San Diego, CA (special) -- Four officials from Tel Aviv University toured schools in the City Heights neighborhood last week to learn if a San Diego State University pilot program may have applicability to their own university's efforts in the mixed Arab-Jewish neighborhood of Jaffa.

In a joint interview at the La Jolla offices of Price Charities -- which helps to finance the experimental educational programs in both areas -- members of the TAU team indicated they were particularly interested in the SDSU-supervised parent volunteer program they saw at the Rosa Parks Elementary School in City Heights.

Jaffa, like City Heights, is considered a financially poor, urban neighborhood.  City Heights, home to immigrants of many nationalities, is considered one of San Diego's most polyglot neighborhoods. The delegation from Israel included Ruth Shalgi, TAU's dean of students; Diti Shvili, director of TAU's experimental educational program known as the Price-Brodie Initiative; Iris London-Zolty, executive assistant to TAU President Itamar Rabinovich (the former Israeli ambassador to the United States), and Rivka Elisha, an assistant to Shalgi. Parents at Rosa Parks Elementary

BRIEFING -- Robert Price shares a light moment with a  visiting delegation from Tel Aviv University while showing  them an aerial photo of the Urban Village project in City  Heights, which Price Charities has helped to finance.   Visitors, from left, are Ruth Shalgi, TAU’s dean of students;  Iris London-Zolty, executive assistant to TAU President  Itamar Rabinovich; Diti Shvili, director of TAU’s Price-Brodie  Initiative, and Rivka Elisha, an assistant to Shalgi.

School have a special center where they volunteer for such assignments as reading to children, working with them 1:1 as tutors, collating teaching materials and participating in fundraising.  Additionally, the parents may brush up on their own language and mathematics skills at the volunteer center. 

Under the tutelage of social workers who coordinate the volunteer program, the parents also learn how governmental bureaucracies and officeholders can be persuaded through community advocacy to change policies or to provide needed infrastructure.

The parent volunteer program gives participants "a place," where they fit in and have a positive role to play in their community, commented an impressed Shvili during an interview Wednesday, July 11.

The Israeli educators said they could envision how similar centers in Jaffa could have beneficial impacts on the community.

SDSU's pilot programs at Rosa Parks Elementary School, Monroe Clark Middle School and Hoover High School often have been compared by the news media to  "teaching hospitals" for educators. SDSU teaching students receive extensive experience in working with the children of inner city schools, while the children benefit from focused attention from university mentors.

Under the leadership of Ian Pumpian, director of SDSU's pilot program, the university is involved intensively in nearly every aspect of education in the three City Heights schools.  TAU, in contrast, develops and provides requested programs to nine schools, but is not so intimately involved in the operation and decision-making of those schools, Shalgi said. 

The nine Jaffa schools aided by TAU's Price-Brodie Initiative include three Arab elementary schools, four Jewish elementary schools, one Arab high school and one Jewish high school, Shvili said.

Robert Price, who hosted the TAU delegation, suggested that SDSU might learn from the Israeli university's experience in developing courses to bring women of different cultures together.  He had similar praise for a TAU program to encourage children of different ethnic backgrounds to collaborate in producing their own plays.  

One ten-week program brings together 50 Arab and Jewish women who have not had the opportunity for formal education.  In a workshop setting, the women are encouraged to examine positions and emotions relating to the Jewish-Arab conflict.  A follow-up course helps the women work together on community projects and initiatives.

In the program for high schoolers, Arab and Jewish students alternate between producing plays with members of their own ethnic group and jointly developing plays.

Whether children live in Jaffa or in City Heights, many of their interests are the same, commented Elisha.  When asked to devise plots for plays, teenagers will often tell about relationships, either with their parents or with each other.

For younger children, commented London-Zolty, there are shows which teach about being different from each other.

For example, said Shalgi, there is a story in Hebrew about an apartment building in which different animals live on each floor.  Initially, these animals do not like each other, but they learn to become friends--a model perhaps for young Arab and Jewish children.