Tag: Qudwa

A Place for Global Citizens in Palestine

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Fidaq Zaatar, Contributing Author
Al-Khansa Primary School
State of Palestine

The students I teach are first grade students, all 7 years of age and all female. They come to school despite the level of poverty they experience, the family and social problems they face, and/or the psychological pressures they suffer because of the political situation we live in. Despite all this, I consistently employ various methods that promote joy and hope and a more meaningful life. These methods include structured play, music, drama, active learning, storytelling, games, and dissemination of health and cultural awareness.

Our learning space is home to the common collection of subject area learning that students in Palestine experience. This includes Arabic, mathematics, science, national and civic education, religion, and sports education. Most of all, I teach them how to love life. Students learn how to achieve their hopes and are determined to challenge these dreams as active members of society.

I have implemented an initiative called “children of the day – future leaders” based on planting seeds essential to the students of the first grade who will grow to become global citizens.The flexibility of the learning space supports the teaching methods and learning strategies I teach. This supports cooperative learning, is encouraging critical thinking, and creative thinking. Tables with wheels, a large carpeted space, and natural light all contribute to the students affect toward the learning. This design element is critical to supporting resilient, independent learners.

This is a learning space that produces global citizens. These are students who are cultured and creative, responsible, collaborative, respectful of diversity, champions of justice and peace, are true to their values, and focused on knowledge and skills to make a better life. The design of our space includes opportunities for students to cultivate leadership, something they will someday use to contribute to society.

  

Fidaq Zaatar believes in the sanctity of education and the role of the teacher in building and developing the community, which drew her to work in the education profession. She started teaching in 2000, in a village in the eastern city of Nablus, working as a teacher for the second grade for five years. After that, she was transferred to Al-Khansa Elementary School for Girls. She has garnered many important achievements and recognitions during her career, including being named a Global Teacher Prize Finalist and a Qudwa Fellow.

A Science Lab Outside

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Naomi Volain, Contributing Author
Los Angeles, California, USA
@NaomiVolain

I’m a natural science teacher. The concept of Space2Learn really resonates for me as I wanted to go to space – as in outer space – to explore and learn. I applied to NASA’s Educator Astronaut Corps and was in the top 10% of finalists. While I didn’t get to go to space, I have made sure that students get outside of indoor classroom spaces into the local environment.

Space2Learn for my students has always been outside. Once they get outdoors, their eyes can open up to the world. I feel strongly that if we bring students outdoors they’ll become more keenly aware of the land, water, air and biodiversity that surrounds us. At that point their curiosity awakens and they more actively care about the Earth’s sustainability.

Placing their feet directly on the Earth makes them global students. The student’s learning space is the surrounding air conditions, what’s in the distance and close up, and in the space between students, as they observe and ask questions. All of this, however, has to be grounded with strong content, competency development, and rigorous expectations. Getting your students outside is fantastic, but you have to be highly organized to make it more than a walk in the park. Here’s a strategy to communicate to students and guide your outdoor education work…

  • Safety concerns/organization – so no one gets lost
  • Objective for the outdoor learning space lesson
  • Student tasks and outputs – students must produce something in writing, data collection, drawing, etc.
  • Reflection – what did it all mean, anyway? Why do we go to outside places to make meaning of our world?

High school science students learn outside. Why not learn science where the science naturally exists? Biology, botany, ecology, environmental science are just some of the topics to explore. I’m inspired to see students engaged in outdoor activities using the strategy above as the conduct cloud observations, tree measurements, biodiversity mapping, soil sampling, specimen collection and more.

 

Naomi Volain is a natural and life sciences high school teacher. Her hands-on, highly interactive classes focus on environmental literacy and outdoor education with curiosity and rigor. Her awards include the Presidential Award for Excellence in Math and Science, Presidential Innovation Award for Environmental Educators and 2015 Top 10 Finalist for the Global Teacher Prize. Naomi is writing a webpage dedicated to plants as solutions to environmental change. She lives in Los Angeles, California.

A Discussion in Abu Dhabi

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Mark Reid, Space2Learn Co-Editor
SET-BC
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
@mmgreid

“Careful the words you say. Children will listen.” – Stephen Sondheim (from Into the Woods)

The Qudwa Forum in October brought together a number of wonderful diverse conversations in close proximity to one another. It was a really fulfilling experience examining elements of education systems from around the world. Amidst the progressive dialogue, the Coffeehouse Session on “Classroom Design” challenged the notion that classrooms are a universally present component of the learning experience of children. As I’ve previously written, we know this isn’t the case. One simply needed to ask participants if any of their teaching occurs in a space other than a classroom. The response was staggering. Responses included “a room in a brothel in Mumbai”, “in the open space in a village in Mozambique”, and “wherever we can find a place that day”. These are pretty powerful messages about the diverse realities for education worldwide.

