By Avigayil Kadesh
Ask second-grader Lia Shamir what she loves most about school and you’ll get a one-word response - “Everything” - accented by a happy grin.
Lia attends a unique Jerusalem public elementary school,
Yad Hamoreh (“Teacher’s Hand”). Founded in 1998 at the behest of a group of parents, the school integrates 187 “regular” first- through sixth-graders like Lia with 49 low- to medium-functioning autistic peers. The children learn academic subjects separately but join for meals, gym, music, art, school trips and a host of extracurricular activities.
Principal Ana Goren, a special-education expert, says there is no other school quite like it in the world. That’s why she often leads tours for curious educators from several Eastern European countries, South America, China and the United States, as well as from other Israeli municipalities.
With about 400 administrators, teachers, therapists and community and National Service volunteers, Yad Hamoreh is distinctive for its high staff-to-student ratio. It also stands out for its small zoo, its hothouse, and enrichment opportunities such as computer informatics, drama, music, cooking, ceramics, origami and chess. And whereas most Israeli public schools end at 1 pm, Yad Hamoreh goes until 3 pm for regular students and 4:45 pm for special students.
You might think the longer day would be a downer for kids, but Lia says that if she could make a wish about her school, it’s simply “that the day won’t finish.”
A unique experiment
Lia’s parents have sent all three of their daughters to Yad Hamoreh. While autistic children get assigned there by the Education Ministry, regular students must apply, and demand exceeds available spaces. Religious and secular kids, Jews and Arabs, attend the school and the staff is likewise multi-ethnic.
“It was based on a system developed by a kindergarten nearby that merged regular and autistic children,” says Zvi Shamir, who has an autistic niece. “This is a unique experiment in the world, we believe.”
The experiment didn’t go smoothly the first year, but when Goren arrived in 1999 as a consultant, she found the right mix of staffers, including behavior modification experts who implemented detailed policies for steering the autistic children toward smoother interactions with peers. The school has since blossomed.
Shamir explains that for severely and moderately autistic children, the social modeling provided by the blended setting is responsible for remarkable achievements in the field of special education.
“The reason is that when [autistic children] learn with regular children, they have to adopt the modes of behavior of the regular society,” Shamir says. “Based upon research at the Hebrew University, we have the basis for our assumption that these children reach much, much higher levels of participation in society.”
Dance is one of the school’s integrated activities
And for the normal pupils, the experience imbues a lasting value of tolerance for people with differences, he adds. His oldest daughter, now in 11th grade, still keeps in touch with former autistic classmates.
“It’s monumental that kids who leave this school have a value system, a social understanding, that is not an innate expectation,” says Su Narodowski, an educational instructor who works with special-ed teachers, pupils and parents at the school.
“At first they may be a bit wary of this kid who’s wiggling his fingers and making weird noises. Then suddenly they realize, ‘I want to go on stage and hold his hand.’ When you grow day by day with someone for six years, you learn to see very clearly what a person is made of.”
‘Every child needs a special education’
Alana Goldstein’s [not her real name] fourth-grader recently won second place at a pupil-judged talent show for singing. Her son doesn’t speak much but she knows what occurs at Yad Hamoreh each day thanks to the detailed daily reports the teachers send home.
“This school has been incredible,” the Jerusalem mother says. “These are low-functioning kids with behaviors that are not easy to deal with. And the regular children actually grow up with them. They learn to see the autistic children as part of their society.”
The past two summers, she invited her son’s autistic and regular classmates to his birthday party.
“Even though it was in the middle of the summer, more than half the regular children came, both times,” she marvels, giving credit to the teachers for being exceptional role models.
She notes that the regular children often take part in therapeutic activities with their special peers, such as animal or sports therapy. “I once heard Ana [Goren] say that the concept of special education is starting to change; every child needs a special education,” says Goldstein. “They really look at each child here in terms of what each needs to grow, and they give it to him.”
The teachers, too, “grow into” the school culture, Narodowsky explains. “It’s not clear-cut and it doesn’t work easily or without hiccups,” she says frankly. “Our teachers have to be very flexible. The regular and special-ed teachers have to think of activities that allow both populations to participate, and behind that is a belief that this is worth fighting for.”
One of those activities is a choral group comprised of 43 kids, four of whom are autistic. Another is swimming. Israel’s fifth-graders all get swimming instruction, and at Yad Hamoreh, the special fifth-graders go to the pool too. Many are good swimmers thanks to their weekly hydrotherapy sessions.
The choir at Yad Hamoreh includes four autistic pupils.
Shamir points out the effect of Yad Hamoreh beyond the kids themselves. “One of the main problems for autistic children’s families is their participation as a unit in the community,” he says. “The community created by this school is very good for both kinds of families.”