The Faculty of Education congratulates Dorit Kirshner, M.A. student in the Dept. of Learning Teaching and Instruction, for winning a prestigious grant from the Israeli Fund for Innovative Teaching. The grant was awarded to Dorit's project on "Children making philosophy", as part of her thesis, supervised by the Head of the Dept. of Learning, Instruction and Teacher Education, Dr. Arie Kizel. In her study, she explored the philosophy of Matthew Lipman, the founder of Philosophy for children.

Dorit also works as a teacher in Kfar-Galim school. As part of the school's innovative learning spaces, she held philosophical research communities for junior high students. Her work was inspired by her own research and a course on dialogic philosophy with children she took during her studies.  

Kirshner's educational initiative was chosen from hundreds of proposals submitted and from tenths of candidates who reached the interview stage. Her initiative joins the 110 initiatives that will be incorporated in the foundation's programs for the upcoming year; and to hundreds of initiatives that have been developed by many entrepreneurs, members of the foundation's community

The foundation's support includes a yearlong training program for the development of the initiative, financial aid up to 12,000 NIS and connections to the nationwide entrepreneur community. The program consists of 3 training sessions at school and 3 national conferences.

Mrs. Yosefa Dar, the director of the foundation, wrote to Dorit: "We believe that the initiative that you have founded will improve and empower your students' learning and educational experiences. The initiative will benefit not only the students, but the entrepreneur teacher as well."

Dr. Kizel congratulated Kirshner, stating that her educational originality is manifested in the formation of dialogical discourse circles with young students, in the best traditions of philosophy for children. "In her paper, Dorit reveals that young students show critical and creative thinking; and the philosophical research communities give voice to many voices which are marginalized in regular lessons", said Kizel. He also mentioned the great support given by the Kfar-Galim school administration, which additionally takes part in training student teachers from the Faculty of Education.

Only a year ago, Dorit won an excellence scholarship from the Graduate Studies Authority, in the University of Haifa. The Faculty of Education is proud with Dorit's outstanding achievements and wishes her the best of luck in the future.