ESRA, which is the largest English-speaking volunteer group in Israel, broke new ground last week. The idea behind this was to bring to the awareness of the younger generation the importance of ESRA and its contributions to the community.
Parents of young children were invited to a workshop conducted by a recent newcomer to Tel Aviv from London. Dr Judy Silver, an educational psychologist, with vast experience in teaching academic and practical spheres of working with young children, offered her expertise to ESRA.
She outlined the importance of developing thinking skills and cognitive strategies in young people to enable them to cope with the challenges of schoolwork, homework, scheduling their tasks and their lives and maintaining motivation. She emphasized the important contributions of both emotional strength and stability and cognitive skills in achieving these goals. To this end, Dr. Silver uses the concepts and methodology of Israel's own Professor Reuven Feuerstein as well as other internationally recognized methods for enhancing and structuring cognition.
The workshop participants were given some fascinating and challenging cognitive exercises to do, in order to illustrate and understand these ideas. Possible problem-solving strategies were then presented and discussed.
There was an opportunity for questions, so parents' concerns could be addressed.
A comment from a participant was: "Thank you to ESRA for organizing the workshop on Friday and to Judy Silver for an incredibly insightful talk. I feel that the change in my responses and help with my kids has been instantaneous."
It is probable that Dr Silver will run similar introductory workshops in other areas of the Sharon, as well as a short series of such workshops in the future.
Anyone interested should contact ESRA at 09 748 2957 or 09 950 8371.