Education as Change

Introductory and Editorial Note

Na-iem Dollie — 2024-02-26

n/a

Educide as Genocide in Palestine

Amir M. Khalil — 2024-04-19

Editorial

“Our Identity is Our Dignity”: Digital Transformations: Palestinian Aspirations, Idealism, Reality and Pragmatism

Howard Scott — 2024-03-15

This article reports on a collaborative project for the digital innovation of language teaching in Palestine, and it argues for the necessity of mobile learning to circumvent disruption created by the Israeli occupation causing challenges that result in marginalisation and disenfranchisement of opportunity. This partly occurs through the oppression of a sovereign curriculum that supports Palestinian self-determination. This oppression is against both the United Nations Development Goals protected rights for education and the Palestinian Ministry’s vision for a society with an education sector that embraces the use of technology to invigorate the value of its culture, produce knowledge and promote emancipation. The article proposes the integration of digital technologies with student-centred learning to enhance and support transformation through three main elements: 1. Digital competence to develop confidence and agency in teachers; 2. Continuous teacher learning to develop autonomy and collaboration within organisations; 3. Problem-solving competencies, which can result in continuous improvement loops and local solutions to barriers. This article will resonate with those recognising the need for critical theory to challenge policy and practice where it deepens disadvantage. It draws upon the voices of 20 teachers from four higher education institutions in Palestine, who reflect on the barriers to innovation and a reclaiming of educational terrain.

Jerusalemite Students: Challenges in Israeli-Occupied Higher Education Institutions

Rania Muhammad Qassrawi — 2024-02-26

An educational system has the potential to uplift occupied societies, yet it can also serve as a “soft” weapon prolonging ignorance, particularly when under the control of an occupying force catering to a minority, as seen in Jerusalem. This study aimed to explore the challenges and discriminatory practices encountered by Palestinian students from Jerusalem as a minority within Israeli-occupied higher education institutions. Utilising a descriptive design, qualitative data were obtained by surveying the experiences of 23 Jerusalemite students studying in Israeli colleges through online open-ended questions. The gathered data underwent content analysis, revealing themes that were grouped into challenges and types of apartheid acts faced by the participating students. The findings exposed numerous challenges, including cultural, academic, political, and financial hurdles, along with issues related to enrolment policies, acceptance examinations, the preparatory year, and facility provisions. Additionally, the study revealed various discriminatory acts experienced by Palestinian Jerusalemite students within Israeli higher education.

More Than Fluency: Artificial Stuttering as a Therapy in Drama Education in Palestine

Mohammed Hamdan — 2024-02-26

This article explores the use of artificial stuttering as a powerful practice and therapy in higher education in Palestine where the need for applied drama is increasing. It specifically focuses on the artistic and/or performative re-employment of Charles Dickens’s Nicholas Nickleby to enhance the academic achievement and social development of dysfluent students throughout and beyond their university education. By using extra-curricular, art-mediated training and in-class performance of chosen passages from Dickens’s narrative, students not only improve their linguistic and intellectual competencies but also develop dynamic confidence to articulate themselves in daily social contexts during self-presentation. This academic practice, which is part of a one-term educational disability programme, focuses on training a selected number of undergraduate students with a severe or mild stutter by relying on the technique of artificial impersonation of the stuttering of Smike, who is one of the most common Victorian dysfluent characters, in different melodramatic acts. In this experience, students show linguistic growth and social command of communication, and thus chart a new subjective identity.

The Palestinian Curriculum and European Foreign Aid: The Challenges to Preserve National Content

