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!!

Diversity

This was a topic I was waiting to hear more from...

Coming personally from a very diverse community at home, in school, among my friends and work. It may seem that diversity comes easier to me.
I do accept everyone as they are, and I do acknowledge their differences and gain more understanding and compassion towards them in that way. I strongly believe that there is a difference between understanding diversity and living diversity.

Understanding diversity is when I do know that people are different than me due to their color, race, ethnicity, gender, social class and so on.
But living diversity is a much harder task. I may accept people for being different but to which extend I allow that difference to merge within my norm.

Diversity is like paint spilled with different colors everywhere, could those colors stay away from each other for long or will there be a merging point?

When we decide to live in a world of diversity, then we need to accept that this will sooner or later be merging and that should be accepted not cause conflict.

In another class, we were watching a documentary about Serbia, Yogoslavia and Bosnia and what astonished me was a girl who says that, I live in Bosnia but I am Serbian. That does not mean I am Bosnian because I am Serbian, but when I go to Serbia, I'm not Serbian because i'm Bosnian , then who am I.

This is what we create when we only acknowledge diversity and not believe in it and accept it.

A great struggle faced with diversity is religion.

Many religions defy and go against each others in belief, then how can we unify and still allow freedom and equality and not become the next France? 

I must quote Mike and say, those past two presentation classes made me pregnant with thought! I believe I will be even more pregnant when I try to fulfill those ideologies i have into Humanity. 

How can I allow people to freely express themselves while respecting others but at the same time make them understand and believe that if someone wants to merge those two extremes then it is acceptable even though the norms might go against it. 

For example, I might know and live with GLBT people but my religion defies it. I might choose to accept it as long as it does not affect me personally, but what will happen when it is merge into my family? 

I believe many of us may accept something on concept but when it comes to actually being a part of it, it is different. 

To be honest, I do not think that any level of awareness is enough to make people accept and appreciate others for who they are. What should we do?? is a big question mark I still hold???

Social Justice

Creating a World or a Community where everything and everyone is considered equal. We are born different yet we need to be considered equal. 

From my friends' presentations about social justice. Many questions filled my mind. 

What we are trying to do in Humanity is create the perfect world, where we have a clean slate to do whatever we want. We do not have the common excuse off, it was just handed to us that way. 

Since we are created different, I imagine that Humanity will have lots of different people which is evident with the multilingual aspect we have established there. 

Social Justice aims for a community where everyone feels equally appreciated, their rights heard and addressed and there is mutual respect among all. 

I do support those theories greatly, but when we come to create a unified system, with all those diverse people, then who's laws and regulations would I place. I believe the struggle will be who's equality are we considering. Yest there are certain aspects we all agree on, for instance, right to life, education, gender, race. What got me thinking was the idea that justice is blind. 

Thus, it does not matter who you are, it considers everyone the same. Will my distribution of justice actually be equal? A picture that has been posted on facebook for a while talks about how it may be just to give each person a box to stand on but is it equal in benefit to do that? 

My other major concern is... equality and freedom, are they on the same side or are they pulling at opposite ends?

The idea is, as Humanity is diverse, then how will there be satisfaction from each party towards the justice and equality the society has place. I do not believe that everyone will see it as fair or as equal distribution over certain rules, which will result in conflict. Will it turn into a vicious circle?

Controversy

Controversy 

what a teacher needs to know vs. what the teacher has to know.

Mabrook to my fellow mates  your presentations were exquisite. You have set the benchmark so high, I am proud. We are all now Prezi experts :D

Civic Education.. to be honest, at my school we were never taught anything about EGYPT.
I remember we talked about:

• civilizations in grade 6
• geography and monuments grade 7
• world war 1 and 2 grade 8
• humanities (which was an integrated course between English and History, so we read about the history of the books we are reading) grade 9 and 10
• then in IB I never took History :)

It is quite astonishing, I have no recollection of ever taking Egyptian or American History except I guess about the Alamein War in World War 2. I don't even know any famous figures in Egypt or what they have accomplished  this is also due to my hatred towards History thus, even a struck of interest does not occur. 

This makes me reflect on the idea that I do not feel patriotic towards any country. I personally never felt I belonged somewhere but I always wanted to work for Humanity as a whole, regardless of place. 

