Moving on

It is hard to write this last blog summarizing my experience and where I have been..
As I have been looking at the past blogs through the semester.. I must say WOW.. where was I and where I am heading are two different things. I see, how limited my thinking was. How I had visions that were tied down with tradition, perceptions, oppression, thoughts and many more things. As I have been thinking all day of what to write and listening to one of my favorite songs I ponder on the path I have taken this semester and the choices I made. Some of the things I have learned :

This is my second motto for the semester. No matter what people say, no matter what you think, never ever give up on someone. You would be amazed at the outcome of people whom others don't give up on them. I remember a story an inspirational story about a teacher who never gave up on a boy and how little gestures had turned his life around. When I find it on youtube i'll add it to the blog. 

life is an obscure box, we only get to see the wrapping of one's life, and most of the time, this wrapping is chosen by the person him/her self. No matter what the color of the wrapping is, we will never know the true nature of the person from the inside. thus, I advise that we take time out of our busy schedules and really look deeper into people. 

Letting go was hard for me to do because I am an organizer, i like things planned out. When I let go, i learned a lot. I learned that priorities are more important than deadlines. I learned that treasured time should not be cut short. I learned that things will get done no matter how much you stress for them to get done. 

Well I cannot say that the following is a poem but merely a scribble of thought...that describes the journey I have fathomed. You have to understand, i write free-verse, with no punctuation so everyone can understand it they way they want :) 

the map of life has been torn

its colors have faded

the paper turned yellow

and the edges are wrinkled 

many parts have holes

due to its many folds

many scribbles have been written

notes, names, love letters

is the new life being written

or does this one need tape

do we get one map per life

or do we get spares

or are all of them simply extensions

from the one big thing

i have no answer to give

nor a vision for what's coming

but what i have is much more

a faith a believe a hope

a wish for a better tomorrow

improvement innovation creativity

a strength for change

a wit for knowledge

and most importantly

a big heart for love

Yes, I may not know what tomorrow holds, but I know that at the end of every dark tunnel there is light and with every fall there is victory. One of my favorite inspirational videos of all time is of Derek Redmond. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQ9Lek6HMOw 

I learn that when I fall I can always get up and finish my race. Nothing can hinder me from finishing my race if i just believe. 

Beyond Stereotype

In our lives we view people through lenses, we cannot really identify with a person until we are in his/her shoe. What may seem simple and easy to one might not be the same to another. We cannot simply generalize aspects in life or even people. As seen in the picture above, these are some general stereotyping we do on daily basis. We take on piece of knowledge that may or may not be the famous aspect of the country and glorify it to an extend we forget everything else. This is an aspect I personally struggled with being a student and a teacher. We must admit that stepping back and looking at the whole person is something we usually forget to do. Part of my pedagogical philosophy is not never consider the problem at hand, there is always an underlining cause for it. We as humans need to understand the underlying cause and reality. 

As I am thinking about my country Humanity and especially its chosen name, I come to wonder the necessity of such pedagogy, but to achieve that, we need awareness, understanding. My main concern will be how to teach the true values and the essence of knowledge. In another class we have been talking about youth and their voice and how it is not heard. We also talked about how teachers plant and teach seeds for long term reform. Usually when writing policy, people want to see short term plans and goals being achieved but for a nation to change tremendously, I believe long term change needs to be put in the plan. As seen in the picture, we teach kids since a young age certain perceptions, when  you want to get somewhere use a car, instead of imagining or thinking use a computer, to talk to someone you use a phone, to know about other people you watch television, to love someone is to love yourself, God is money and that is your aim to achieve, and most importantly, morals and values are trash that you need to ignore to reach your goals. We might not be saying this to them in words, but we show it through actions. We shouldn't come and complain when we feel our kids are introverts and have no social skills.

When the new generations start to learn about traffic lights, recycling respecting others and accepting differences then they will be raised with those beliefs even if they do not see them happening in their every day life. A story that brought that to my attention when kids in an esteemed school were playing red light green light ( a game where a child says green light everyone runs and when they hear red light they stop in their tracks).. it was noted that many Egyptian kids did not stop when they heard red light. It is not that they did not understand it, or that it is too hard for them, but because their perception is different, no one has taught them to stop at a red light.

Our humanity country has been too traditional so far. After take the trip around the world with the countries from Egypt, Cameroon, Yemen, Nigeria, Singapore, Netherlands, Finland, Canada and all the way to Australia. This very informative trip has opened eyes to understand a crucial underlying way of thought. When we come to plan for reform or policy, look at the needs, investigate, integrate and never ever follow what others are doing. This is simplified in the image I have below and that is what Finland has done, it looked at what is right and followed it and now everyone wants to follow Finland.

