The golden key
To mark the UN day of friendship we have a lovely post by our brilliant and most active volunteer in Argentina, Tere. And don’t forget to tune in tonight at 8pm Palestine time to see Tere's and Haneen’s students in action in a live lockdown theatre performance of ‘Unity’ (with a few surprises too!)
I am an Argentinian teacher of English. I have taught English as a second language for 21 years. One year ago, the world stopped for all of us because of the pandemic and everything seemed to be confusing and uncertain in our new way of teaching online; however, as breeze blows gently, I came across Amal Mukhairez and Haneen Khaled in Susan Hillyard’s English through Drama course, and I decided to take the road less travelled by…
There were lots of teachers of different countries and the intercultural exchange was amazing. As the time went by during the course, I had a strong connection with two Palestinian teachers: Amal and Haneen. These amazing and inspiring teachers told us about the Hands up Project and our story began….
We organized our first intercultural meeting with Palestinian students and Argentinian ones.
Today, I close my eyes and I still remember those past feelings of happiness and anxiety. It would be our first meeting. It would be the first opportunity my students would have to speak English with international students. Students who came from a different place, with a different culture and a different reality. Students from Gaza, Palestine.
The day came, Amal, Susan, Nick Bilbrough, the founder of The Hands up Project, Palestinian students, my students, and I were ready to do an amazing “Show and Tell” and so we did.
My students’ opinions:
Ingrid: “I was so happy I could tell Palestinian students about what I love the most: “Dancing Arabic” and I did it in English!
Anita: “I loved Nick’s voice! Palestinian girls are amazing at speaking English!”
Lucas: “It was an incredible experience! Can we do it again, please?
Other student said: “I have never thought I was going to be in an online meeting speaking about what a “mate” is with two native teachers (Susan and Nick) and students like me, learning English but from a remote country!
And there were a lot of positive messages.
And there was a lot of learning.
And there was a lot of EMPATHY.
In my online journey, I continued meeting wonderful and committed teachers from Palestine and Mexico: Diana, Hanaa, Rinan, Fawzia, Tahani and Letty.
Last December, my students and I were invited to enter to a Remote Theatre competition, an initiative made by The Hands up Project.
Hanaa from Palestine, Maribel from Spain and Laura from Romania were the teachers involved in the play “Live your Life”. After hours and hours of meetings, rehearsals, and preparation, our students performed the play live by The Hands up Project’s Facebook. This play won the second place in the international competition. Our students won a lot of learning. They won knowledge about how other cultures live their lives. Understanding of how new generations want to follow their dreams and be what they dream about and again, they won “Empathy” by bringing into life those fantastic plays written by Palestinian children.
Rehearsing “Live your life” with students from Argentina, Palestine, Romania and Spain
Now, by looking back on my past year, what I thought was going to be an uncertain year in education grew to be a complete positive challenge for my students and me. I can say I found myself in my element thanks to people who believe in education - educators who believe in teachers and students. Personally, I adopted The Hands Up Project as my new beloved home.
At the present time, three groups of young Argentinian students are rehearsing three plays from the books: “Welcome to Earth” and “Toothbrush and other plays” a collection of thirty- five – minute plays created by Palestinian children. “Welcome to Earth” and “Am I different?” are being performing as a great challenge for us, only with Argentinian students. We want to be the voice of Palestinian children in our country and around the world.
It was then that Haneen invited me to go on her weekly drop-in sessions with her students, my students, and a play from one of their books: “UNITY”.
Rehearsing ‘Unity”
What can I say about our meetings? We can see how our students grow and grow in different levels:
Fluency: as they repeat the lines several times, they learn how to use the correct pronunciation and intonation of the language.
Remote theatre techniques: Fast, they learn how to make gestures and use their body language to transmit feelings and emotions with or without words. They start recognising their own emotions and how to work with them.
There is a deeper understanding of the story itself which leads the children to understand what empathy is. Drama techniques are excellent tools to put themselves in other people’s shoes.
21st century skills:
Critical thinking: Children agreeing or disagreeing with the topic of the play, giving their opinions about it, choosing a favourite character and explain why they choose it. There is an open discussion when we read the plays. It is one of my favourite moments. Here we can see how deep the topic of the play inside the children’s hearts is, how much empathy they can develop with the characters of the story, this will be seen later reflecting in their own performances.
Creativity: Sometimes, children suggest ways of performing the play, adding creativity to their performance.
Collaboration: Children help each other when someone forgets the lines. They bring ideas about the role of the characters or how to set up a scene.
Communication and social skills: Our students not only interact with other children from different countries with different levels of English but something I could notice was the active interaction with the teachers from England and Palestine. Sometimes I started to translate into Spanish some advice the teachers gave my students in English, and I found myself hearing: “I understand everything they said, teacher!” Three languages fly freely in our meeting which we, the teachers and the students find fascinating: English, Arabic and Spanish.
Technology literacy: children learn how to take advantages of their devices such as change virtual backgrounds, switch off or on cameras, or how zoom works.
Flexibility: They leave their comfort zone as they work on their shyness and little by little their confidence and self - esteem grow and grow. They become aware of how much they are learning.
Leadership and Initiative: what these children of 9, 10 years old are doing today is a big step for their future life. We are teaching future leaders who now, at this early age, are understanding the world around them. These kinds of experiences and knowledge of life are teaching them that their lives are now connected with other people’s lives. They are learning that life is full of opportunities to grow and help others.
I look back again. I could see the long path we have walked together. As Ken Robinson said “Life is not linear. Life is organic”. So, when my memories bring back that dark March 2020, I can see how my life, and my teaching practice have taken the organic and moving way. When I was given that golden key and I was shown that door which guided me to choose a road. I chose “The Road not Taken” as Robert Frost wrote in this inspiring poem: “I took the one less travelled by, and that has made all the difference.” But I was not alone, Haneen with her sweetness, and her invaluable
experience took my hand and guided me with her useful advice and wonderful knowledge. We are aware that there is a deep blue ocean in the middle of us, but we also learnt how to cross these borders just by switching on a camera and watching us with a big smile in our faces, saying “Hello Tere!” “Hello Haneen!”
Nobody can stop us now because we have the voice, we have the words, we have remote theatre to join communities and beautiful human beings.
These are my humble words which come from the bottom of my soul to thank The Hands Up Project and every Palestinian teacher and student I have met. You gave me the opportunity; you gave me the golden key to enter to a wonderful place.
Maria Teresa Continanza.
Proud of being a HUP volunteer.
July 2021.
