Introducing Twinning to Grade 8.

For the past few weeks we (group 7) have been working with both 8th and 11th grade classes in Arab Institute. Our time here has past so quickly and we are very sad to leave  the teachers and boys behind as we feel we have made a strong connection with all of them. 

Working with both grade 8A and 8B has been very interesting as this grade is new to the concept of twinning. The past volunteer groups have been working with 9th grade, but Moein (the head of the English department) thought it would be a good idea to start the idea afresh with the younger groups. 

Here is a photo of Grade 8a boys saying Hello!

Grade 9 Topics

Over the last few weeks the Grade 9's have been working on some interesting topics covering sport and people they admire.

In our sessions about sport we have discussed issues regarding racism in sport and women in sport, and gave them articles to look at. In the follow up sessions we told them about what it was like to have the Olympic games in London and asked them to imagine what it would be like if the Olympic games were held in Palestine. They came up with lists of positive and negative ideas and debated whether it would be a good or bad thing. Here are some of their ideas:

Positives	Negatives
People would come and learn about the Palestinian culture.	It is very expensive to organise
People would come and take photographs of our country.	People’s homes may be destroyed in order to build the Olympic stadium. They may have to move.
We would learn about other people’s cultures because people from around the world would come here	In Palestine there isn’t the transport to support that many people.
It would be very exciting.	There is not enough hotels to accommodate people.
It would improve the Palestinian economy.	Everywhere would be really noisy
It would bring different sporting events to Palestine.	There may be fighting in the streets or chaos between fans.
We would get to see famous people.	Empty shopping centres, people not going to the shops.
Disabled people have the chance to compete.	Not everyone can get tickets to go to the Olympics, it is expensive.

Following from this they produced some creative writing about someone they admire. Many wrote about their favourite football player, Cristiano Ronaldo came top! But others wrote about singers, like Adele or actors and actresses. Some wrote about family members they admire, and our favourite was one of the students who wrote about their Mum.

Conscience Died

At the beginning of our sessions with the 11th Grade they often like to share videos or music with us. They recently shared this song with us called 'Conscience Died' by the Palestinian singer Ibrahim AlDardasawi. The lyrics are strong and powerful and particularly draw on the Palestinian struggle, yet how the rest of the world remains silent. Thanks for sharing.

Grade 11's work about Prisoners

It is interesting to see that students from Acland Burghley have been discussing the prisoners situation in their film club, as Grade 11 students at the Arab Institute have also been producing some work about the same issue.

The prisoner situation in Palestine currently has become a very prominent issue with the recent death of Arafat Jadarat and the continuing case of Samer Issawi who is in his seventh month of hunger strike. 

Last week we discussed types of peaceful protest against violations of human rights and the follow up session involved them producing some creative pieces about political prisoners and hunger strikers. They produced a variety of work from posters, to cartoons and poems. Their work speaks for itself.

Poems about Prisoners 

Maybe I’m gonna die
But one day I’ll be able to fly
I’ll be in the history
And I’ll have my own melody

One day I’ll be free
And I’ll be banging on my chest
I’ll be breaking rocks
And maybe I’ll rule the world

And as long as we’re aiming for freedom
We could be starving and we could be homeless
But one day we’ll be free
We could be starving and we could be homeless
But one day we’ll be free.

                 

                       ---

Behind the prison columns there is a man
Trying to stay as strong as he can
He wants to have it since he came
He wants to be free like the others
He doesn’t care about the price, it doesn’t matter
He wants to see his mother and father
He wants to get out and scream
And nobody knows how that feels

Acland Burghley Film Club

A film was shown to Acland Burghely students for 14 min and had a big discussion and debate with the students which is really interesting to listen to different points of view.

Invitation for the Prisoner film

Mr, Rob and Noor, open the discussions for the student and explained more about the prisoners and how most of the get arrested on their way to school, Noor also mentioned about the difficulties that the children prisoner are facing in the Israeli jails L

Group 6's first week at the Arab Institute

Group 6 (Jelena and Charlotte) have finished their first week of teaching at the Arab Institute.  It was really great to meet all the wonderful students at the institute, consisting of Grade 9 & 11.   We look forward to the weeks ahead.

Grade 9 

Today in the class we discussed the positives and negatives of social networking. This resulted in a debate at the end of the class. One group argued for the positives and the other the negatives and they came up with lots of interesting ideas. Below are some of their views:

Positives	Negatives
Meeting new people and making connections	Wasting time
Easier/faster to communicate	Bullying
Getting to know more about different cultures	Bad for your health e.g. eyesight
Access to current news	Meeting bad people
Shopping online	Reading bad things, blogs etc
Learning e.g. homework, languages, Google translate	Addictive/bad habit e.g. on Facebook all of the time
Using GPS, Google maps	Isolation
Watching football matches, moves and games entertainment	Some people use fake I.D on the internet
To find jobs	Content not suitable for children
To improve twinning links!	Gambling websites
Listening to music	You may come across wrong information/websites may not be reliable.

They really enjoyed this lesson and topic and they all participated well in there groups. 

Grade 9 debating their views on Social Networking

Grade 11

In class today, we introduced Human Rights as a topic. First we showed them a video about ‘The Story of Human Rights’, then they worked in groups to order which human rights are most important to them. We took articles 1-15 from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and they chose seven and presented them to the rest of the class. The groups tended to find the following rights particularly important:

The right to life                                                       We are all born free and equal
The right to nationality                                          No torture
No slavery                                                                Your human rights are protected by law
Freedom to move

Below are some photographs of the classes work and them presenting their ideas to everyone.

Student profiles and drugs in Palestine

Grade 9 had a great time preparing profiles.  We practiced vocabulary and had them discuss personality traits in pairs - at the end some pairs came and told the rest of the class about their partners.  They then wrote about their hopes and dreams as well as hobbies so Acland Burghley students will know more about their twinning partners.  The lesson flew by so fast that we didn't get a chance to take profile photographs but we will be doing them next week!

With Grade 11 we discussed the issue of drugs in Palestine and how the occupation is encouraging Palestinians to take drugs.  The students read the following article about drugs in Silwan, a Palestinian neighbourhood in Jerusalem under threat of demolition to build the City of David Park:
http://weareallhanashalabi.wordpress.com/2012/12/07/all-they-want-our-children-to-do-is-take-drugs-and-throw-stones-drugs-israel-and-silwan/
We discussed the main points of the article; the reasons for people to take and sell drugs and their opinions on it; whether the problem can be found all across the West Bank and 48 or is Silwan a rare case; what they think the future will bring.  Interestingly, despite understanding people's reasons for selling drugs, many felt that dealers were being selfish as they put themselves before the Palestinian community and the struggle against the occupation.  They predicted that the problem will get worse in the future, with more drug-related deaths and suggest educating people about the detrimental effect of the drugs is one way to combat it.  The session gave us, and the students, lots of food for thought.

Next week is our last week here.  We can't believe how quickly the time has gone!  We will be posting all the work done here after then; it'll be something for the Acland Burghley students to look forward to in the new year!