Dubai: Playtime in the classroom can help reduce the trauma of violence, Hanan Al Hroub, winner of last year’s $1 million Varkey Foundation Global Teacher Prize Award, told the World Government Summit (WGS) in Dubai on Sunday.
The Palestinian primary schoolteacher, whose children had been shot at, said that she turned to teaching to help students cope with man-made calamities, such as “violent Israeli occupation”.
Her comments came during a WGS 2017 breakout session on ‘The Power of Play’ at the Madinat Jumeirah Resort, hosting the three-day annual event.
Al Hroub said many children in Palestine hated schools because of “traumatic” experiences they faced on their way to class, especially at Israeli checkpoints.
“As a mother, as a teacher, I had to solve the children’s problems. I wanted to turn their life, which was full of problems outside classroom, into a safe, peaceful and fun loving inside the classroom. I did that through the play-and-learn methodology,” she added.
Al Hroub used old clothes, toys and recycled materials to transform her classroom into a kind of playground for children where they participated in games which developed teamwork and leadership skills in them.
“Play works magic in the classroom … The teacher should be humane to free his students from fear, which destroys the society. The teacher is not just a provider of knowledge and information, but an instiller of values in his students.”
She added that “learning through play” should be integrated into the traditional curriculum and teachers should be trained in the methodology. “What we lack is conviction. We need to know that teachers matter. We define the future and we own the change. Any education policy that doesn’t put the teacher first, will fail … The teachers should be trained before they enter the classroom. They need to be aware of the needs of children and how to work with them,” Al Hroub said.
When asked by a WGS host to share a memorable experience of her, Al Hroub recalled the story of a violent young boy at the school. “Thanks to play-and-learn methodology, he totally transformed. All he wanted was to play, share toys and interact with his peers.”
Addressing the session Joseph Aoun, president of Northeastern University in the US, said the education sector is failing to keep pace with a fast changing world. He said scores of jobs will be lost in the near future, replaced by Artificial Intelligence. “No one is going to be set for life … If jobs are going to become obsolete, you have to retune or you won’t have a job. Who’s going to train you? Universities have given up … We [academicians] want to change the world but we don’t want to change ourselves. We’re a conservative bunch,” Aoun added.
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