VIVA SARAH PRESS

00:15 - “Mommy, I can’t sleep.” “Are you feeling okay?” “Yes. Pick a number.” “It’s after midnight, you have school tomorrow. Let’s try and go to sleep and we’ll do the number thing in the morning.” “Pick a number. I figured out a math riddle and I want to see if it works. Then I’ll go to sleep.” This kid. Always thinking. Numbers flying through his mind. I know that if I send him to bed he won’t sleep. He’ll continue testing his riddle. “Okay. 8.” “No. Pick a number and don

For just over one year, I have spent a few hours a week as an educational clown in schools around Israel. It doesn’t matter at which school I clown. I meet the same types of kids – although each unique in his or her own way, of course. There are the popular kids and the super popular ones. There are the followers and leaders. There are the loners and the socially awkward kids. There are well-spoken and rude kids. The outspoken and silent ones. And every day – except for Satur

Twice a week, I work as an educational clown. The rest of the week, I work as an innovation journalist and give talks on the culture of innovation. So, this morning, when I went to the TV studio for an interview it could have been a typical outing. But today, I was being interviewed – and not the other way around. Moreover, I was dressed as Oshi, my educational clown alter ego. Upon walking into the waiting area of the studio, however, my eyes nearly popped out from excitemen

Back-to-school season is underway. For teachers that means lesson plans, learning students’ names, teaching strategies, classroom guidance. For school counselors that means alternate frames of reference, classroom guidance, defiant kids, building self-esteem. For parents that means navigating jitters, providing emotional support, easing anxieties, setting a homework tempo. For Oshi, my alter-ego educational clown, back-to-school means adding humor to the school day. It means

Here's what I learned this year as two of my kids moved from primary to middle schools: You need luck (which comes with a side order of stress) to get a locker. Today was the first day of a new school year in Israel. 2.35 million pupils are back in classrooms. Backpacks were at the ready. Some of the middle school and high school kids carried books that they would put in their lockers. Others carried books that they will, in fact, schlep back and forth from home to school eve

School is around the corner. Summer is almost over. But those two facts are irrelevant to one of my seventh-graders (twins, I have two heading off to middle school). Every morning, my kid greets me with a countdown of his own. Five more days until a TV show may be on. Three more months until a friend's birthday. I have no idea why he has an obsession with countdowns. This morning, he said, "Mom, the countdown is on." I was sure I knew what this countdown was about: Ten more d

Inevitably, at least once a day at school, Oshi is called a killer clown. Of course, take one look at Oshi – an educational therapeutic clown – and it is obvious that her fashion sense of dots, stripes, bright colors, flowers, no face makeup or wig and goofy facial expressions aren’t exactly killer clown material. Yet, the students at the schools at which Oshi works use the name-calling to strike up conversation. And Oshi is only too happy to play along. The “game” begins wit

Coming up the stairs with one friend on each side, Nicole repeats in disgust how she is a magnet for bad luck. “Terrible luck. Bad luck. Ugh. I have horrible luck,” she complains to her friends as they reach the 11th-grade floor and head towards the classrooms down the hall. “Mazal Nakhs,” she calls it in Hebrew. I’ve overheard Nicole lamenting her luck, as I happened to come down the stairs from the floor above just as they were coming up. As such, we reach the same floor mi

Therapeutic clowning has fascinated me for years. As a journalist, I have the good fortune of meeting people from all walks of life. Every time I interviewed a therapeutic clown, I left the interview thinking, “I want to do that.” I first met medical clowns when I was a print journalist, early in my career. I would meet them again as a television correspondent, then as a radio host, and again, years later, as an online news editor. There was something about this art form that

Puzzled looks, raised eyebrows, quizzical glances, and a smile. These are the reactions I get whenever I talk about my latest volunteering stint in educational clowning. This clowning field, educational clowning, is still in its infancy. It is still being created in Israel. And, thanks to my teacher, Talia Safra, I’m part of this amazing adventure. In short, educational clowning -- or, school clowning -- can be described as a stress reliever for students and teachers. Therape

The new school year has begun in Israel, and as my third-grader and two sixth-graders headed back to their classrooms, I, too, returned to studies. They wore T-shirts emblazoned with their school symbols; I decked out in my “uniform” of striped socks, polka dotted shirt and neon suspenders. I’m continuing my clowning studies. In June, I completed an introductory course to medical clowning at the Kibbutzim College in Tel Aviv. Medical clowning is an officially-recognized parap