Children Teaching Children (CTC) is a project of the Jewish-Arab
Center for Peace at Givat Haviva, founded in 1986. It is an
educational dialogue process that aspires to equip Jewish and Arab
teachers and students with the tools to cope with living in a
situation of continuous conflict. It now works with 38 classes in
24 schools, mostly in the north and north-central part of Israel,
and includes some 80 teachers and 1,320 students from the fourth to
the eleventh grade.
CTC began as a program in which Jewish and Arab children taught
Hebrew and Arabic to one another. Today, the focus of the program
has turned to reflecting the pluralistic, multicultural composition
of the State of Israel and promoting a more complex vision of
living in the reality of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Supported by the Unit for Education for Democracy and Coexistence
of the Ministry of Education, CTC is one of the most comprehensive
on¬going programs in Israel, bringing Arab and Jewish youth
together in an educational framework. Except in a few cities, Arabs
and Jews in Israel reside in segregated, nationally homogeneous
communities. The university is usually the first place where Jews
and Arabs personally meet on an equal level, and by then, years of
misinformation and disinformation about the other side have
prejudiced their opinions and formed stereotypes that are not
easily dispelled.
Structure of the Program
The work of CTC is carried out on two parallel tracks, one
targeting students and the other teachers. The program functions in
two different settings: the homeroom and the binational
encounter.
Classes from Jewish and Arab schools are paired for the length of
the program, and the students and teachers meet with each other on
a consistent basis throughout the school year. Between each
encounter, the participants devote a portion of class time in their
homeroom to processing the encounter experience and dwelling on the
issues it raises. This is a two-year program which may be extended
to a third year or concluded after the first year.
In its first stages, each participating class devotes two hours a
week to uni-national CTC sessions. In their homeroom sessions, the
students deepen their awareness of their identity and their group
and self-image, through discussions on issues of democracy,
pluralism, stereotypes and the reference groups that make up their
identities.
As the year progresses, the classes meet the other side, encounters
alternating evenly between the two schools for a range of creative
activities from preliminary ice-breakers to drama, art, simulation
games and field trips, revealing sensitive issues that the teachers
and students are not wont to approach.
Highly motivated teachers work hand in hand with their Jewish and
Arab colleagues in ways that are seldom possible in Israel's
educational system. In their frequent meetings throughout the year,
the teachers learn about each other's society, share reflections
from their homeroom sessions, and undergo a growth process not
unlike the one they lead their students through.
The teachers actively translate what is said in class and must know
how to apply children's disclosures and observations so as to help
the development of new forms of dialogue. Teachers undergo
intensive training at Givat Haviva, including workshops in human
relations, pedagogical skills, and the dynamics of Jewish-Arab
encounters. They also attend two enrichment day-seminars during the
school year.
Cooperation between teachers and Arab and Jewish field coordinators
contributes much to the smooth operation and progress of the
program. Field coordinators, who are educators with a great deal of
experience coordinating and facilitating encounters between Arabs
and Jews, meet with their respective teams of teachers on a regular
basis, so as to help them process their experiences in the program.
They work in pairs, and a Jewish and Arab field coordinator are
present at each binational encounter as observers.
Teachers and coordinators analyze students' responses to issues
raised in class, including external events, such as terrorism or
developments in the peace process, which have effects on what
transpires in the classroom. An important aspect of CTC is the
small ratio between the number of students and teachers, about
14:1. It is only in such small groups that earnest dialogue can
ensue.
Evaluation and Participation Patterns
Evaluation of the program's success is based on four criteria: The
first is the level of cooperation achieved between Jews and Arabs -
teachers and students - and the degree of involvement in the
activities. The second is the changes in the tone of the discussion
and the ability of participants to listen. The third is the
willingness to breach and discuss controversial topics and the
degree to which students and teachers are willing to reveal their
personal thoughts. Finally, the fourth criterion is the willingness
for introspection and for questioning what has been taken for
granted.
There are many asymmetrical phenomena in binational settings. The
motivation of each side is completely different. The Jewish
students approach the sessions with a feeling of superiority, while
the Arab students feel that they are there to tell Jewish students
"the truth," and prove to them that they are human beings. But both
groups still surprise each other: Arab children are taken aback by
Jewish children's sprints to the refreshment table after the
meetings, and Jewish students are surprised by the Arab students'
disciplined behavior and great respect for their teacher. Both
groups are surprised when the other group has never heard of their
most revered pop icons.
The binational sessions have their own dynamic: First come personal
introductions, then students gradually become more willing to
discuss their family life, acquaintances deepen, sometimes
short-term friendships develop, and finally, some groups even delve
into political controversies. Last year, junior-high school
students in CTC jointly investigated examples of Jewish-Arab
cooperation in Haifa and published a booklet explaining their
findings.
Parental support for the project is today universal on both sides,
but seven or eight years ago, at the height of the Intifada, some
Jewish parents had reservations about letting their children travel
to Arab towns and villages, and a small minority of parents refused
to let their children participate. On one occasion, when Jewish
parents insisted that an armed guard accompany the children, Arab
school officials rejected the demand, and a compromise was reached
so that the guard accompanied the group to the village, but stayed
on the bus.
Face to Face
Arab-Jewish encounters and curricula to educate towards peace and
democracy have become important new subfields in the field of
education in Israel. In addition to CTC, another program, Face to
Face, brings together teenagers from Jewish and Arab high schools
for two- and three-day integrated seminar retreats at Givat Haviva.
Face to Face, which has been functioning for 12 years, involves
over 1,500 students from schools all across Israel, from the Negev
to the far North.
The program is designed for older, more sophisticated students, and
the encounters include intensive and substantive dialogue sessions
that don't shy away from the controversial topics at the heart of
the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Face to Face usually offers only one or two preparatory seminars
prior to the integrated encounter at Givat Haviva, and apart from
Tel Aviv-Yaffo, does not necessarily attempt to cultivate an
ongoing relationship between the paired schools. The schools are
usually matched according to the academic level of their student
bodies.
In light of growing interest in classes in peace and democracy,
including Palestinian NGO's, Givat Haviva has recently opened a
resource center for coordinating binational encounters and
developing curricula for formal and informal education in the
field.
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