Education Minister tries his hand at teaching math

Bennett started a "listening campaign" over the past few weeks, during which he meets with principals, teachers, students and members of the education system.

By HAYAH GOLDLIST-EICHLER
Naftali Bennett teaches math (photo credit: SASSON TIRAM)
Naftali Bennett teaches math
(photo credit: SASSON TIRAM)
Education Minister Naftali Bennett tried his hand at teaching a sixth-grade math class at the Krol elementary school in Petah Tikva on Thursday.
“We must not allow the continued and drastic decrease in the number of students graduating with five points in math.
This isn’t a statistical number – these are the future developers we are losing, these are the next Iron Dome developers who will not exist, these are the future brains of Israel that simply won’t fulfill their potential in the world,” Bennett said, speaking to the class of sixth-grade math students.
This comes a week after his inaugural speech as incoming education minister, in which he warned of the “strategic danger” he sees in the decreasing number of high school students graduating with the highest math matriculation in the system.
“The success of your generation in math will determine the success of the State of Israel,” he continued. “This is a strategic threat that endangers the future of the state, and I chose to give my first lesson while on the job in mathematics to show the students the importance I see in the subject. Our challenge is to make you love the subjects of math and sciences, and to understand that it is the key to success in any profession you choose to pursue in the future.”
The class Bennett taught was an interactive lesson on the importance of numbers to the students’ surroundings. He showed them how computers work on instructions written in numbers and how simple calculations lead to the design of complex devices.
After teaching his math lesson, Bennett toured the school’s heritage space, where students learn through games about the declaration of the state, the settling of the land and the waves of immigration.
Bennett started a “listening campaign” over the past few weeks, during which he meets with principals, teachers, students and members of the education system to learn about the issues at hand for the office.


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