The ballot box enters the classroom: the real test of the education system begins now | Prof. Avi Levi

Prof. Avi Levi argues that the peak of the election campaign will penetrate the school, making the educator's role more significant and complex than ever. He calls on schools to serve as a hothouse that equips students with skills to question, identify manipulations, and disagree sharply without turning the other into an enemy. The real educational test, he says, is not in the type of ballot slip but in the value-laden backpack of graduates.

In his opinion column, Prof. Avi Levi argues that the peak of the election campaign will penetrate the school, whether we want it or not. Against this backdrop, the educator's role becomes more significant and complex than ever. While the student learns in class how to construct and examine an argument, outside the school walls operates a manipulative system that seeks to evoke an immediate emotional response, create identification with a certain camp based on identity markers, and stir anger, anxiety, or aversion toward the other camp. The school, he says, must serve as a hothouse that gives students skills to question, check, ask questions, identify manipulations, and above all learn how to disagree sharply without turning those who think differently into enemies. An education system is not measured by its ability to raise students who think the same, but by its ability to raise young people who are not afraid to hold a position, yet also not afraid to examine it. The elections will end in one day, but the language, habits, and thought patterns acquired by students will remain with them for many years after. The real educational test is not in the type of slip they will drop into the ballot box, but what the value-laden backpack of graduates will contain at the end of high school.