Peace begins with a smile - Mother Teresa
Little Big Hearts
The Kindness Classroom
Kindness begins with us
Generous Hearts
My wonderings
As a teacher, I often look at the students in front of me and wonder what kind of adults they will become. My wish is that as well as happy, successful adults they will have generous hearts.
This has made me ponder, can we encourage our students to have big hearts? Can we educate them to be more aware of others and to act on needs they see in our world?
This pondering turned into The Kindness Club.
Special Project
To develop a professional development artefact about how learning spaces impact on both teachers and students.
Assignment 2 provides you with the opportunity to consolidate and demonstrate your understanding of the six key learning spaces explored in EDFD459 by developing a professional development artefact that introduces educators to the practical and theoretical components of these learning spaces. Your task is to produce an artefact about how the learning spaces impact on teachers and students.
Future Learning Space
Task in hand: To conceptualise and design a future learning space (FLS) for young learners in a challenging global environment. The inspiration for your project will be drawn from one of the nine TWB initiatives and will incorporate at least one of the learning spaces investigated in Module 2.
Future Learning Space
My Blog
Future Learning Space
Girls Connect Through Storytelling
MISSION
To recognise and acknowledge the need to have a connection to the past.
To empower and to provide the framework to do so with sensitivity and respect.
VISION
We strive to connect girls through storytelling where collaboration and community are paramount.
To understand and facilitate these stories, thus validating the past and moving together towards a positive future.
F.L.S
Girls Connect Through Storytelling
G.C.T.S
Girls Connect Through Storytelling in collaboration with the TWB initiative of Girls' Education – seeks to provide girls in the Zaatari Refugee Camp the opportunity to tell their stories.
Thus recording and acknowledging their heritage. This will be done through collaboration and cooperation with others girls and women in the wider community.
Within the TWB initiative of Girls' Education, four areas of importance were recognized in their programs: access and equity, public health, education in emergencies, empowerment.
GCTS endeavours to focus on the fourth area of empowerment.
GCTS combines collaborative learning and girls' education in the crisis areas of the Zaatari Refugee camp.
WHY IS EDUCATION IMPORTANT?
There is a growing acknowledgement of the importance of providing education to refugees as one of their basic needs. Dr Jen Couch in her public lecture, “The refugee’s paradox: Is higher education possible in protracted refugee settings? states that education has been recognised as a fundamental concern of refugee agencies. This was stated as far back as in the 1990 World Declaration on Education for All where the right to education was moved to the forefront as a priority. We understand that education is considered essential for the wellbeing of all people.
WHAT IS COLLABORATIVE LEARNING?
Collaborative learning is "an educational approach that involves groups of learners working together to solve a problem, complete a task, or create a product. It is based on the idea that learning is a naturally social act. Learning occurs though active engagement among peers, either face-to-face or online.”
-Curtin University
Collaborative learning activities create opportunities for students to:
Engage in subject specific discussions with peers
Learn how to work cooperatively and support each other
Develop effective teamwork and communication (including interpersonal and cross cultural awareness) skills
Assimilate multiple views to deepen knowledge and promote critical thinking
Foster individual accountability to the team
Develop independent learning strategies
Structure out-of-class learning
Mitigate learner isolation
PHASE ONE
Collaborative Recording of Stories
CHALLENGE:
As stated in Tiger Girls – Education Syrian Refugee Girls,
"At least 80,000 Syrians live in the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan. At least 10,000 adolescent girls are living in poor conditions with few resources and facing chronic instability. Many experienced violence and trauma before fleeing Syria. Only 20% of these adolescent girls complete high school. Increased household chores, low paying jobs, and early marriage all contribute to this disturbingly high dropout rate."
How can sharing stories meet the needs of girls at Zaatari Refugee camp?
We aim to allow girls the time to tell their stories, the stories of their past, their families, their lives, homes, journey to Zaatari Refugee Camp, the stories that are important to them.
We recognise and acknowlege the trauma the girls would have encountered on their journey to Zaatari and the need for the facilitators to give as much time and emotional support as needed by the individual.
We aim for each girl to feel part of the wider community and to feel the support of a collaborative group around them.
Mentors will be available to assist by collecting the stories in the girls' chosen format. Voice recording, video, written word in native language, stories through drawing, artwork and photographs will be used where available.
Ideally, girls would come together in a secure, comfortable setting and share together. Listening to and supporting their group whilst being listened to and supported by them at the same time.
We acknowledge the importance of children remembering their past and the fear many refugee children have of forgetting their country and past life.
Through the recording process we are confident this will give the girls an anchor to their past and the assist in providing emotional stability for a healthy future.
Rachel McCormack, a professor of literacy education at Rhode Island’s Roger Williams University says, "These children are facing a massive adjustment, and maintaining their birth language and culture is key to every child’s identity”
Every attempt will be made to record stories in their native language.
According to the Intercultural Development Research Association, a positive self-concept, which stems from the maintenance of the birth language, is crucial when adapting to a new language and culture.
PHASE TWO
Stories as Springboards
Once the stories have been recorded in whatever way was decided by the storyteller, they can be used as a springboard for the group to develop further educational skills. Literacy skills will be most heavily drawn on but other curriculum areas could also be developed.
The stories can be represented depending on the needs and desires of the group. They could use illustration in whatever media is available, represent stories through artworks, dance, comics or movies.
The stories could be used as the springboard to drama exercises, role-plays, readers’ theaters.
Any one idea the group raises will be supported and developed by the collaborative team. There is no limit to where this could go. Thus empowering the group and the individual once again.
Care and sensitivity would continue to be paramount during this phases as well.
PHASE THREE
Publication and the wider Community
There will be a facility for girls to choose together how they would like their story to be published.
Mentors will collaborate with the individuals and groups to facilitate a variety of possibilities.
These could be oral stories shared online between refugee camps and girls groups worldwide.
Publishing houses and industry would be welcome to become involved and publish stories as hard copies, thus providing tangible resources for the refugee camp.
A much wider community of online story tellers could be called upon to share and support each other.
This final phase has the scope to involve the group and community at a truly global level.
Depending on the facilities and resources available at the time the internet could be used to share these stories worldwide.
STUDENTS BECOME MENTORS
As the process evolves and new girls join the refugee camp, there will be a natural fluidity and flexibility within the program. Those who have had their story recorded will mentor and assist those who are new to the camp with the storytelling process.
THE WIDER COMMUNITY
As a flow on from the project, some of the girls may wish to take the role of recording other refugee's in the wider community. For example, the elderly, sick or incapacitated members of the community.
Thus ensuring all people have an avenue to tell their story.
Get in Touch
I hope you enjoyed reviewing my project - please contact me if you want to learn more. I’d love to hear from you!
