Social-Community Involvement in Teacher Training Programs

Social involvement in teacher training programs is, in practicality, the very core of preparation for later educational work. Education means an added value beyond transfer of knowledge and endless attempts at nurturing people to treat both themselves and others better; to develop on an individual and social level; to operate with shared values, and share in a human reality broader than individual interests. The encounter with human distress and pain is an inseparable and essential part of every person who is or will be involved in a social or communal role – teaching, education, therapy, medicine, or public administration. This encounter creates the motivation, or even obligation, within us, to act to change reality. The goal of this article is to describe a volunteering program that operates to train educators – student pre-school teachers – at the Shaanan College, and demonstrate its contribution to the training itself.