There was creative chaos in the yard of the new democratic school in Givat Olga Monday, the second day of the school year. One group of children was digging furrows to plant saplings with Assaf Ben-David, the gardening teacher. Another was sitting with Osnat Shefler, their homeroom teacher, listening to a story by Haim Nahman Bialik. Other children were wandering around, looking lost, as they tried to find a yoga class.

Until last year, this was the Amishav School, a conventional school in a low-income neighborhood. The school building still looks practically the same - a concrete structure with pale yellow railings, peeling paint on the ceilings of the classrooms, exposed electric wires, and the housing complexes of Givat Olga as a backdrop. But the tree in the yard is decorated with a colored mobile and at the entrance to the building where the elementary school pupils study, is a big timetable from which they can choose classes about dinosaurs, philosophy or domestic science.

By the second day, not all the pupils yet understood the significance of the democratic basis of the school, as well as its limitations. "I'm going home," a seventh-grade pupil called Mor suddenly announces to the teacher. "What's wrong? It's democratic, no?" In the end he stays. "We are in the midst of the process," says the principal, Yariv Ya'ari. "This is a pilot project and if it succeeds, it will serve as a model for the entire country."

	Advertisement

The idea was to set up the democratic school in Givat Olga, Hadera's weak socio-economic suburb, rather than in an up-scale neighborhood like other democratic schools. Six months ago, some 15 parents from the neighborhood met with the educational team and hesitatingly asked questions about how it would work and now 200 pupils are enrolled, from kindergarten through ninth grade. There are also dozens of teachers, including eight young instructors who studied the democratic educational method and moved to Givat Olga as part of the project.

The pupils are a very heterogeneous lot. Many come from the old parts of Givat Olga and others from the more established Kfar Hayam neighborhood; still others come from Hadera and neighboring communities such as Kfar Vitkin. Before the school opened, most of the children and their parents attended a preparatory course where they learned how the school operates.

A week before the academic year began, a group of parents from Givat Olga begged Ya'ari to add on three classes for their older children - seventh through ninth grades - which are the biggest challenge, according to Harel Chernis, one of the senior educators.

They have already spent years in the regular school framework that has categorized them as problematic or weak, and they are the ones that will test the system to its limits.

The first violent incident already occurred Monday: some older boys threw objects out of a second story window and hit another youngster on the head; he required first aid. The boys were called in for a talk and told that this was not the type of behavior condoned at a democratic school. Chernis says it will take time until everyone gets used to the special manner in which the school is conducted.

When the pupils meet their homeroom teacher at the beginning and end of the school day, there are no significant exchanges of ideas yet, and some of the youngsters still find it difficult to express themselves. But Chernis says there are already small successes. "One of the boys came to me today and told me he is actually enjoying himself here." A random poll of the older pupils reveals that they consider the teachers "nice" and that many of them are planning to join yoga classes because it will help them to relax.

Not all the parents are excited about the heterogeneity of the school. "We strongly favor the democratic system," says a Kfar Vitkin mother, "but integration? Didn't all the research show it is bankrupt?" She heard an older boy had threatened a pupil with a knife and "that's a price I'm not prepared to pay." Later it turns out that the knife belonged to the gardening teacher who was showing the pupils how to cut sugar cane before planting it.

Unlike most democratic schools, the one in Givat Olga is part of the state school system and not partially private. It has a long school day and provides hot meals that are funded by the municipality and donations.