عدوى المعلم تيسير نظمي تنتقل إلى إسرائيل ومدارسها High-school teacher faces dismissal for expressing leftist views
Originality Movement shared a link.
الزميل هشام عودة يواصل تأليف كتاب موسوعي عن شخصيات أدبية ووطنية فلسطينية مرموقة وقد أرسل لي مشكورا ما كتبه عني لأقوم بمراجعته منعا للسهو أو الزلل ..أتمنى ظهور هذا الكتاب الموسوعي عن 500 شخصية فكرية ثقافية وأدبية في أسرع وقت وأبهى صورة وإليكم ما خطته يد الصديق أبو الطيب عني: تيسير نظمي
(1952 ـــ ....)
ولد في بلدة سيلة الظهر، القريبة من جنين، عام 1952، وغادر مع أسرته إلى الكويت عام 1959، وفي مدارسها أنهى دراسته الثانوية، والتحق بجامعة الكويت، وحصل منها عام 1975 على إجازة في الأدب الإنجليزي.
عمل تيسير نظمي معلماً في مدارس الكويت، إلى جانب عمله في الصحافة الكويتية، محرراً وكاتباً ومترجما، حتى عام 1992 حيث غادر الكويت مع أسرته عائداً إلى عمان ، حيث عمل في الصحافة الأردنية محرراً وكاتباً ومترجماً، قبل أن يتم تعيينه معلماً للغة الإنجليزية في مدارس وزارة التربية والتعليم، غير أن الوزارة قامت بفصله من وظيفته عدة مرات عام 1999 وعام 2004 وعام 2011 !
بدأ ينشر قصصه القصيرة في الصحافة الكويتية، منذ بداية السبعينيات، وهو طالب على مقاعد الدراسة الجامعية، وأصدر ثلاث مجموعات قصصية في كتاب واحد بعنوان "البحث عن مساحة " عام 1979 ثم تبعه بالكتاب الرابع "الدهس" عام 1982، ولم يصدر في الأردن غير مجموعة قصصية واحدة عام 2004 بعنوان "وليمة وحرير وعش عصافير" وجميع كتبه حظيت باهتمام النقاد والدارسين حيث كتب عنها الكتاب والنقاد مثل محمود الريماوي والدكتور محمد عبدالقادر واسماعيل فهد اسماعيل في كتابه عن "القصة العربية في الكويت" وسيد نجم في كتابه "أدب المقاومة الانتفاضة أنموذجا" وعبدالستار ناصر في كتابه "عن الأردن ومبدعيه"، وهو مؤسس حركة إبداع الثقافية Originality Movement، والأب الروحي للمواقع والصحف الإلكترونية ويدير حاليا نحو 12 موقع إلكتروني بعدة لغات منها www.nazmi.org وwww.nazmis.net وعضو في أكثر من مؤسسة أدبية، من بينها الاتحاد العام للكتاب والصحفيين الفلسطينيين ورابطة الكتاب الأردنيين ورابطة نقاد الأدب الدولية في فرنسا وغيرها، وتمت ترجمة قصصه القصيرة إلى أكثر من لغة، كما قدم العديد من الترجمات من اللغة الإنجليزية للغة العربية. ويجيد أربع لغات أجنبية.- urgent from Amman: The writer Tayseer Nazmi is striking now in the Jordanian ministry of culture
In letter to education minister, student alleges that a teacher
disparaged the State of Israel and the army.
An Israeli high-school
teacher is facing possible dismissal after a student complained, in a letter to
Education Minister Shay Piron, that he expressed “extreme leftist views” and
“spoke against our state” in class.
The ORT school network
held a pre-dismissal hearing last week for Adam Verete, who teaches at
ORT Greenberg in Kiryat Tivon. The letter was written by Sapir Sabah,
who is in 12th grade at the school.
Former Knesset Member
Michael Ben Ari posted Sabah’s letter on his Facebook page, eliciting numerous
comments and even accusations of treason against Verete. Last week Verete filed
a police complaint of slander, threats and incitement.
Sabah’s mother, Nurit
Sabah, said on Saturday the family was waiting to see “whether justice will be
done.”
Verete reportedly told
several colleagues at the school that he had considered resigning, but
“particularly since I’m a homeroom teacher I don’t have the privilege of not
fighting for my opinions.”
After last week’s
hearing Verete told friends that ORT claimed he had violated Education
Ministry regulations. He said he had tried to explain that while teachers
were barred from recommending a particular party in an election or expressing
one-sided, manipulative support for a particular position, they were not
prohibited from helping students to think critically. Verete told his friends
that at the hearing, the ORT officials had said the best solution for all
concerned would be for him to quit.
In a response, ORT said
it held a hearing for Verete as soon as it learned of the incident, adding that
its schools promote values-based education and its teachers educate its pupils
to serve in the IDF. “If and to the extent the statements [attributed to Verete
with regard to the IDF] were said, they contradict the school network’s values
and do not in any way reflect its position. Beyond that, for reasons of
privacy, we cannot address the matter until the clarification process is completed.”
