are working to make campuses a multicultural and inclusive environment where students from all backgrounds can succeed. As these programs take root in higher education, in what ways can they become transferable to other Israeli institutions? How can the skills developed on campuses impact society at large?
A number of Israel’s teaching colleges have taken the lead by making shared society an essential part of their teaching curriculum. At Beit Berl, a teaching college that graduates almost 20% of Israel’s Jewish and Arab public school teachers, these concepts are seen as key to closing achievement gaps and promoting active citizenship among all of Israel’s citizens. Professor Tamar Ariav, President of Beit Berl College, spoke to a Task Force audience about how and why this college is equipping its teachers with what it views as necessary skills for Israel’s future.
About the Speaker
As President of Beit Berl College since 2008, Professor Tamar Ariav has bolstered the College’s national standing as an institution of educational excellence and a force for social change within Israeli society. Situated between metropolitan Tel Aviv and the major Arab population centers of the Southern Triangle, Beit Berl prepares teachers, artists and civil servants – Jewish and Arab, religious and secular, young and mid-career – for leadership in the Israel of tomorrow. A leader in Israeli higher education, Professor Ariav has been on the faculty of Beit Berl College since 1985, filling a broad range of academic, leadership and management roles. Her areas of teaching specialization are curriculum planning, instruction and evaluation, and her research over the past two decades has focused primarily on teacher education policy. Professor Ariav holds a B.A. in Economics and Statistics and an M.A. in Curriculum Planning from Tel Aviv University, and a Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Her teaching career began in 1971, as a teacher of mathematics in Israeli public schools, and has stretched to Germany and the United States, where she led a professional consortium developing curriculum for Jewish and Israeli education under the umbrella of the national Jewish Education Service of North America (JESNA). Until 2015, Professor Ariav was the Chair of RAMA, the forum of 21 heads of colleges of education throughout Israel. She has been a member of the Council for Higher Education and has chaired key academic groups such as the Committee for Academic Management in Israeli Colleges and the Committee for New Frameworks in Teacher Education, which have set professional standards for teacher education at the national level.
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