Public Leaders and Academics

The Michael Method Project is proof positive that there is hope for significant improvements in the education system and that large numbers of students can be given the opportunity to reach notable achievements in their studies, in matriculation examinations and in academic studies. This success is a success for the State of Israel as a whole.  The initiative undertaken by the founders of the Michael Method: Mr. Manny Barzilai and Mr. Yuval Aloni in cooperation with Dr. Avi Levi from the Educational and Social Services Division at the Ministry of Education and with encouragement from the late Minister of Education, Mr. Zebulon Hammer, has borne the most choice of fruits.  The unique way in which you are active in schools, and  the paths you have taken in order to join that exclusive, special force of Michael Method mentors are worthy of all praise. You are the real pioneers in Israel of the 90's.  In the name of the Government of the State of Israel, I would like to express my esteem and deepest regard for your enterprise.

Binyamin Netanyahu - Former Prime Minister

 

	“I know of no other program, in Israel or abroad, that seeks to instill students with the feeling that they can succeed simultaneously in so many different fields…The program succeeds in improving the students’ achievements… and succeeds in fulfilling all of the promises of the Michael Method.”
	Professor Haim Adler, Former Dean of the School of Education at the Hebrew University

Overall, the findings suggest that graduates and even those who have dropped out were positively satisfied with these workshops. Interviewees argued assertions were both instrumental and expressive in nature and they referred to the workshops perse as well as their concomitant results. The workshops produced expressive results (hope, dreams and images) and on both cognitive and emotional levels, they succeeding in transporting the participants from feelings of marginalization and helplessness to a new status of faith and self confidence; from negative to positive self-image, from hopelessness to hope. To a considerable degree, the workshops succeeded in sundering the links between the participants' world of images and their social and primordial backgrounds. The principal influences are expressed in the creation of motivation and the participants' belief that they have the potential to make something of themselves in their studies and in other fields of activity. The realization of this belief in themselves (in contrast with fatalism about their futures) is perhaps the core finding. In additional to that given above, it was found that a reduced level of attention was paid to disabilities and the limited number of objective possibilities. This also included the feeling of positive links with the family environment and fewer problems in this area. In other words: In spite of the fact that the workshops could not change those disabilities, there was a re-assessment of the number of possible activities that could be undertaken with the disabilities extent.

Prof. Reuben Cahana - The Hebrew University