I like that quote from the presentations:

"Education is the great equalizer of the condition of man"

A Network of Contradictory Thoughts

A Network of Contradictory Thoughts

I love purple, I was reading some articles on the internet and it came across to me that "purple is the color of good judgment. It is the color of people seeking spiritual fulfillment. It is said if you surround yourself with purple you will have peace of mind. Purple has been used to symbolize magic and mystery, as well as royalty. Being the combination of red and blue, the warmest and coolest colors, purple is believed to be the ideal color." 

 
Purple is the spirit I felt in class, it was magical and full of mystery. We were uncovering the life story of Ms. Jenny. Even though she did not talk specifically about education but I sensed a lot of knowledge towards it from the talk. 

While sailing through the conversation, I made a few stops to ponder about specific ideas. Those ideas are as follow:

• do you best in all you do
• don't be afraid to create
• always go back to knowledge
• allow people to help themselves
• look at the big picture, all aspects
• stop fixing the problem and recovering, aim to prevent the damage from happening
• make something out of nothing
• invest in training and education
• take risks
• be willing to change
• be creative
• seize opportunity
• get enough knowledge to proceed
• ignore irrelevant comments
• be who you are
• work hard
• make yourself known in a friendly way
• networking
• create friends not enemies
• publicize everything
• FUN FACTOR!! as you go along

 I've been thinking about HUMANITY my country and trying to think outside the box, for some reason which is not clear to me, I really feel frustrated. Why isn't it coming easily to me? Why can't I think outside the box?

I wanted the country to have equality in all its rights. Whether you are rich, poor, with status, male, female, handicapped, child or even color. 

I was intrigued by an article I read for Dr. Jennifer's class 533 comparative gender adolescent youth called "Youth, gender and livelihoods in West Africa: Perspectives from Ghana and the Gambia" where they have invested money into educational reform but when the those students got educated they had no job opportunity. This made me realize how education even though it is the backbone, the country as a whole should play a factor in reform. 

Thus, I am thinking of adding more rules to HUMANITY. For example,

• job acceptance related to skills only, not gender / age or credentials
• have opportunities for people with special needs to learn and work
• quality education

 here I was in a struggle, should people learn what they want, the subjects they want or should there be a system with many chances to improve and retake. I had another thought, instead of examination maybe there could be practical projects that apply to the needs of society, like we do as graduation projects from undergrad.

I still feel frustrated that society needs a clean slate and how come Finland was able to do it in a very short time, well because the entire society's focus was on it!!!!

Don't let Knowledge weigh you down!

Don’t let Knowledge weigh you down!

Another wonderful class was held on Tuesday. I was glad that all like the Kobeba or Keba and yogurt, a traditional Lebanese food. I was astonished with Koboul kept asking where is the bread, it shows how different cultures interact with the same kind of food but in different ways.

I believe the importance of teacher education is being highlighted more and more in this course.

I personally aspire from the small gestures Dr. Babb does in like just to keep everything lively, when she mentioned a “guest speaker” coming to give us a talk and we can contact her anytime. That was a funny surprise.

In my adult classes, I thought of allowing them to do the exercise we did in class and see how they will create their own country.I kept emphasizing the importance to think outside the box, to innovate, to create!

I asked them to create a country, give it a name, location, flag, population, educational system, wealth and 5 laws.

I preformed this activity in two of my classes, where they were divided into two groups each. Around 8 people in a group for 30 min. The student’s ages range from 19 to late 40s. There are students who are graduates, post graduates, business men, mothers and unemployed. Their nationalities are mostly Egyptian but some are from Somalia, Syria and South Sudan.

Group 1 in class 1 created a country called Dream Island, located in the middle of the Sea. The flag’s color is green for agriculture with a white horse in the middle for freedom. The population is mostly middle class between the ages of 35 to 40. The main wealth of the country is agriculture and trading. The educational system involves home schooling and online undergraduate courses. The main 5 laws of the country are equality, no killing, safety, no war and freedom for all.

Group 2 in class 1 created a country called Free Serious Island, located in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. The flag’s colors are blue for the ocean, white for peace and green for agriculture. The population was divided into 3% rich, 75% middle class, 20% poor of all ages. The educational system depended on what the society needs, mainly technical education. The 5 laws were freedom without harming the freedom of others, 1 period for president, no smoking, renewable energy sources.

