Problems encountered in adult life are often referred to as 'ill-structured.' Ill-structured problems have the following characteristics: (a) more information than is initially available is needed to understand the problem, (b) the problem definition changes as new information is added to the situation, (c) many perspectives can be used to interpret information, and (d) no absolutely "right" answer exists. 42

Recent and current problems on the kibbutz are not limited to the "problem of the woman." Among other things, they include the following: identification with kibbutz ideology; children not returning to the kibbutz after Army service; mediocre education; wasted higher education; lack of enough labor; and the economic status of the kibbutz. Women cannot easily change their situation without understanding the larger picture. This is one reason why many of them today feel powerless. Any attempted solution for one of these problems will influence others. A good solution will help the kibbutz reach its fundamental ideal of equality without neglecting other aspects of its ideology. It will allow the kibbutz to hold its own economically and retain its children as adult members. It will allow individual members to realize their own interests and talents. It will incorporate ways to get all necessary jobs done. And the kibbutz will not lose its "kibbutzness" in the process.

As long as there is a shortage of labor there will continue to be kibbutzniks--both male and female--who are unhappy with their professions. Children need to be taken care of and educated, and while laborers are often hired for industrial jobs today with limited objections from kibbutz members, hiring outsiders to raise the children is a much larger violation of the original kibbutz ideology. If metapelet and educator are such unwanted jobs, 43 it does not seem fair that most of those forced into the positions are women. Perhaps half of these workers should be men, and half the productive workers women, thus eliminating the sex-role job differentiation entirely. This sounds nice in theory, but since women in general do not want the existing productive jobs either, this "solution" merely makes more men unhappy without improving the lot of the women.

A two-part approach--relieving kibbutzniks of unwanted jobs while granting the opportunity of more enriching careers--appears more promising. Technology makes it possible to perform existing tasks more efficiently. True, it is not easy to decrease the number of metaplot or educators, but that may not be necessary if technology can replace human positions in agriculture, industry, or the kitchen. If one agricultural, one industrial, and two kitchen positions are obviated by technology, that allows two men and two women to find more rewarding careers. If four agricultural positions are eliminated, four men are given a new opportunity. This is a situation where it makes sense to have men do "women's work." If two of the four men become metaplot, then there will again be two men and two women allowed to find more rewarding careers. The differentiating factor here is that the same number of members of each sex get an undefined positive opportunity, rather than in the preceding paragraph's scenario, where sharing merely placed more people in negative job situations.

Once these few kibbutzniks have been relieved of their hated positions, what can they do? The strength of this idea is that the possibilities are nearly unlimited, since the kibbutz does not have specific jobs it needs any of these members to perform. As long as the kibbutznik does not violate kibbutz ideology or become an economic burden, his or her profession should not matter. The ideology has gotten more flexible in recent years, so work outside the kibbutz becomes one prospect. Another option might be to start a new kibbutz business. Educational aspirations could be fulfilled with a rewarding career; higher education might also help one obtain that career.

The recent growth of the internet in the United States has been quite fortuitous for American entrepreneurs. Israel's computer scene is slightly behind the United States' and thus offers even more opportunity. The wise kibbutz will invest some of its human resources in this or similar ventures. A business designing web pages, for example, can start with one person, but it can grow quickly and easily if the interest is there. Certainly there will be men interested in the more technical aspects of such a business, but the many creative aspects of entrepreneurship and web design are sure to appeal to many women. In addition to programming skills, talents in advertising, marketing, graphic design, and accounting are useful for such an endeavor. If the kibbutz could be restructured to spare the manpower, a business like this one could be a good and profitable way to use the intelligence, creativity, and varied interests of many community members for the benefit of the group as a whole.

The major weakness with this type of solution is that without significant restructuring it can only benefit a small number of people. 44 Its strength--even with a limited application--is that it offers hope. Imagine being told that you could go to college, study whatever you wanted, pick out your own career, and receive whatever money necessary to jump-start that career--with the only stipulation being that in the long-run you become a profitable, income-producing, member of the kibbutz. 45 Simply the possibility of being chosen to receive this freedom should make adolescents more optimistic about their futures.