Haya Fayyad Abuhussein — 2024-02-26

The continuous and controversial arguments about any relationship between foreign aid and the national content of the learned curricula in new and emerging entities in post-conflict areas in general, and in the Palestinian case in particular, have been a source of apprehension for many educators, stakeholders, educational experts, and even school children’s parents. This study aims at investigating the challenges to preserve authentic national and historical content in the light of receiving European foreign aid, taking Palestine as a case. The researcher adopted a mixed-methods approach to achieve the study’s goals. The national content of the school textbooks of the lower basic stage was analysed as a purposive sample of the Palestinian national curriculum. Moreover, semi-structured interviews were conducted with a) curriculum professionals and policymakers from the Ministry of Education to find out the direct impact of European aid on the national content of the Palestinian curriculum, and b) with Palestinian teachers to investigate their attitudes towards the adequacy and efficiency of the national and historical content of the Palestinian curriculum. The results of the content analysis present many national themes and values, yet with diverse dominance and distribution. The semi-structured interviews revealed the continuous pressure on the Ministry of Education to change the content of Palestinian curricula, and its impact on the national content. As for the teachers’ interviews, the results demonstrate that Palestinian teachers do not have positive perspectives on the national and historical content and look forwards to fundamental improvements in the national and historical curriculum.

Navigating Tensions in Designing a Curriculum That Prepares Preservice Teachers for School-Based Learning

Carol Bertram — 2024-02-15

A long-standing concern in teacher education is the variability in the quality of practicum experiences afforded to preservice teachers. Although some variability is due to their personal attributes, preservice teachers often find it difficult to connect theoretical insights to teachers’ classroom practices. These challenges can be exacerbated when teachers do not explain the reasoning for what they do and why. School closures during the pandemic provided South African teacher educators with an opportunity to address this concern. We participated in developing a national online module that prepares preservice teachers for school-based learning through guided lesson study. This article adopts a self-study approach to account for the curriculum choices in developing this module. Three tensions needed consideration: portraying teaching as an individualised pursuit and/or a social practice, focusing on generic and/or specialised pedagogies, and focusing on the tacit and/or explicit reasoning that teachers do. We account for how we worked within and between these tensions. A module of this nature potentially enhances school-based learning by making the reasoning of teachers explicit to preservice teachers. To achieve this potential and to advance work-integrated learning as a scholarship, the conceptual underpinnings of the module and its curriculum design must be open to reflection and scrutiny.

Observing Complexity in Teachers’ Choices: Preparing Preservice Teachers for Work-Integrated Learning

Dale Langsford — 2024-02-15

Although preservice teachers are familiar with classroom life, they are largely unfamiliar with teachers’ intentions and reasoning. Those completing a Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) have just one year to acquire new insights into teaching. This article investigates whether their school-based learning can be enhanced by preparing them to analyse the classroom practices of diverse teachers. A module used to augment work-integrated learning, Teacher Choices in Action, has introduced more than 70,000 South African preservice teachers to key choices that all teachers make. They see how diverse teachers enact these choices through guided studies of recorded lessons. We use Legitimation Code Theory to compare lesson observation reports written by 83 PGCE preservice teachers at the start and end of completing this module. Initially, most participants gave superficial descriptions of classroom activities with basic explanations of what teachers do and why. Afterwards, their reports contained more complex interpretations of teaching, with more connections between their lesson observations and insights from their coursework. Guided lesson study potentially empowers them to interpret prevalent teaching practices and consider pedagogic choices for their lessons more thoughtfully and systematically, regardless of their educational backgrounds. It may also address some concerns about vastly different mentoring that preservice teachers receive during the practicum.

The Role of Social Services in Realising Children’s Rights in and through Education

Roelf Petrus Reyneke — 2024-02-13

Section 28(1)(c) of the South African Constitution (1996) unequivocally affirms that children are the only vulnerable group with an explicit right to social services. Nonetheless, the practical realisation of this right remains elusive for many children, leaving them without access to vital social services. Through the theoretical framework of transformative constitutionalism, this article posits that the evolving field of social services provision within school settings presents a promising avenue to champion children’s right to social services and a range of other children’s rights, and facilitate and promote their access to basic education. Utilising a qualitative research approach with an exploratory case study design, this study investigates whether providing social services through a programme in Botshabelo schools in the Free State effectively promotes the realisation of children’s rights. The results show that social services in schools can contribute to realising various children’s rights. It is recommended that there should be a symbiotic partnership between the Departments of Social Development and Basic Education with the latter endorsing and expanding the provision of social services within schools. This integration is recommended on the basis that it not only advances crucial human rights for children, such as child protection, social security, and a safe environment, but also shows promise in enhancing the academic performance of learners grappling with challenging circumstances.