I was not surprised when I finally ended up with choosing mentoring as my topic for the final paper. Being a leader I have assumed that role without its title since a young age. You always had to have the heart to help, to offer, to listen, to aid, to support, to redirect and most importantly to let go. A mentor and a leader have a lot in common as I have been reading, characteristic and traits. I am eager to learn more about the application and if it is the same techniques I learned growing up. When I first started to teach, I was never assigned a mentor per say, it was in the records but he/she was never anywhere to be found or helpful. Not even the rest of the teachers were helpful  I had to resort to my own research and understanding. I don't know if it was a lack of trust because I was the new teacher or because of their natural of the job, I never quite understood. That doesn't mean I had to follow their lead :) The idea is so much trial and error would have been saved if someone would have guided me towards the norm. Even if you aren't going to help someone at least point them in the right direction that's always my motto. 

Ups and Downs of Teacher Education

I have discovered that there are many aspects for the up-rise in teacher education. Yes, being a developed country has its benefits, but it's all about the movement. There has to be a whole movement for improvement. In other classes we have been discussing the role of youth in the revolutions that are happening in the world such as in Egypt, Kenya, Uganda, Qatar and so on. It is evident that the important aspect to allow for the revolutions to occur is the movement. In unity there is power; but that is not the only aspect. There has to be a collective power. This includes people, government, political, economical: a compulsory movement. The movement for change has to be a cause that is close to everyone's heart. It has been illustrated that the success Finland and Singapore have achieved is because it was a compulsory movement. Even though Australia, for instance, is considered on the road towards teacher education reform, but in my opinion after the knowledge I got from my classmates regarding their own developed country's teacher education, I believe that still there is a missing link. I learned that if the movement of teacher education is not supported radically by people of power and the people are aware of its importance then the change would not be foreseen. I also learned that focusing on teacher education as a top priority is important because then everything falls back in order. The idea is not just about the teacher educational program but also the undefined system as a whole or in other words the shadow education. By that I am referring to the status, salary, definition of teacher and education. Another aha moment I had was referring to the ease of the system in Finland and Singapore and the main cause for this reform was not to be the best but to actually help reform their education. In doing that they insured that the education the teachers receive is the best there is, which in return reflects on the student's performance. In addition to that, their political and economical efforts have been put in the right place to ensure that those students are actually fit to their society's needs. 

Hand in Hand is all it takes

Hand in Hand is all we need

Place one in the other and together we stand

Stronger than ever and Shine through thee

A song comes to mind by Pink Floyd it is called a brick in the wall

We don't need no education 
We don't need no thought control 
No dark sarcasm in the classroom 
Teachers leave them kids alone 
Hey teacher leave them kids alone 
All in all it's just another brick in the wall 
All in all you're just another brick in the wall 

which is what I have felt is the calling from all developing countries. Children are frustrated, teachers are frustrated and everyone is simply trying to find ends meet. Then if the movement doesn't happen from within the society itself like Koboul mentioned and the government does not have high alerts on the matter as Othman said then there is no hope.

 

developing countries

Congratulations to all my friends for accomplishing seminar 2.

I must say, I was very interested to see all the similarities found between developing countries when it comes to education. I was impressed how if we could simply take out the name of the country and replace it with another developing countries it will not really matter.

I personally was in a catholic christian school called Sacree Coeur where I spend my first years of primary school. For me it was a nightmare because I could not cope with the educational system. I had always felt that it was me to blame for this, for not putting a lot of effort, for not being able to memorize. When I transferred to an international school AIS, it was an eye opener for me. I was actually getting As on my report card. I realized how significant it is to to have an educational system to suit the needs of the students beyond the scope of the curriculum. There are many skills I have acquired from school that I still use today in my masters program.

When I became a teacher, it was my dream to work back at AIS, to give it what it has given me, but after researching I have discovered that since I do not hold an international passport I cannot work there. This presentation has also clarified some questions regarding a few teachers that have crossed my path, especially my IB physics teacher who let one of the bright students explain to us higher level theory of relativity which was part of our curriculum. I remember explicitly that he said, you better find a seat next to Adam Caroline if you want to understand "theory of Relativity." It was a shock to me, and a more vivid shock was when I found out that the next year after I graduated he became our detention disciplinarian and left teaching altogether. This has now been explained on the idea that the qualifications of teachers does not matter in Egypt.

