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About this project

Siach ("Dialogue" in Hebrew) is a non-profit parents-organized alternative school in Klil, a small Western-Galilee village in Israel, operating in the spirit of Jiddu Krishnamurti's teaching. It exists for three years now, and is slowly growing from 13 to currently 23 children aged 4 to 10 years. It is intended to provide a continuous educational base until the age of 14. Siach is modeled after our "big brother" in Kibbutz Beit Oren nearby Haifa, a school called Meitar (http://www.beit-meitar.org.il/), successfully operating since 1993, as well as other existing successful models around the world.

Siach is not a school in its usual meaning. It is more of a community, an extended family, a village for children; a place where children may live their life fully. Just the same as with adults, the life is experienced through and around the various members in the community, depending on their personalities, abilities and choices. In this aspect Siach provides the stage and setting for the personal life journey of each.

The pressing problems of the society today are not lack of knowledge or professional qualification, but of the internal quality of life. Violence; communication difficulties; self dissatisfaction; loneliness and isolation; lack of belonging; all these are the expressions of the post-modernist society life and of the fact that we are, largely, untaught in the art of living, in social skills. Siach focuses on teaching the art of living. It is about education and not about learning. Learning occurs naturally, when the conditions are right and without disturbance.

We believe in a better education for children, first and foremost focusing on real life-long social skills and empathy, by means of dialogue and respect for each member of our community. We find that these are not taught in schools today, leaving children unprepared for real life in the real world, given to violence, anger and depression. We put emphasis on community, freedom, individuality and significance of each member, at any age. We believe that children should be free to experience life and to choose their path in it. Life doesn't begin and learning doesn't end at 18, therefore the child is to be free to live a significant life at every age, right now.

Our children are free to learn voluntarily, and with great interest, without artificial separation by age and disciplines, without force, and in a variety of ways. They create and learn all the time, ask questions, acquire non-violent conflict-solving and problem-solving skills, in harmony with their community and environment. They participate in a number of activities including recycling, growing, harvesting in the village olive groves, and in the raising of the annual fair for our school.

As a result, the children grow happy, free and respectful; accepting of individual differences and tolerant; thinking for themselves and knowing that learning is great fun.

Our school consists of a little two-room rented house in the village housing the younger children; a creativity studio tent; and a dome-tent serving as "home" for the older children. Parents, teachers and children have built together a furniture and a carpentry workshop; made a pottery-baking pit; built an outdoors stove for cooking and play; the children built football goal-posts. The school is fully funded by parents, who also provide learning workshops such as music, reading and writing and others, voluntarily, closer in form to homeschooling than formal educational systems. We have a teaching staff of 3 teachers, leading the way for our children and parents as a close interwoven community. But we are still operating on a very small scale to allow for some very urgent developing needs for our children, especially the older ones.

Our request for funding:

Help us to fund another full member of staff position for next year, who shall teach workshops on various subjects for the older children and those who are interested: natural sciences; geography and history; the English language, etc. We also need to purchase some learning accessories such as a chemistry kit; a globe; a microscope; a PC; and to print out the children's projects. This will also allow us to grow by making Siach more attractive to parents who share our view but are unsure whether we can provide all their children need. Growing will allow for more children to get a chance of better future, and to show the way for more parent groups who are u ncertain of the feasibility of taking such a step.

Here is a more detailed spread of the way your contribution is intended to be used:

Workshops - $50 per one workshop (2 workshops per day - $100);
PC + printer + scanner + Internet modem - about $1000;
Learning accessories - about $20-$50 each;
Existing workshop printouts - about $40 each in average (there are 25 existing to date).

Help us open the door for better future for our children and hope for our society in this complicated time and region.

Your assistance is greatly appreciated.