About Us: Extra Info for Teachers



Information, Reflection and Action

Our schools programme incorporates the four core pedagogical skills recommended by the Irish National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA), i.e. Ideas and Understanding; Dispositions and Values; Skills Development; Transformation and Planned Actions.

These skills are integrated into our development education framework of promoting the themes of interdependent local and global citizenship and participation.

Our ten-session Preparatory Module takes place during the First Term of the school year, September through December (or January).

After returning from Israel and Palestine in March, there is a two-session Final Follow-Up Module for final feedback, appreciation and evaluations.

The Preparatory Module programme is structured upon three progressive strands, i.e, Information; Reflection and Action.

Timetable-wise, we like to keep it simple and efficient:

• for schools in the Republic of Ireland, the project should be scheduled over 10 consecutive weeks on the basis of one period a week, mid-September through December, or if necessary, through January;
• for schools in Northern Ireland, the project may be scheduled over 4 double sessions over the same term.

The project classwork is staged progressively along three core strands, as follows:

Information Strand
Periods One and Two: Project Objectives; Background Information; Media Awareness
Periods Three to Five: Palestinian school video; Israeli school video

Reflection Strand
Periods Six and Seven: follow-up reflection on universal values and Rights of the Child

Action Strand
Periods Eight and Nine: poster and video preparation
Period Ten: video presentation filming

Integration of the Programme within School Curricula

The project is applied to the following curricula:

Republic of Ireland

Junior Cycle

• CSPE: Unit 1: The Individual and Citizenship; Unit 2: The Community; Unit 4: Ireland and the World; plus Action Project
• ESS: Section Three The Modern World/ Justice/Peace; Race; Gender: Higher Level additional setting: cause and consequences of conflict; Section 4. Contemporary Issues: comparative religions; popular culture;
• RE: Part 1, Section A: Communities of Faith; Section C: Foundations of Religion : Major World Religions; Part 2 Section D: The Celebrations of Faith; Section F: The Moral Challenge
• SPHE: Communication Skills; Friendship; Influences and Decisions; Belonging and Integrating; Self-Management;

Senior Cycle

• RE: both as examination and non-examination subject;
• Social Education (Leaving Certificate Applied): Contemporary Issues Task: Module 3: Contemporary Issues 1; Module 5: Contemporary Issues 2

Additionally: school activities of Transition Year school programmes that would provide for student-centred projects that serve to promote active participatory development education themes and skills.

Northern Ireland
Year 13

• Social and Environmental Studies: Modules on Communication and the Media; Issues in Global Development; Rights and Responsibilities in the Law
• Social RE (Non-examination subject; Catholic Maintained schools only)
• Government and Politics: Module 3: Political Behaviour
• Certificate of Personal Effectiveness (COPE): accredited CEA project task

Skills

The content and methodology of the project in all schools is geared towards developing the following skills:

• Identification/Awareness skills: gathering information from media sources + project material; compiling and sharing information
• Analysis/Evaluation skills: media analysis (newspapers; TV; video presentation) and analysis of project material (video presentations; posters; poems); discussion of project themes; self-evaluation in follow-up questionnaires evaluation of project objectives in same
• Communication skills: self-awareness ; sharing information; group-interaction and co-operation listening; creative communication
• Action skills: decision-making; project planning; making posters; writing messages; composing poems; making of video presentation; organisation of Awareness Days; preparation of evaluations.

What are the benefits to the different curricula?

The programme objectives are intended to serve and enhance the selected subjects in the following areas of key skills development:

Knowledge and Awareness; Ideas and Understanding; Dispositions and Values:

• extended knowledge and awareness of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and of the socio-cultural identities of Palestinian and Israeli schoolchildren. Likewise, extended knowledge and awareness of the Northern Ireland conflict in Belfast and of the socio-cultural identities of students in Ireland, north and south.

Critical Awareness of Conflict Issues & Transformation of Perspectives and Value Judgements:

• critical analysis of media portrayals of conflict;
• need to both respect the feelings of others in conflict and to perceive that there are necessarily different perspectives of conflict;
• need to treat opposing views with respect and objective reflection, to show compassion where it is due, but also to take stances on moral issues.

Positive Awareness of Identities & Transformation of Perspectives and Value Judgements:

• recognition of the dangers of stereotyping and discrimination, and of the positive values of individuality, difference and diversity;
• extended knowledge and awareness of Islam and Judaism, and the respective importance of religious sites to Muslims, Christians and Jews alike;
• extended knowledge and awareness of the different comtemporary political affiliations both between and within Catholic and Protestant communities in Northern Ireland, and of the presence of other non-national communities in Ireland, north and south;
• familiarisation with the different types of personal, inter-personal, communal /social and global aspects of identity, and of the roles young people have in the local and wider world community; greater awareness of the interdependence of identities and roles;

Active Awareness of Citizenship and Leadership:

