Getting back to basics

It’s been a tough year and a half. Tough for teachers, tough for students, for families, for people in general. The coronavirus seemed to appear from nowhere and land on us like a great cloud, obscuring our path and  plunging us into confusion and doubt.  The Hands Up Project struggled to find its footing at first but, thanks to a  pool of resourceful volunteers, we managed to find a new path, one we’d never walked before. That path led to new relationships and new methods as well as a nomination for the British Council 2021 ELTons in the Local Innovation category.

Team-taught curriculum based sessions over Facebook Live, storytelling and chants, creative writing and poetry were just some of the things we invited students to join in with.  But, hard as we tried, there was always something missing. Where were those little faces, so welcoming and full of joy?  We had to imagine that they were out there on the other side of a silent screen.  We read the words in the comments box and tried to attach faces to them, sometimes of teachers, sometimes of students. We listened to the local teachers, naming their students as they joined in the Facebook Live sessions - well done, Saja!  Bravo Ahmed! We imagined that the chanting and the miming and the singing were reaching their planned destinations.

I’m thinking of a word - it’s on the tip of my tongue!

Then, around April students began to connect from their homes.  We couldn’t always see their faces - sometimes it was an image of a furry animal! - but there they were, back in touch.  In July, we ran different sessions - Show and Tell, Students vs Teachers, the Online Intercultural Communication course - and had the feeling that something was starting to bubble under.

Students went back to school in Palestine in mid-August. Adapting to in-school classes has been difficult, and not only for students. Big classes, no air-conditioning, overcrowding and getting students used to classroom discipline - all of them are ongoing problems. And don’t forget that the virus is still with us - kids going to school with clear Covid symptoms, teachers off sick, and as one poor, beleaguered classroom teacher told me, trying to stop kids trying on each other's masks! There are plenty of struggles ahead.

A scene of reconciliation and a very cold volunteer in space looking on!

But you know what? We’re going back to basics. A remote volunteer visiting a class each week - playing and sharing, chatting and listening,  drawing and miming and telling each other stories (and that’s just the kids!) Meeting up with our teacher friends and revisiting old relationships as well as bouncing ideas and creativity off each other. New remote volunteers will experience the fun and laughter of a Palestinian classroom whilst the  more experienced ones get back to basics. I don’t know about you but I can’t wait!