VIVA PRESS

Can you say, “I don’t know”? Say it out loud. I say it all the time. For me, “I don’t know” means “I have to find out.” If I don’t know something, I will set out to learn it. But for my kids, saying, “I don’t know” can be scary. Does it communicate failure if you don’t know? It is easier to play along like you do know. Until a certain point. This question – Can you say, "I don’t know?" – is one of the key points in the educational talk I give on failure. A new talk for 2021 k

The morning arrived when I had to take the Covid-19 test. This morning. And while I have heard horror stories about the feeling of having your brain scraped from inside your nose, the test wasn’t as awful as I thought it would be. It wasn’t pleasant either. I gagged on the throat swab. It took two tries for the woman in the hazmat suit leaning though my car widow – I went to a drive-in Covid-19 testing center – to swab the back of my throat. She was really sweet. She was on m

“You could fail. Do you understand that? I don’t want you to be overly upset if you fail,” I explain, hoping that he’ll still try.

An email arrived in my inbox with a link to a new trailer for a documentary series on education. And there I am, in a cameo, as my alter ego persona, Oshi. Well, we are both in the trailer. Nose off (Viva), nose on (Oshi). With nearly seven years of television experience and 20+ years as a journalist, my alter ego speedily bumped me to the sidelines and stole the show. Could this be a failure on my part? Oshi is dressed in a red and white polka dot shirt and sports a ridiculo

“You need to understand that you will fail in this class. You will be frustrated. And fail.” Okay, I thought. My other two course-mates are less accepting. One of them says she is averse to failing. The other says she really likes to succeed at what she does. I say that I’m not only okay with failing but that I have two college certificates confirming my ability to fail. After all, I hold certificates in therapeutic clowning and educational clowning from the College of Educat

Israel’s 72nd anniversary is days away. This little country is brimming with exciting stories. Stories of making the impossible possible. Stories of overcoming great challenges. Stories of enthusiastic people. There are 4,000-plus registered journalists sharing the stories of modern-day Israel. Some write the stories of politics. Some write the stories of religion. I write and share the stories of innovation, creativity, and ingenuity. Success stories and failures. Who are th

Shortly before the coronavirus epidemic sent us into social distancing isolation, I started to dabble in mindfulness, an art of focusing on the present. Deep breathing. Focusing. Tuning out. A few minutes a day of just being. And then came isolation. And with isolation came new colleagues. Three of them under age 12. Working from home is my regular gig. Working from home with a spouse and three kids has been the ultimate test to my focus and patience. I am used to working in

In 2018-2019, my alter ego, Oshi, worked in schools as an educational clown. I blog about my experiences in the different schools from Oshi's perspective. Silvie, a sixth grader, loved greeting me in the hallway. She knew I came every Wednesday to clown at her school, and she would always come over to say, Hi. Always a smile on her face. Always bubbly. Always playing with her blond hair while telling me a funny story (always a funny story) that happened to her or someone in h

There are hundreds of journalists writing from Israel about Israel. There are thousands of stories to tell. How to tell the stories is always a question. Whenever I speak to groups about what it means to be an innovation journalist who tells the stories of Israeli ingenuity, creativity and tech, I always note that my goal – for me – is to offer a new angle on a topic or connect the news of the day to something with a wider reach. I didn’t think about making a list of my most-

What’s it like to brainstorm an idea and then make it happen? Amazing! The idea: A duet talk on failure. Yes, sharing a mic. And yes, focusing on failure. Because we come from different fields. Because we are both fascinated by failure. And because we think education, innovation, storytelling, hacking and clowning are good ingredients to stir together to encourage conversation and dialogue. There were dozens of inspiring talks and panels mixing education with entrepreneurship

When I was interviewed for the Childhood Elsewhere documentary by journalist Zhou Yijun about education in Israel, I was filmed as my alter ego, Oshi the clown. My message, however, was one I regularly speak about in the innovation talks I give: the culture of failure. Failure is a buzzword in entrepreneurship and education today. Zhou Yijun dedicated a whole series to Israeli education and looked at how different educational methods – from elementary school to university and

Two years ago, I crossed the lines of writing about the arts -- which I’ve done for over 20 years as a journalist -- to being in the world of the arts. At first, it was a very strange, curious and out-of-my-box experience to be on the other side. It was Oshi, my clown alter ego, who took me to the other side. Of course, that’s one of the key things an alter ego is good for: to do something completely out of your box. And clowning – medical, educational, social – was definit

Educational clowning is still making its mark in Israel. Of the thousands of schools in the country today, 11 have taken part in piloting educational clowns in schools. So, how did a Chinese documentary film crew even know the initiative to create a more joyful, colorful and happier school setting is underway? Backtrack to May 15. An email arrived in my inbox from Ryanne Hsu, a Hong Kong-based content coordinator for Childhood Elsewhere, a six-part documentary series on educa