Event Reports
From August 10th till August 15th 2008, 35 teachers and 6 trainers from Israel, the Palestinian Autonomous Territories and Jordan met at Istanbul, Turkey, for a 4-days "Training of Trainers" Workshop, organized by the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung in Jerusalem in cooperation with its partners, the Palestinian House for Professional Solutions (HPS), Shaar Hanegev High School and the Amman Center for Peace and Development (ACPD) in the framework of the EU co-funded project "Utilizing Middle Eastern Civic Education as a Leverage for Peace".
With the "Training of Trainers" seminar in Istanbul, the second phase of the project on civic education has officially started. During 4 days, 35 teachers from Israel, the Palestinian Autonomous Territories and Jordan received a special training on Civic Education. The program, which includes 20 lessons on the four subjects of "Equality", "Tolerance", "Justice and the Rule of Law" and "Active Citizenship", will be implemented during the coming school year in 44 classes at 19 schools in the respective countries. Due to the difficult political situation, the teachers from Gaza didn’t receive travel permits and therefore couldn't participate in the workshop. They will be trained during a separate seminar taking place either in Jerusalem or Gaza.
At the beginning of the workshop, Dr. Lars Haensel, Regional Representative of Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung Israel, welcomed the new teachers. He underlined the importance of Civic Education for the participating countries: "Nobody is born as a Democrat. Therefore this project is emphasizing on teaching democratic values to the younger generation."
The workshop started with different ice breakers and acquaintance games, which helped the teachers to overcome their fears and concerns. After the first warming up activities, the teachers were divided into three mixed groups, consisting of Israelis, Palestinians and Jordanians. During the complete seminar, the teachers stayed in these groups, led by two facilitators each.
In their three groups, the teachers were divided into two subgroups of 6-7 people and were asked to design their own lessons on the four subjects. The draft lessons were then presented to the groups for discussion. During these discussions, the facilitators helped the teachers to obtain new teaching methods and talked about possible upcoming problems in the classrooms.
On the second day, a lecture on conflict transformation, held by Dr. Nedal Jayousi, led to a discussion of the Middle East conflict and the different roles in it for Israelis, Palestinians and Jordanians. Despite the difficult subject, the discussions were held in a friendly and respectful atmosphere.
At the end of the workshop, the teachers left with a different attitude. All agreed: "Only education will lead us to peace in the end. Therefore, it is our duty to go back to our schools now and to communicate to our students what we have learned during this workshop."
The "Training of Trainers" workshop was the second training workshop for teachers in the framework of the project and will be followed by the classroom program and two additional students' workshops during the school year 2008/2009.