A Cruel Equation (Amira Hass)

[Violet_Crumble]

"Now everything depends on your will and your decision. If you want to study for a doctorate in Haifa .... that's where you will study, under my guidance," Anna Sfard, a professor of mathematics education, told a student who had just completed his master's degree in her field, with high honors. That was less than a year ago, at the end of a professional discussion between the two.

Mathematics education is a relatively new and rapidly developing field, explains Sfard, a professor in the department of education at the University of Haifa. She claims that paradoxically, just at the time when the need for scientific and mathematical tools has increased, a general decline in student achievements in these areas has begun, all over the world. The goal is to ensure that mathematics studies will equip students with suitable tools for dealing with a technologically oriented world.

The student of mathematics education, Jihad al-Shwaikh, observed his interlocutor from behind elliptical glasses, and remained silent. He didn't react to her immediately, as one would expect from someone who has just been told that in addition to his high grades, he clearly has abilities, ideas and love of the field of education and teaching, which qualify him to continue his studies. Sfard seemed surprised by his silence.

Here I must reveal that Al-Shwaikh, a native of Gaza (August 1967) and a resident of Ramallah since 1990, is a good friend of mine. I was present at this meeting, half of which I had trouble understanding. But the sparks that flashed in the eyes of both of them, Jihad's rolling laughter and Sfard's smiles, showed how close they have been brought by the subject that is so important to them.

I though about the nice connection that had been forged: between a native of the Al-Shati refugee camp, the son of a family originating in Ashdod, and a famous Israeli professor in the field of mathematics education - a native of Poland and the daughter of sociologist and philosopher Sigmund Bauman, who was fired from his job at the University of Warsaw, and in 1968 was forced to leave Poland with his family because of institutionalized anti-Semitism there.

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=22&ItemID=9859

[bemildred]

1. This is why the collective punishment and police repression are a crime.

Useful and intelligent people are kept from going about their business, which damages all of us, in the end. Human rights are for all humans.

[Coastie for Truth]

2. Sad - and Same-O and same-o

I would suggest that some of the activist groups get him some funding at another university -- like University of California @ Berkeley or Flinders. It's more important that he be funded and not martyred.

We have discussed this before -