In the Southern Israeli town of Yeruham we find the educational program: Institute for Science and Tech Education. Asaf Shalev, the director of the after school program, tell us how he moved from working in telecom companies to teaching with a strong social purpose. “The goal here is social mobility. Many families in this area need government support to get by and we want their children to be able to choose what they want to become”, he told us.
The institute uses robotics and programming as a way to teach skills that go beyond these specific techniques. They want to inspire self-esteem and self-learning, the ability to learn about those things that interest you independently and then having the courage to realize your potential. And this is true since the first lesson, since here there are no teachers but mentors that don’t need to be experts in the subjects, but rather guide the students in their learning pathway.
They start teaching robotics from the age of 4!! First trying out Legos and advancing until reaching hard-core mechanics. Those in high school take part in the FIRST Robotics Competition, where they have won some medals already. Three of the girls in the FIRST team proudly showed us their robot from the last competition, autonomously able to collect and classify objects. In fact, girls are pretty engaged in robotics and engineering and make more than half of the team. Other students have developed a taste for drones, and they are learning to program them to complete different tasks.
The Institute is also combining their activities with the more formally regulated school classes, for instance by allowing students to make physical objects that allows them to learn any subject, such as geography and history.