Even if this plan were to be implemented on a large scale, it is not a complete solution. Despite restructuring and all the benefits of technology, laundry and cooking would still need to get done, and children would need to be taken care of. Dual careers in laundry and web design might be a good way to go, but there is not space to explore this option in this paper, and undoubtedly other concerns would be raised. A University of Pennsylvania undergraduate from Waterbury, CT, is simply not the right person to solve the problems of the kibbutz.

The existing scholars are not the right people either. Any researcher is going to have biases and motives which can interfere with objective research. Outsiders lack an intimate knowledge of the kibbutz; they also tend to be more concerned with what the kibbutz can teach the non-kibbutz world than with how the kibbutz itself can be improved. Researchers from within the kibbutz do generally want to improve their society, but they also have loyalties to their particular brands of kibbutz ideology and a general bias in favor of the kibbutz, which they have declared through the act of becoming a member as an adult. The one group of people who should be studying the current problems of the kibbutz--but isn't--consists of those who will be most affected by their solutions.

The kibbutz youth have a vested interest in the future of the kibbutz because it is so closely tied to their own. The "problem of the woman" is an ill-structured problem within the larger ill-structured problem of the future of the kibbutz. The community's adolescents, particularly its eleventh and twelfth graders, can benefit in a number of ways from studying these ill-structured problems.

Problem-based learning has a basic educational benefit in itself. This method "engages students as stakeholders immersed in a messy, ill-structured problem situation...organizes curriculum around this holistic problem enabling student learning in relevant and connected ways...[and] creates a learning environment in which teachers coach student thinking and guide student inquiry, facilitating learning toward deeper levels of understanding while entering the inquiry as a co-investigator." 46 There is an honors course at Penn built around problem-based learning and the idea that students can "significantly help educate themselves by studying serious societal problems seriously;"47 students examine ways that Penn undergraduates can help improve the quality of life in West Philadelphia. The kibbutz educational system's project method is a similar form of interdisciplinary learning based on "the interests, the needs, and the active participation of the child, a method that imparts knowledge and skills and develops the faculty of thinking while at the same time instilling values...by abolishing the conventional division of study into separate subjects and by drawing up a curriculum of life-units in which the child learns concepts and acquires knowledge." 48 In recent years the project method has been partially usurped by externally-developed curriculum and the need to prepare for matriculation exams, 49 but the method does seem to lead quite well into studying the kibbutz itself as an ill-structured problem.

The second benefit is perhaps the most obvious; by studying the kibbutz in depth the youth may actually find solutions.

Whether they find solutions or not, however, the adolescents of the kibbutz will undoubtedly become more aware of the institution's existing problems. Awareness in itself has occasionally improved a situation. Efrat (age 16) speaks about her generation: "It was difficult, certainly [for the founders]; but it was reassuring to know so clearly what you were striving for. They could build, put down the rules, establish a community. We...were born right into all this, everything is done already, there's nothing we can contribute anymore. All that's required of us is to live here, in the midst of all this plenty." 50 Efrat's generation is quite unaware of its potential influence. By studying this ill-structured problem they will recognize that change can happen on the kibbutz and they have the power to make it happen.

Next the students will use the kibbutz as a living laboratory as they attempt various changes. Their interest will be piqued; they will find new talents; and they will rediscover their intellectual curiosity.

Finally, through this active involvement with kibbutz history, ideology, sociology, psychology, organizational behavior, and economics--among other fields--the young kibbutzniks will develop a deeper relationship with the kibbutz. Yehuda, age sixty-nine and a founder of Kibbutz Makom, shared his fears with Lieblich,

What worries me...is that the kibbutz as a movement does not protect its ideology, its doctrines, and its philosophy of life; it does not teach it to its children. The school in the kibbutz does it only minimally, teaching a little about the history of the kibbutz, but very little about its basic principles....The danger is, therefore, that our children, the second and third generations, will be actually ignorant of the underlying principles of the kibbutz way of life. They live here; it's their home; they love the landscape; they have their roots here. But to me, something is missing--I wouldn't call it ideology, but simply an awareness of the basic values underlying our way of life. Our values might be neglected over time. 51

Yehuda's concern is a great one. The founders came with an ideology, a purpose to their lives, but the second generation developed a more basic attachment to the kibbutz as a home. By studying the kibbutz and the "problem of the woman" as ill-structured problems, the youth of today can develop a strong relationship with the kibbutz as both a home and an ideology, and with that driving force they will be able to guide their community into the future and closer to utopia.