Now that a summary of the coffeehouse session has been published, I thought I might provide further detail about the session’s content. I should also complete a partially-captured thought about architects and their role in designing schools. What is absent from the summary is the initial point about the title “Classroom Design” being assigned to the session. It was really inspiring to hear participants readily agree that our language would exclude the term ‘classroom’ to take a more inclusive approach.

The important expectation for the session was that participants must link a design element with a particular learning goal. Impressively but not unexpectedly, every response met this with agreement and participants offered quality perspectives. Mike Wamaya, for example, made his point through establishing a powerful paradigm that “the students are the school, not the structure”. João Couvaneiro described students arranging themselves for collaborative and supportive work by forming themselves in groups as if they were constellations.

The message that tied so many perspectives together was the idea that the value of a learning space is enhanced when it has a familiarity to it. If students can relate to the space, they are more likely to feel connected to both the space and the learning. Mirroring the community into any learning space isn’t a significant challenge, but does take some mindful effort from both students and teachers.

Before I end up with a stream of questions or criticisms about an architect’s role in designing a school, I’d ought to complete the thought that was captured in the summary. I was being sincere when I commented that an architect (alone) is poorly equipped to design a school. Traffic flow and acoustics are just two critical and procedural considerations for design of a school building or learning space. The intelligent design is found in pedagogical factors, the capacity for space to guide or encourage natural gathering places, foster collaboration and interaction, and maximize the learning space footprint. This means considering how learning seamlessly continues from within a building to beyond its walls.

I invite you to read the posted summary from the Qudwa Forum and engage colleagues in some conversation on this topic. It may require making some time to connect with colleagues and focus on this topic. Students see how we construct and value a place for them to learn. They watch and they listen to how we establish, relate to, and engage the learning space. I would challenge you, then, to invite students to be the architects of their own learning space design. This is an excellent way to democratize the learning experience, which I know will make Sean Bellamy proud!

Mark Reid is a former Top 50 Finalist for the Global Teacher Prize, Varkey Teacher Ambassador, Qudwa Fellow, TeachSDGs Ambassador, and the 2013 MusiCounts Teacher of the Year. He specializes in facilitating dialogue that connects policy and practice. With a background in music education, Mark has experience in the classroom and as a provincial curriculum coordinator at the BC Ministry of Education.

A Democratic Space in the UK

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Sean Bellamy, Space2Learn Co-Editor
Sands School
Ashburton, Devon, United Kingdom

Learning, like healing, needs buildings within which it can happen successfully.

The Sands School welcomes children aged 10-17 from a range of social backgrounds and abilities, who have chosen to study in a Democratic School, but who often come to this space because they have high levels of anxiety, issues with self esteem or confidence. In this space, students learn psychology, ecology, and history, while experiencing the value of mentoring and group/team-building work.

I have always appreciated that the building has been controlling us as much as we have been controlling it. I believe that your learning space can be another teacher. And it can also be a place where a child can day dream and be lost in their imagination, be inspired and where they can heal. The space I’ve designed encourages a sense of homeliness, amity and excellence.

     

By luck and design, it is at a’ Human Scale’ and the rooms and dimensions of the building encourage the people within it to react at a human scale as well. Classes rarely get larger than fifteen children, but then the rooms can only accommodate that many comfortably. And those children, who founded the school with us, loved the small rooms and the friendly atmosphere they created. One can often walk into lessons where there is as few as five and occasionally just one pupil.

Visitors often comment that the school has the feeling of a small university; that the children behave with great independence and initiative. Maybe this is something one can more easily learn in a small school where the conventional enormous economies of scale, that create places that are both impersonal and frightening to children and disempowering for all, do not exist.

Individuals can influence small buildings; no one gets lost and the movement from classes is easy and natural.

This building defines us as a family of learners. The amity created by the scale of the property allows noise, smells, events and even moods to be commonly felt. Information moves around fluidly and the feeling of common ownership is made possible by the very size of the enterprise. We, students and teachers alike, all feel that we own it and we all therefore care more for it.

Sean Bellamy is a Top 50 Finalist for the Global Teacher Prize, the co-founder of Sands School, the Phoenix Education Trust, IDEC and an Ashoka Foundation Change Leader. I specialize in Human Scale and Democratic Education and work with the South Korean Ministry of Youth Health and Democratic School start ups.