In the past few years a
number of teachers, particularly of subjects such as history and civics,
have complained that it is increasingly difficult to discuss
controversial issues in class, such as human rights in general and the rights
of Israeli Arabs in particular, as well as the conduct of the Israel Defense
Forces. Teachers say students often express themselves in a manner that
borders on violent when it comes to such subjects. Saying the Education
Ministry does not support them, many teachers prefer to avoid addressing
“sensitive issues.”
In August 2012 the
Education Ministry’s coordinator of civics studies, Adar Cohen, was
fired after trying to introduce a broader range of voices into the school
curriculum. At least two Tel Aviv high-school principals, Ram Cohen and
Zeev Degani, have faced disciplinary action for expressing opposition to
Israel’s occupation of the West Bank.
In her letter to Piron
about Verete, Sabah wrote: “Adam [Verete] makes sure to stress his political
views in every class. He explains that he’s an extreme leftist, and from his
perspective our state does not belong to the Jews, but to the Palestinians, and
that we, the Jews, aren’t meant to be here.”
She complained that Verete
“stresses that the IDF acts with unusual brutality and violence” and told of
attending a conference abroad in which he’d shouted, “Viva Palestine.” When
she objected, “he laughed, and said, ‘As far as you’re concerned killing all
the Arabs is what you want.’”
Sabah told classmates
about an incident last year when Verete allegedly laughed at her defense of the
statement, “All the Arabs should be thrown into the sea.” She complained that
he humiliated her and he was forced to apologize. Several months later Sabah
told Verete that treason is punishable by death in Israel. The principal
demanded that she apologize, but she refused.
On Ben Ari’s Facebook
page, there were numerous comments demanding that Verete be fired, or
worse. “Sapir, dear, tell your ‘homeroom teacher’ that he’s invited to get on
the same missile with Ms. Haneen [Zoabi] and Mr. [Ahmed] Tibi,” a reference to
two Arab MKs.
There were also
supportive posts from current and former students of Verete. “I never felt
even for a moment in any class that he was imposing his view [but] that he was
trying to wake the class up,” wrote one student, adding, “He succeeds in
developing students’ critical and independent thinking, and doesn’t
encourage incitement.”
Another student wrote
that she considered Sabah’s letter to be “totally divorced from reality.
[Verete] is an exceptional teacher who encourages open discussion in class
and without a doubt allows every student to express his views, however
extreme.”
Sabah responded to
Verete’s supporters by writing, “It’s a shame that there are people in this
country like you!!! You’re coming out against the state and betraying it!!!”
Don't punish a teacher for doing his job
The education minister must break his silence and throw his
support behind a teacher who is being punished for trying to engage his
students.
The first reports of the
hearing the ORT school system held to consider dismissing teacher Adam Verete
were published Sunday morning. The Education Ministry had known of the matter
since the end of last week. Yet so far, both the ministry and its minister,
Shay Piron, have kept mum about the issue.
This decision is
regrettable. The education minister cannot and must not stand aside when a
teacher is being punished for trying to engage in education. Over the last few
days, many teachers have demanded that Piron back Verete and all the other educators
for whom the minister is responsible and in whose name he speaks. That is a
justified demand, but so far, it has been ignored.
The appointment of
Piron, who has been both a teacher and a principal, as education minister
raised educators’ hopes. They rejoiced that the system would now be headed by
someone who knows its problems from up close, including the difficulty of
engaging in education as opposed to rote learning of the curriculum. The
changes that Piron announced just recently, under the headline “a transition to
substantive learning,” are supposed to give schools and teachers more
educational discretion. And yet, at the very first test of “substantive
learning,” Piron chose to sentence himself and his ministry’s staffers to
silence and leave the public debate to the ORT network, which is proud of
having made enlistment in the Israel Defense Forces a top educational
criterion.
The flaws in ORT’s
conduct are well-known: The network acted hastily, on the basis of a complaint
submitted by a single student, and rushed to abandon Verete, who has received
enviable backing from his other students. Yet this behavior, ugly and upsetting
though it is, pales in comparison to the lack of support from the Education
Ministry. The consequences that message are far more destructive.
Teachers who try to
discuss controversial issues with their students have been under attack in
recent years. Under Piron’s predecessor, Gideon Sa’ar, the Education Ministry
itself led the campaign to silence and intimidate those whose views deviated
from the permitted line.
Piron cannot speak in
praise of involved teachers and curious students – and sometimes, perhaps even
critical ones – while simultaneously keeping mum when a teacher who acted on
his recommendations has been put in the dock. He must stop this deterioration and
give the requisite backing both to Verete and to other teachers through a
clear, forceful public statement in favor of education that dares to raise
questions. This is the education minister’s moment of truth. He must not fail
the test.
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