This is a year of new beginnings for me, even if some of those beginnings involve renewing old interests and activities. This year I will be holding on to some old strings and letting go of others.
Almost a month ago I said goodbye to the Ofakim primary school which had been my second home, an additional family, for over thirty years. Ofakim was more than a workplace for me, it was a source of learning, growth, friendship and self-fulfilment.
I chose to part from my students and my colleagues; I knew it was time to say ‘farewell’.
I arrived at the Ofakim school, thirty years ago, when they called it the Hatzav School. Hatzav was a kibbutz school, small and family-like, located in the beautiful historical yard of Kibbutz Merchavia. I began as the homeroom teacher for grade six. I was an early-career teacher, a new immigrant with two years of teaching experience from the Ma’ale Shacharut School at Kibbutz Yotvata. My Hebrew was limited and I was only 23 years old.
I worked hard, learning from the impressive teachers who worked alongside me. I asked many questions and I strived to provide my students with a positive educational experience. There was no internet, no digital databases, but there were experienced professionals at school and week-long professional learning courses in the summer.
There were two peaks in my professional development. One was a week-long residential course for all the Ofakim School staff in Jerusalem; there I discovered the term ‘literacy’ and the Whole Language approach for the first time. The second was studying a course called ‘Betzavta’ [Together] over a period of five years with Debbie Korati, a moving and empowering mentor. I learned to teach students struggling to learn to read and write. I fell in love with working with children’s books and I discovered I had the power to make change happen.
I read a lot of literature about literacy pedagogy, I implemented the new ideas with my students, I translated articles and books on Whole Language into Hebrew in order to share them with my colleagues, I collected challenges, and all the time, I continued teaching.
Slowly, I adopted the role of mentor, first at my school with the encouragement of my principal, Efrat Zohar, who believed in me and then in other primary schools in northern Israel. In time, alongside my role as a teacher, I began to teach in professional learning programs for teachers.
Years passed, I left home-room teaching and became the head of pedagogy, leading the school alongside the new principal, Ron Ofir. When Efrat Segev became principal, the first thing she did was to appoint me vice-principal. For a decade I worked as the vice-principal, head of pedagogy, pedagogical leader for the staff, and as a teacher of Hebrew language and literacy and English as a foreign language. I worked in harmony with Efrat, we shared common goals and a language for talking about the school we wished to create and nourish. We maximised the differences between us in order to lead in unison.
Three years ago I completed my PhD and began teaching at the Oranim College of Education, together with my roles at school.
Today, after serious deliberation, I am completing the move to full-time employment in the academic world. There are benefits and many losses. I am pleased with my decision but the separation from school is difficult.
My replacement, Naama Sion, joined the school 24 years ago as my teaching assistant, and she replaced me when I went on maternity leave. After my return, we worked for years together, in perfect partnership as parallel homeroom teachers and we built a relationship based on mutual respect and friendship. Naama’s entry into the role of vice-principal, allowed me to take a step back, to distance myself, and afforded the opportunity to enable the school to continue to thrive.
In the school staff WhatsApp group, I wrote at the end of August:
Dear Friends,
The time has come to say goodbye. After 30 intensive years at Ofakim, years filled with learning and activity, I am continuing on my journey and will concentrate on my work as a lecturer and pedagogical advisor at the Oranim College. Ofakim is home for me and you are family in every sense of the word. I don’t know myself without you and without the students.
I wish you all a creative and satisfying year, a year of connections and strength. I wish you growth as individuals and as a group.
I am adding a quotation (which may or may not be attributed to A. A. Milne):
“How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.”
With love and respect,
Nikki
It took me a whole emotional day to find the courage to send the message. The personal responses that I received from my colleagues will stay with me forever.
In all the years that I have been involved with teacher education, I was proud that I was still teaching in the classroom, still involved with the education of children on a daily basis. I would always experiment with the ideas I was offering other teachers, took part in the creation of curriculum and teaching materials, and was deeply involved in assessment processes. I bought the teachers work I had done with my pupils, I brought the pupils activities I had done with teachers in professional learning programs and with my students at Oranim College. It’s not easy for me to give up those roles which filled my world; I feel something is missing. In my identity, I am firstly a teacher, then a mentor, school leader, lecturer and researcher.
In my 30 years at the Ofakim School, I was a homeroom teacher, English teacher, Hebrew teacher, coach, mentor, head of pedagogy, vice-principal, head of assessment, librarian, mediator, clean, blogger, councillor, website designer and more. For many years I arrived first with Etti Melech, our legendary house-mother, and my car was usually the last in the car park. I am saying goodbye to those roles, but especially to those people who were there for me, who followed me with all my crazy plans and ideas and allowed me to feel significant. It was a great privilege to grow in the environment which granted me a sense of being on a mission in a family atmosphere.
I am leaving confident that the school is in excellent hands.
And where was I on the first of September, the first day of the school year?
I was opening a new door, accompanying 13 pre-service teachers on the first day of their school-based practicum. I have remained a teacher, a mentor, a leader of professional learning, I have remained an educator, just in a different context.