To be honest, I never knew we even had Islamic Schools in Egypt, this was a new piece of information I discovered about my own country :)

I loved Othman's presentation about Yemen with all its images, and I really look forward to visiting it someday.
                                          
I did not understand the relationship between child mutilation and teacher education from Merriam's presentation. For me this topic is horrid and it breaks my heart each time it is spoken of. I was volunteering in a rural area in Egypt as a math, social studies and living values teacher for a group of girls in 1st secondary. When it was time for living values, we discussed hygiene because they only showered once a month due to the lack of water supply to the village then of course the topic of boys got opened. Well two things left me speechless until this day. First, the idea that the entire family lives in one room where everyone has sexual intercourse with anyone and the girl has no say (meaning that the uncle could be living in this house and sleeps with the girl, so does her father and brothers). In addition was their mutilation and how it was a celebration even though they hated it, they kept referring to it to be similar to what boys go through. They had no idea that when that happens to girls its different than boys.

Looking forward to see the differences between developing and developed countries. 

Democracy :)

It really made me laugh. it might be just a cartoon, but this is truly what happens.

Pregnant delivery

I must say, I never felt so pregnant with ideas and thoughts from one source. It took me all week to think of what I want to share with the class, and still while we first started and Dr. Joyanne commenced to ask us what are some of the things we took out from the presentations I was still lost and said the first thing that came to my mind. I must admit that thought is long gone and got mixed by all the other thoughts my classmates shared, but the only thing that remains is love. I strongly believe that love conquers everything. If I love the person in front of me for who they are and I feel no threat from them. What has been going on around the world is the effect of threat that is being felt. People go around with a motto to guard yourself and protect from any harm. This is what they are doing, they guard and push back as strong as they can. Many religions have spoken about unconditional love so I believe we have a clear example of that, but we as humans put restrictions to that claiming it is impossible. If it is not impossible, people make it impossible because when you love unconditionally they hurt you back, thus the feelings of guarding and protecting yourself emerge.

One of my most successful classes which I am still teaching, the same group of kids for the past 3 years is a class that is based on independence. I have reached a mutual understanding with the kids for knowing why they are here, what they need to learn from here and how they can search, and extract knowledge on their own. When that stage was completed now, I am simply a facilitator. In addition to that, I created a bond of love between us all. We care and love for each other to an extend that goes beyond the class. If we want to make a difference then we have to be the difference ourselves. We talk, we argue about reform but we don't reform ourselves. The main question remains, to which extend am I willing to reform myself? For how long will I keep doing that? I believe our main problem is that we have guarded ourselves for so long that we forgot how to open up.

When wanting to teach others about diversity, social justice, equality, reflection, technology we need to step down from our pedestals and get our hands dirty. We like to live in a world of grey, where we can always question and say that what is right and wrong is not really distinguished but it all falls under the umbrella of uncertainty. It helps us to do what we want to do without feeling guilty about it. We like to talk about things but when we hit the reality check button we back off, we stop, we think it over. We might as well get used to being objected to, ridiculed, threatened, because when we decide to really step up and talk about those topics and implement them in reality, people will not like it.

What we are doing in Humanity and our made up countries, is very similar to the story Lord of the Flies, where a bunch of boys got stranded on an island after a shipwreck and they created a society on this island. They came up with laws and ideas which seemed very reasonable, but in the end, it all ended in brutality. What was astonishing is how this ended up being the norm. They forgot what was right and things just went down from there. This is what's happening to society. The idea we need to keep in mind when we are creating Humanity is that how will we deal with corruption, how will we keep those ideologies from being forgotten? People not only need love, but understanding even to those who are fighting against them, the mean ones.


I would like to end with this picture. What we want is to look in the mirror and see things in the correct way, but lets not be fooled into the correct way by taking the short cuts and the fastest and easiest solutions. Dig deep, work hard and don't give up!

had to share it

This is actually what I have been feeling throughout my master degree so far. I feel that the more we dig deeper into understanding the more we realize that the sea is so much more frightening than the reality of it.
I came across this picture on Facebook and it broke into my heart.

those are representatives of the world getting an education. The first one is Arab, second American, third European and fourth African  The teachers asks a questions : "what is your opinion about the lack in food supply to the rest of the world?"
the Arab says: what does "what do you think"mean?
the American says: what does "the rest of the world"mean?
the European says: what does "lack"mean?
the African says: what does "food" mean?

the idea is, we may all be speaking the same language, but unfortunately this is the reality we live in..

just thought of sharing!!