2023-11-02 09:13:36
Colorful props, creative materials, children’s rolling laughter, songs about a hardworking bee, a bumble bee race and a song by Bialik – Barry’s kindergarten complex is probably the happiest place in the David Dead Sea Hotel.
Books and creative materials (photo: Hadas Yom Tov)
The library of Gan Ofarim (Photo: Hadas Yom Tov)
Two gardens were set up in tents outside (Photo: Hadas Yom Tov)
“This is my order 8. What I have to do now,” says Ido Blander (40), a gardener in the complex. In the last week, the ‘Dror Schools’ chain established six kindergartens for the children of the kibbutz, and later a nursery will also be opened.
Blander is a kindergarten teacher at Amnon Kindergarten for toddlers aged 4-6. All the gardens are named after their corresponding gardens in Bari. Each garden is demarcated with colored ropes on which hangs a sign with its name, and two gardens are in tents outside. The complex has creative corners, games for children and corners for parents: a coffee corner and many seating areas. The bar has a display of growing potted plants.
“I told my commander in the reserve, I am a better gardener than I am a police officer. She gave the blessing of the road”
For the past nine years, Blender has been working as a gardener in the education system. At the beginning of the war, he was drafted into the reserves at the Home Front Command, where he serves as a police officer. When he received the message of an urgent need for kindergarteners for Barry’s kindergartens, he wanted to be there, but realized that he was needed in the army.
Later in the week the picture changed. “I realized that another company of the Home Front Command was planned to arrive in the area, and I made an unusual request from my company headquarters: to go to Bari. I told her, ‘I’m a better gardener than I am a police officer.’ She was moved and gave the blessing of the road. I am on my company’s mission, which is very empowering.
“There is a great significance to the familiar, to the characters that are familiar”
“We arrived here on Sunday, a week after the disaster, with the goal of setting up the kindergarten on Tuesday. This required a lot of preparation: physically setting up the kindergartens, forming the educational team, including a psychologist’s conversation with the staff, conversations with the parents, and building an educational plan. You can say that the preparation of two months to open a kindergarten was shrunk to two days.”
Blender’s team is very diverse. “Apart from me, there is Efrat here, who is a retired kindergarten teacher, Yoveb who was and is engaged in many educational positions, girls from Bari, and Ofri, a volunteer in a service year, who have an early acquaintance with the children.” He points out that many gardeners were heard to be called from all over the country: “from Zichron Ya’akov, from Rehovot and even from Rosh Pina”.
The entrance to the garden complex. A nursery will also be built soon (Photo: Hadas Yom Tov)
In the newly created system, meeting with team members who know the children from before the disaster has special meaning. Tal, who started a rhythmic class in the kindergartens in Bari, came to the joy of the children to start the class in the renewed kindergartens as well. “The children really connect with the characters they know,” says Blander, “the familiar has great meaning.”
“The key is giving confidence and trust”
Setting the boundaries is a complex educational issue. At the end of the activity day, two little ones riding small bicycles are gently asked to leave the garden complex, because the garden is closed.
“Dealing with a child’s separation from his parents takes on a different perspective when that child has been with the parent for 20 or so hours,” Blander explains. “The key is providing security and trust. It is possible that setting boundaries is a tool for creating security and trust, but it is not the goal.”
Agenda: “We are very attentive to parents”
She starts the activity day at 8:30. “The children eat breakfast in the dining room, because the hotel’s procedures do not allow us to bring food into the complex.” Until 9:30 there is free time for games, until all the children arrive. At 9:30 there is a morning activity. After that there are creative times, classes and outdoor activities, until lunch at 13:00.
There is also a coffee corner for parents. “They say how much support the children need, how much should be released” (Photo: Hadas Yom Tov)
The activity resumes at 14:00 and ends at 16:00. After the activity day, there is a team meeting to summarize the activity day, and a conversation of the team members about their feelings and thoughts for the next activity day.
The number of participating children increased over time. “We are very attentive to the parents,” says Blender, “they say how much of a framework the children need, how much they need to let go. This listening gives parents and children the confidence that allows them to come.
“Without the pedagogical and organizational power of Dror schools, and without the choice of the Kibbutz Bari community to survive despite the terrible disaster that befell it, it would not have been possible to revive the kindergartens here.”
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