• awareness of the relevance of human rights, and specifically of children’s rights, and of the responsibilities implied by universal rights;
• awareness of the universality of essential values common to all people, particularly in relation to young people, in terms of both societal and social interests and aspirations; awareness of the interdependence of universal values, and of the interdependence of universal values and universal rights.
• awareness of education and schooling as means of expressing and communicating such values and dispositions; awareness of their roles as active citizens in local and global contexts;

Skills Development, Transformation and Planned Actions:

• Identification/Awareness skills: gathering information from media sources + project material; compiling and sharing information and skills;
  
  
• Analysis/Evaluation skills: media analysis (newspapers;TV; video presentation) and analysis of project material (video presentations; posters; poems); discussion of project themes; self-evaluation in follow-up questionnaires evaluation of project objectives in same;
  
  
• Communication skills: group-interaction and co-operation; listening; creative communication; sharing information and skills; developing and sustaining discussion topics.
  
  
• Action skills: decision-making; task group formation, involving delegation and implementation of project tasks: creating Media Awareness boards for classroom and/or school; making posters; writing messages; composing poems; making of video presentation; organisation of Awareness Days; preparation of evaluations.

What are the limitations to the project?

This project must respect the feelings of the students and their wider communities in Israel/Palestine. For the Palestinian students in Hebron, as for their families and friends, the conflict has been and remains to this day too harsh to allow for gestures of reconciliation. It is sufficient that we allow space for awareness of the realities of conflict and to extend our messages of hope and dignity to each individual on the basis of commonly held beliefs and values.

This project gives the chance for all the participating students to reclaim the vitalities of youth for themselves, something that conflict deprives them of. There is one essential political message in this project: that young people need those basic freedoms, as enshrined in the Conventions of the Rights of the Child , to enable them to believe in and work for peace.

In order to protect and preserve the nature of the project, it is therefore not possible to engage the Israeli and Palestinian students in direct exchanges as we are able to arrange between them and the participating students from Ireland, north and south. We must be content with encouraging both Israeli and Palestinian students to prepare messages of a hypothetical nature, such as what questions they would like to ask and say to the other side. Schools Across Borders contents itself with organising and passing such messages between both sides. Without our trusted mediation, these messages would not have seen the light of day. It is a worthwhile achievement in itself that has served to develop the reflections necessary for advancing a spirit of objective communication.

All this means that however much we would like to publicise the work, photos and names of the participant Israeli and Palestinian students in a forum such as this project website, we accept our responsibilities in these difficult times.

The Third Party Effect

By creating awareness of the realities experienced by Israeli and Palestinian students in Israeli/Palestinian conflict and by extension, those realities relevant to students in both communities in Northern Ireland, students on all sides are provided with an added impetus or “third party effect” to communicate the project objectives:

• the Israeli and Palestinian students see how students in the Rep.of Ireland and those representing nationalist and unionist communities in Belfast engage in a non-partisan manner towards them;
• the students representing both communities in Belfast, being aware of their mutual participation on a non-partisan basis, and of the non-partisan attitudes of the students “down south” are motivated to prove their respective commitment to the project objectives on all axes: cross-community, cross-border and towards the Israeli and Palestinian students;
• the students in the Rep. of Ireland are eager to make contact with students from both communities in Belfast and to demonstrate the same non-partisan attitudes to them as they do to the Israeli and Palestinian students.

Teacher Autonomy & Ownership

Schools Across Borders believes in encouraging active teacher ownership of our school programme, as follows:

Teacher’s Guide & Teaching Practice
All Teachers are given an easy-to-use Work Plan of the entire class programme in order to encourage greater teacher autonomy; All teachers share the implementation of the programme sessions with the Schools Across Borders staff and through gaining sufficient knowledge of the project format and classwork, agree by prior arrangement, to teach class sessions themselves.

In our 2006/7 year programme in Ireland and Northern Ireland, teacher autonomy proved successful on the following counts:

Six of the nineteen teachers engaged in the present 2006/07 year programme have led one session of the Information Strand (of five sessions);

Fourteen of the nineteen teachers have led at least one session in each of the Reflection and Action Strands (of five sessions);

Six teachers teachers have led two sessions.

Student Tests and Evaluations
Teachers also carry out the mid-project tests and final project evaluations provided by Schools Across Borders for all student groups. In addition, all teachers shall be encouraged to either use the mid-project tests or devise their own formats for Christmas exams.

Teacher Evaluations and Feedback
We shall also continue to carry out end-of-year final evaluations and due consultation with all teachers in order to ensure comprehensive feedback on any necessary adaptations of the programme content and format.

Trip to Israel & Palestine
We will also be providing the opportunity for two teachers from Ireland to accompany the Schools Across Borders staff during our school programme work in schools in Jerusalem and Hebron (8-10 day visit during mid-term break in February 2008/9/10).

We shall provide for the accommodation, travel and living expenses within Israel and Palestine.

Teachers will be expected to carry out case studies on Israeli and Palestinian teachers or students or other relevant subjects, with view to communicating their research to their schools, to other project teachers and place on project website.