"The soul just knew": The new teachers stepping into first grade

Paz left the center of the country and moved to the Gaza envelope, Rotem gave up visual communications studies after the death of her teacher father, and Daniel swapped a human resources career for teaching first grade. Moments before the start of the school year, three young teachers tell why they chose to enter a system suffering from burnout, overload, and heavy criticism, and what they want their students to learn beyond reading, writing, and arithmetic.

Tomorrow (Tuesday), September 1st, when students return to schools and kindergartens, three teachers will enter the classroom, and their excitement will likely be no less than that of the children in front of them. For Paz Segal, Rotem Katan, and Daniel, the first day of the 5787 school year will be the climax of a personal journey that led each of them, in completely different ways, to the education system.

The education system enters another year in the shadow of ongoing discourse about a shortage of teaching staff, overload, burnout, wages, and working conditions. However, while others ask why enter this system, the three new teachers ask a different question: if the system needs good people — why not us?

"Children need educators who come from a real place"

For 26-year-old Paz Segal, the decision also led to a significant geographical change. Just about two weeks ago, she moved from the center area to Kibbutz Kissufim, and in the coming school year, she will be a first-grade teacher at a school in the regional council, in an area still dealing with the consequences of October 7th and the drums of war in the background. Initially, she did not plan to be a teacher at all; Segal studied psychology and art at the University of Haifa and intended to continue to art therapy, but exposure to the "Academic Kibbutz" program, which seeks to bring educators to the North and the Gaza envelope areas, changed the direction.

She completed her teaching certificate in art at Beit Berl, and gradually discovered that the influence she is looking for is actually in the classroom. "It's not that art therapy wasn't the right place," she explains. "I just felt that right now the form of influence I need is to influence many people."

She also brings her life story into the classroom. Three years ago, she was diagnosed with a chronic illness that affects her mobility. She calls it "dynamic disability," and of course, she does not intend to hide it. According to her, the very fact that children will meet a teacher who sometimes walks and sometimes uses a wheelchair is an educational opportunity.

"I am not the usual disabled person you will see. I also walk, I also get up, I also sit, I combine everything," she says. "I felt that I have something to give on this subject as well and to influence. Children are the best population there is, they have no prejudices. They are with you. There is great importance in children seeing 'dynamic disability.' It accustoms them when they are small, and then it won't look strange to them anymore."

Segal does not ignore the difficulties in the profession she is entering, but for her, they actually strengthen the choice. "I do things that feel meaningful to me, things that I feel I can really give of myself in. Precisely because the education system is not in the most ideal place, I think that with who I am and with what I know I can bring with me, this is exactly the reason to come to it. Children need good educators, ones who come from a real place and really want to."

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"Suddenly I saw how many people my father touched"

For Rotem Katan, 25, from Ashdod, the path to the classroom began with the loss of one of the most precious people in her life. Her father, Ron, was a special education teacher and worked over the years also with at-risk youth. Her mother also works in the field of education, but despite the home she grew up in, Katan did not plan to continue the family path; she was interested in creation, video editing, and technology, registered for visual communications studies, and even paid a deposit. And then her father passed away.

At the funeral and during the shiva days, she met the students he taught over the years. They came to tell her who he was for them — not just as a teacher, but as a significant figure in their lives. "At the funeral, there were many of his students from all the years, many people. When the students also came to the shiva, hugged me and told me 'your father was like this', 'your father was amazing', suddenly I saw how many people and children my father touched. I felt as if he sent them to me. Something in me changed."

Within a short time, she canceled the path she planned for herself and registered for teaching studies at the Givat Washington Academic College. "I didn't know at all what this field was. I just felt that the soul knows. I felt that the Holy One, Blessed be He, is guiding me and that father is accompanying me on the way." The connection became even more tangible during the practical experience: Katan chose to come to the "Galim" school in Ashdod for special education, where her father worked, and found herself teaching even in the same classroom where he taught. The students immediately recognized the last name and the resemblance.

"They told me, 'are you his daughter?', 'how we loved him', 'he was the best teacher'. Everyone told me something about him. Everywhere there was someone who knew him." In the school, a room was even established in his memory where students can relax and take a moment of quiet for themselves, and on the wall appears the sentence that was identified with him: "A day that passes does not return."

Now Katan is starting her internship year at the Tzafririm school in Ashdod. She specialized in special education and Bible, but she phrases her main task in other words: to make a child know that they are seen. "It is so important to me that they see that they are seen. To give them the warm treatment, the love, the learning out of love — not because you have to, but because you can. To make them see the good in themselves and in the place where they are."

When asked about the salary and the difficulties in the profession, she replies that this consideration was simply not the factor that brought her here. "If I were looking at the money in this profession, I wouldn't think of starting to work in it. It's not the money." She is not trying to copy her father; she wants to continue something from him, but to build for herself a professional identity of her own. "I am going on his path, on my path. I bring what he taught me, what he educated me. He is not here, but he continues to teach me. Education was his whole life."

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"I wanted something that would be fun for me to wake up to in the morning"

The story of Daniel, 31, a mother of two daughters, starts in a completely different place: in the world of human resources and management. For years she worked in management and project coordination after completing a degree in human resources management. Working with people always attracted her, but at some point, she felt that something was missing. "You deal with goals and achievements, but I felt that I wanted something else," she says. The events of October 7th became a turning point for her: "I got some kind of 'slap' and I wanted to deal with something that I like more, something that is more fun for me to wake up to in the morning."

