Chapter6 Social Studies: Community Settlements

The subject of Homeland is part of social studies in Israeli schools. Within this subject we chose to focus on community settlements, as the students studying this unit live in one and the aim was to get acquainted with one’s form of settlement during that school year. This chapter defines social studies and gives a brief explanation of the curriculum. It illustrates how the six thinking hats are incorporated into the unit developed based on MdCM, exemplifying the different stages and variety of ways the hats could be applied. It ends with a futuristic view of a community settlement fifty years from now.

1 Social Studies

Social studies in Israeli elementary schools, and specifically in fourth grade are focused on exploring the place students live in from many different aspects: historical, geographical, being a citizen etc. In Israel this subject of study is named Homeland. According to Sagi and Stern (2011) there are two meanings of Homeland – one is a person’s primary home and the second is the political framework in which it exists. The establishment of Israel actualized the second, organizational aspect of returning to the homeland. The homeland is one’s primary home, a place where one is born, where one’s memories, culture, tastes, foods, smells, and overall orientation in the world are shaped. The significance of homeland as a primary home is expressed in different languages. The Israeli social studies curriculum (Ministry of Education, 2003) focusing on homeland society and citizenship for 2nd to 4th grade students in elementary schools is modular and flexible, and allows for unique expression of diverse populations within Israeli society. The curriculum combines moral concepts (environmental-social-cultural-emotional- and historical) with concepts in citizenship. These are gradually constructed over the years, forming a foundation for further studies. The curriculum emphasizes the place of the individual and the relationship between individuals. The curriculum for 4th grade focuses on the place where the student lives. It could be a city, a town, a kibbutz, a community settlement (based on social cooperation that chooses its residents according to an ideology or desired lifestyle, without restricting them to an area of employment), or a moshav

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004375208_006 90 chapter 6

(acooperative farming settlement). In our case it is a community settlement. The program deals with acquaintance with the settlement, lifestyle, stories, history and development of society. Students then are also exposed to other forms of settlements to get to know the “other” and form a common denominator of all Israeli students.

2 Thinking Hats

De Bono (1985) designed a very simple mode of metaphorically wearing different colored hats which can augment critical thinking if used correctly. The six hats cover the main modes of thinking. The wearing of a different colored hat each time, enables the wearer to bring a different perspective to thinking critically about an issue and to trying to find alternative solutions to any problem confronted. He distinguished six modes of thinking, each identified with one colored hat:

1 Blue Hat – control of the other hats, thinking about the thinking process, directs attention to other hats to facilitate “map-making” thinking. 2 White Hat – facts, figures, and objective information. 3 Red Hat – emotions, feelings, hunches, intuition. 4 Black Hat – logical negative thoughts, “devil’s advocate,” why something will not work. 5 Yellow Hat – logical constructive thoughts, positive aspects of why something will work. 6 Green Hat – creativity, generating new ideas, provocative thoughts, lateral thinking.

De Bono uses the “thinking hat” metaphor because of familiar expressions such as “put on your thinking cap (hat).” The hat is a tangible object that one can literally wear or that one can visualize putting on or taking off. “Putting on” a hat is a deliberate process that switches the thinker’s attention exclusively to that mode, thus simplifying the thinking process; “switching” hats redirects thinking to another mode. The artificiality of the hats is their greatest value; they provide a formal and convenient way to request a certain type of thinking from oneself or others (de Bono, 1985). According to Carl (1996) the “Six Thinking Hats” model creates six artificial contexts for thinking, corresponding to the primary thought modes of objective, subjective, critical, and creative thinking within a comprehensive framework that allows the thinker to direct attention to the desired thinking mode (p. 1).