Maps of Abu Dis

In the short amount of time we had with grade 8 we tried to do as many activities as possible. In one of our sessions we thought it would be a good idea to ask the boys to draw up maps of where they live, and their school, to show the students in Achland Burhley. We began the lesson by asking the class all about maps and what they are used for and what important landmarks might be on a map. The boys worked in pairs and produced some beautiful maps. Both classes took to the activity very well and seemed eager to present their hometowns.. 

It would be great if Acland Burley could draw some maps of Camden so that we could show the boys in Arab Insitute. This would be a great way of strengthening twinning knowledge. 

We hope to bring the maps to Acland Burley when we get back to London! 

Getting creative with twinning

To introduce twinning we ran a number of activities in our classes. To start off we brainstormed everything we knew about England, Palestine, Camden and Twinning and encouraged the boys to draw and write what they knew about each place. See photos below….. Some of the boys drew Big Ben and wrote the Beatles and lots of them drew the Dome of the Rock and the wall. This activity worked well and the boys were very enthusiastic about drawing and seeing the other groups present what they had drawn.  In the next lesson we turned this into a group quiz, in which the boys had to answer 10 questions about Palestine and the UK and about twinning. Although they were very confused at first they welcomed the new idea with enthusiasm.

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