She left her job and took time to think. Precisely an almost accidental offer from her sister-in-law led her to a school; she started working as an educational assistant, and later replaced a teacher who went to reserve duty. There it became clear to her that the thing she had been looking for for years was right in front of her. "I discovered a world. I was so disappointed that the year ended. It was sad for me to leave the children because I knew I wouldn't continue with them for the next school year. I got very attached to them, and suddenly I understood that this is exactly what I am looking for."

This year she will already be a first-grade teacher at the "Sadot" school in the Be'er Tuvia regional council, in parallel with teaching conversion studies at the Kibbutzim College. For her too, it is a jump into the water: teaching children to read, write, and calculate from the basics is a professional challenge that she is still learning. "When they told me I would be a first-grade teacher, I was a bit in 'wow'. It's teaching everything from scratch," she admits. But precisely this "zero" became an advantage for her: "I will actually set the tone and pave the way."

She hears the warnings of veteran teachers about the salary, conditions, and workload, but at this stage, she asks to meet the system herself before she forms an opinion. "I decided to come to this new chapter in my life very clean. I said: start and form an opinion yourself. There is a very big difference between arriving at a workplace to work and arriving out of meaning."

She also does not hide the possibility that the initial enthusiasm will encounter a more complex reality later on. "It could be that it's because I'm at the beginning and my motivation is at its peak, and it could be that it will change later. But right now I feel that the meaning is much more critical to me." She wants to build the classroom to a large extent on the principles she brings from home as a mother: "I don't believe in the approach of 'I am the teacher and you are the students', but that we are a family and we need to work like that." The basis for her is simple: "I will give them a lot of warmth and love, and that they will understand that making a mistake is perfectly fine, a mistake is part of the learning process."

It is easy to talk about the education system through numbers: how many teachers are missing, how many students are sitting in the classroom (too many), how many hours a teacher works, and how much money comes in at the end of the month. These are essential questions, and they will continue to accompany the system long after the first bell of the school year. But behind the numbers also stand the people who choose to enter it.

Paz Segal will enter the first grade in the Gaza envelope when her students will already learn from the very meeting with her an important lesson for life. Rotem Katan will stand before students in Ashdod with the legacy of a father who dedicated his life to other children, and will try to continue it in her own way. Daniel will arrive at the classroom after she was already in the world of work, left a safe path, and decided that she wants to deal with human beings. None of them yet knows what the year will look like, and it is clear to them that there will be quite a few challenges — lessons that won't work, children who will be hard to reach, long days, replacements, worried parents, bureaucracy, and perhaps also moments when the enthusiasm of the beginning of the path will be replaced by fatigue. However, moments before the first bell, all three talk less about what the system can give them, and more about what they seek to give it.

Educational assistants: personal experience as a tool

Also, educational assistants are starting the new school year: Almog, 23, asked to return as a staff member to the school where he grew up, but at first, they refused to accept him. Sapir Maimoni, 32, tells about her coping as a student and the path she went through until she found her place in a school for children on the autism spectrum. As part of the "Assistants in Education" program at the David Yellin Academic College of Education, they present a different path for integration into the education system — one where the personal difficulties they experienced themselves become tools in working with students.

When Almog joined the "Assistants in Education" program in 2024, he arrived with a clear goal: to be an educator. He lived with his mother in Ma'ale Efraim and arrived once a week for studies at the David Yellin Academic College of Education, but his ambition was even more focused — to return to the "Alonim" school, where he was educated and grew up, and this time as a staff member.

At first, the school did not agree to accept him, and it was not clear to the staff what contribution he could bring, but Almog did not give up. With the help of the tools he acquired during his studies, he began to volunteer at the school, and gradually found the places where he could be significant for the students and began to provide them with emotional and social support. According to the program, precisely the difficulties that Almog himself experienced throughout his life, among other things in reading and writing, helped him develop creative ways of coping, become independent, and be a significant figure for others.

Volunteering later turned into real work: today Almog is employed in a municipal position and has become an integral part of the school staff. He goes out with the students on field trips, participates in meetings and staff days, and takes part in educational activities. According to the description, he has become a "key figure" in the school, beloved by the staff and students alike.

Sapir Maimoni, 32, found her place in working with children on the autism spectrum at the "Tzlilim" school. "At first I wasn't at peace with it, because I was a strange bird that didn't know how to fly," she said. "It's important for me to say that I am most at peace with it. I spread my wings to bring good into this world. Life taught me not to give up on dreams, to aim forward, not to look to the sides. I coped as a child in school against everyone, and I didn't let anything bring me down."

"The studies at David Yellin College made me understand what I am worth," she said. Following the studies, she began working at the "Tzlilim" school, where children on the autism spectrum study: "This is a significant year, full of love and satisfaction. I wake up every morning with a smile on my face."

The message she seeks to convey also touches on the way society perceives the students she works with: "Children on the autism spectrum lack nothing, they just see the world from a different angle. When we learn to really listen, we discover depth, sensitivity, and love that have no boundaries."