On 5 April 2018, the Educational Research and Development Programme (ERDP) of the A. M. Qattan Foundation (AMQF) concluded the Exchange Programme. Over five days of joint work between British teachers and Palestinian researchers and educators, the programme was implemented at three kindergartens (KGs) in Ramallah, Abwein, and Kafr Malik.
To say that the Exchange Programme was organised over a period of five days is an inaccurate statement, however. These few days concluded a long process of correspondence aimed at preparing drama plans. The process was supervised by Vivian Tannous, ERDP Researcher, and Malik Al-Remawi, Manager of the ERDP Languages and Humanities Track. In late 2017, a number of educators participated in the first phase of the Exchange Programme in Britain. Later, educators prepared their KGs and pupils to implement the second phase of the programme. All relevant activities were part of year-round, effective professional development tracks of the ERDP.
2018 completes seven years of sharing experiences. In partnership with the British Woodrow First School, the AMQF crowned this journey with a seminar held on Saturday, 31 March 2018. A total of 45 educators participated in a dialogue about this cumulative experience, with a particular focus on successes and lessons learnt.
In an opening statement at the seminar, Wasim Al-Kurdi, ERDP Director, said: “Exchange is a cumulative educational project, which does not simply start and end. It builds up a common experience between groups of people with a diversity of relationships and perceptions.” According to Al-Kurdi, a “key question that lies behind all these projects relates to freedom. Regardless of how small and humble our action is in the society where we live, the action will feed into the river of freedom, which instils meaning and hope in people.”
Mumkin?
In his office, Richard Kieran, Head Teacher of the Woodrow First School, posts a picture, with the Arabic word Mumkin [Possible]. Kieran believes that this word and its synonyms fit the description of the Exchange Programme. According to Kieran, the programme serves as a positive collective incentive and challenge through joint work, reflection, practice, and mutual guidance. It brings together inspiring, hardworking teachers, the AMQF, and curious children who have unique ideas. Kieran views the AMQF as a supportive institution with its own positive and passionate vision.
Mumkin – something that can be achieved – is the most common word children hear from their teachers when they apply the Mantle of the Expert method. Rather than issuing judgements and evaluations, such as right and wrong, everything is possible. The Mantle of the Expert is used because it provides an educational approach, which incorporates theatre and drama into the learning experience. In this activity, children put on the mantle of responsibility. While some children form a team of builders, others make teams of archaeologists, farmers, or doctors. They seek to deliver a service to a “customer”, who authorises them to carry out an imagined task in the context of a story that they engage in with their teacher. Dorothy Heathcote, a British drama teacher, used this approach to create a dynamic learning process. Apart from presupposing that it teaches everything, drama shows an interactive social behaviour, nurtures a critical spirit among children, and improves listening, response and decision-making abilities.
Children Imagine and Complete
Over the Exchange Programme days, the three classrooms turned into a charming space, where wonderful events took place. Changing day by day, these events were shaped according to the story children told with their educators. Today, children build a wall of cloth for their imagined palace. Tomorrow, they sit on the bank of the river. Against the wall, a lady imagined by children stands in her bright dress, just the way they love.
Of the wonderful events that took place at the Al-Mustaqbal Schools KG in Ramallah, the circus lion joined the farm animals. After children had classified animals according to their habitats, shelters and food, they completed their exploration of the animal kingdom by building their own farm and the walls to guard it. In the meantime, children found a photo of the lion, with the word Closed. They realised that the circus lion does no longer have a place to stay and decided to offer it a shelter in their farm. An agreement was signed between the farm animals and the lion. Ideas were created for the king of the jungle and circus star to be an active member of the farm.
Children of the Kafr Malik KG built another farm. A lady kept her abundant crops inside the farm. She needed a team to help her to transport and distribute the crops. Children wondered what they would better do if surplus resources are available. Later, children were surprised that scorpions were in the farm. As the farm owner was not willing to lose the farm, children had to come up with a solution.
At the Abwein KG, children built a village of paper houses, trees, and a large swimming pool. Then, the children’s classroom was turned into a palace. They also formed a professional maintenance team after someone visited their village. The visitor said that the old palace could be the right place to open a museum once it is repaired. Children were warned that snakes were in the imagined palace. They drew snakes and placed the drawings on the tiles, which they decorated with their crayons. A child imagined an electric snake, which releases an electric current that hit children. Therefore, children made safe tools to keep the snakes away from the palace, without harming either the snakes or themselves. Believing that flames overcome electric shocks, a child made a snake that lets out flames from its mouth. Another child suggested that they disconnect the power cable of the electric snake, cutting off electricity supply. Everything is possible.
In Abwein, the five-day Exchange Programme was concluded by a girl who found coins in the palace – classroom. The coins looked like the necklace belonging to a lady, whom the children met with in the drama when their educator voice acted the photo of that lady who lived in the palace and lost a precious object. “We will give the coins back to the lady so that she would not be sad,” the girl said.
“The Mantle of the Expert builds up children as humans. It does not aim to cover the curriculum, but to deepen and broaden values,” Al-Rimawi explained.
Nader Wahbeh, AMQF Science Studio Manager, stated: “Researchers, teachers and educators planned and applied simple tasks with children. They have built self-confidence in children to complete these tasks. Curriculum is built in that space between the teacher’s design and children’s interventions. Teachers construct the pillars and children complete the construction.”
Why Early Childhood?
Motasem Atrash, ERDP Researcher, said that the KG class in Abwein was next to the first grade room. While KG children we busy exploring the story, experiencing life, and expressing themselves, first graders were sitting still and silent on their seats. Atrash stressed the need to transform the interactive environment created by drama in KGs into a broader vision, which includes education in its entirety.
In 2010, the ERDP started its pursuit to devise a change in the early childhood education stage. This initiative was born out of necessity. Wahbeh explained: “The initiative was taken on grounds of research data, which then indicated a declining quality of education and low percentage of qualified female educators at Palestinian KGs. The fact that official KG curriculum was lacking furnished a golden opportunity to build a flexible and interactive learning process. The ERDP team invested this opportunity and developed courses for educators. To this avail, the ERDP was informed by its staff members’ various specialisations, including pedagogy, science, languages, art, multimedia, and learning difficulties.
This year’s Exchange Programme was implemented by a team of ERDP members, including researchers, coordinators, documenters, and translators. Membership on the team also included British teachers Lisa Hinton, Sebastian Benney, and Richard Kieran. In collaboration with 15 educators who participated in the Early Childhood Professional Development Programme, educators Hiba al-Maliki, Aya Badran, and Hind Arouri implemented the Exchange Programme at their KGs.