Group 1 in class 2 created a country called Dream Ocean, located in the Atlantic Ocean. The flag’s colors are blue for the ocean, green for agriculture and red for strength. The population was divided into 30% high class and 70% middle class with an age range between 16 and 50. The main source of wealth of the country is tourism. The educational system was all American Schools and online classes for graduate and post graduate studies. The 5 laws of the country were a minimum salary of 5000$ per person, you cannot sell your land or belonging to anyone outside of the country, everyone rides bicycles, the government provides free health care and every person is required to invest 50% of their income in the country for it to grow.

Group 2 in class 2 created a country called Peaceful country which his located in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The colors of the flag are red, white, black with an eagle which is the Egyptian flag saying that they only dream to see Egypt a better country not to be in a different country altogether and that if they can dream they better dream for Egypt first. It is not a crowded country and 90% of the people are rich with an age range of 25 to 30. The main source of wealth of the country is industrial, trading, fish and agriculture. The educational system is modern, meaning not what is currently in Egypt where there is usage of technology, I pads and computer in schools. The 3 laws of the country are justice, safety and wisdom.

I was impressed by many educational strategies such as technical education and online classes. This emphasized their ambition for a better education but the lack of funds, I then took the chance to introduce them to MOOC and will provide them with a small training to use it next class. I was quite astonished the lack of the usage of technology in the country in addition to agriculture being the main source of wealth in addition to the chose territory for the location of the country, in the middle of the ocean. Their rational was to be in the middle between Europe and Africa and in their opinion would be a great source of trade. I was surely impressed by their educational system which brought me back to reality, they have no knowledge but they dreamed. It made me realize that sometimes the excess of knowledge in one area hinders in many times the flow of creativity. Thus we have to remember that even though we have knowledge, we need to dream beyond the box we hold in our hands, innovate and create!

A reality check!

As soon as I think about class I remember a song called "true colors" which was presented by students from all over the world and it always reminded me of education. this is the image I get in my head when I listen to it (students in rows and lines sitting and standing by the side, sad faces everywhere, and teachers come alone with colors and smiles, changing the mood and giving hope, encouraging to be yourself, to aim far and shoot for the stars)... The lyrics goes as follow:

You with the sad eyes

Don't be discouraged

Oh i realize

It's hard to take courage

In a world full of people

You can lose sight of it all

And the darkness inside you 

Can make you feel so small 

(refrain)

But I see your true colors

Shining through 

I see your true colors

And that's why I love you

So don't be afraid to let them show

Your true colors 

True colors are beautiful 

Like a rainbow 

Show me a smile then

Don't be unhappy, can't remember

When I last saw you laughing 

If this world makes you crazy 

And you've taken all you can bear 

You call me up 

Because you know I'll be there 

Cant remember when I last saw you laughing

If this world makes you crazy

And you've taken all you can bear 

You call me up 

Because you know I'll be there 

So coming back to earth, I must admit that yesterday's class was a big reality check for me. Even though I felt sick and was totally out of mood, but the spirit got the better of me and I became very excited and eager to share and be a part of the activity. What I learned was that, I feel I have been speaking about reform as child walking along his path with covered eyes. It seems that all the dreams and arguments I have even though they are legitimate to the cause are still influenced by the old and traditional perspective of things. When given an opportunity to break free, I still abide by what I know. 


To be honest, that made me think about myself a lot. Am I acting the way I preach? Am I lying to myself by being a person away from the reality of who I truly am?


Back to the educational perspective of that awakening. I was mesmerized that the amount of knowledge I personally lack in many areas, thus referring to the image of a child.

• I was astonished when Mike and Othman chose a poor country, it was really not expected at all. 
• I argued a lot with Koboul about having people below average because she really supported the idea, I didn't understand why would I need those sort of people in my made up country. 
• I also never realized how important agriculture is. I always think of technology and moving forward, ignoring the benefits coming from agriculture. 
• When Phililps and Mariam proposed having a class of students regardless of age but are on the same level, I did not feel they really understand the flexibility, effort and level of creativity the teacher has to have to be able to achieve that sort of things and the resistance that might occur from students. Being someone who personally is facing this situation in my voluntary class where I have students whose age range from 1 to 13 is challenging enough without adding adolescents and adults, and i must admit they are only 20 students in class. 

My final conclusion is to research read, analyze, integrate, think outside the box, take risks, take action and most importantly learn from your mistakes.


until next time!