TALMA is an ROI Community Project & joint initiative of Schusterman Family Philanthropies,
The Steinhardt Family Foundation in Israel, and the Government of Israel joint initiative of Schusterman Family Philanthropies,
❖ Teaching Fellowships ❖ Trainings ❖ Virtual & School-Based Programs ❖ Curriculum Development ❖ Bridge Building ❖
ABOUT TALMA
OUR STORY
In November 2013, the Israeli Ministry of Education announced its intention to introduce a new concept in Israel – public summer school for elementary schoolchildren. The main objective behind the idea was to create meaningful learning experiences for low-income Israeli children during July, thereby introducing a value-added “11th month” to the Israeli school year.
Sensing the urgency of this exciting new opportunity, two prominent family foundations – the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation and The Steinhardt Family Foundation in Israel – decided to take action. These insightful foundations recognized the increasing importance of English for Israeli students and professionals, on the one hand, and the growing need for an authentic educational service project in Israel for young, international Jewishly-connected educators, on the other. The two foundations partnered with Israel's Ministry of Education to create a unique new program on Israel’s educational landscape – TALMA.
TALMA, the Israel Program for Excellence in English, is both an English-immersion program for low-income Israeli elementary schoolchildren and a Fellowship for international teacher-leaders in the movement for educational equity.
Under the guiding belief that English proficiency is essential to unlocking future opportunities for Israel's low-income youth, TALMA's social justice driven international educators devote their summer to volunteer-teaching with TALMA. In return, participating educators - TALMA Fellows - receive an all-expenses-paid summer of top-notch professional development and networking opportunities in Israel, an inspiring location that serves as the ideal backdrop for learning how to lead and create social change within complex systems and environments.
TALMA turns Israel into a lab for Fellows to explore how an increasingly diverse and entrepreneurial nation devises innovative solutions to deal with deep-rooted and multi-dimensional social and economic challenges. By living, learning and teaching together, our Fellows form a network of powerful and influential changemakers who take the lessons they learn in Israel and bring them to their communities around the world.
Whether you are interested in TALMA as an international educator looking to grow your leadership through the TALMA Fellowship, an Israeli teacher seeking to expose yourself to new teaching techniques as a TALMA Co-Teacher or a Municipality hoping to bring TALMA's efforts to your community, we hope this site will give you the necessary knowledge to make an informed decision to join our community.
We thank you for your interest!
The TALMA Team
Our Teachers
We recruit experienced & effective Israeli & international teachers through TEACH FOR ALL & other professional networks. We have had over 400 teachers from across the world participate in our program.
We enlist highly qualified, passionate & open-minded teachers from around the world to educate, inspire and lead in our informal, experiential summer learning program for low-income elementary school students in the Israeli periphery.
In return, participating Fellows receive an all-expenses-paid summer of top-notch professional development in education, leadership and social innovation.
The majority of our international teachers are American educators from the Teach For America program and the majority of our Israeli teachers come from Teach First Israel (Hotam), but we are open to all qualified-English proficient educators.
Each international teacher is partnered with an Israeli co-teacher to encourage sharing of skills, areas of expertise & technique. Teachers learn from one another while strengthening cross-cultural communication & leadership skills. WATCH our co-teaching model in action.
Our Students
We offer a summer English immersion program for students from low-income schools through out the Israeli periphery.
The TALMA program presently serves students in grades 3-5 across the state of Israel.
TALMA caters to secular, religious, ultra-orthodox, mixed Jewish-Arab & Arab schools in dozens of municipalities across the country.
We operate under the guiding belief that English proficiency is essential to unlocking a better future for Israel's youth.