Education, the One Thing that Cannot Be Taken Away—Fulfilling the Hopes of Palestinian Refugees

My specialization is educational technology. I view educational technology as the study of problem solving and conduct research to solve various social problems both in Japan and overseas from this perspective. One part of this work was participating in an educational development project tied to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) for nine years, from 2002 until the start of the Syrian Syrian Crisis in 2011.

The First Arab-Israeli War broke out in response to the declaration of the founding of Israel in 1948, and more than seven hundred thousand Palestinians fled to neighboring countries and have been living as refugees for almost seventy years. Among the refugees are now even third and fourth generation refugees, and over five million Palestinians are living in refugee camps in surrounding countries, such as Syria. Before the Syrian Syrian Crisis, Syria was extremely tolerant of refugees, including Palestinians, and adopted policies that gave these refugees various rights. There are refugee camps throughout Syria, including Damascus, but even though they are called camps, they are normal cities with shopping centers and condominiums, not tent villages. The schools in these camps were clean and equipped with various types of audio visual materials and equipment. Although the children are called Palestinian refugees, most are third or fourth generation refugees and were born and raised in Syria. Because they do not possess passports, they have difficulty leaving the country, but they were permitted to attend universities and start businesses in the country.

Through UNRWA, local Palestinian staff and international staff, who possess expertise in various fields, cooperate in the fields of education, medical care, and relief/social services. I was part of a project team composed of Japanese educational technology researchers and UNRWA staff that developed and put into practice a curriculum for children stuck in the conditions unique to refugees. I considered how to use my experience with education in Japan to solve the problem of children not being proactive because of feeling forced to study, an issue related to education in the refugee camps at that time. Both Palestinians and Syrians have a respect for Japan, which developed into an advanced country following its defeat in World War II, and they know that the foundation of that growth was education. Because everyone wants to learn about education in Japan, they showed extremely strong interest in Japanese education methods and techniques. Using Japanese educational methods and technology as reference, Palestinian teachers created classes and developed various ingenious ways to generate interest among the children. However, local teachers began to feel something was wrong even though they could feel that they were being successful. It had become possible for children to enjoy taking part in the classes, but the teachers wondered if that was enough. For example, the children seemed to enjoy giving presentations on what they had learned and thought, but they did not try to get others to understand what they were saying or search for and examine problems or points that could be improved on by comparing their presentations against those of other students in order to make their presentations better. How could teachers foster deeper learning? Children worked hard to learn what they were told, but how could teachers get children to look and search for questions and solve problems on their own without being told? While pursuing the answer to those questions, the teachers noticed that “not being proactive because of being forced to study” was a problem that not only the children but also teachers themselves faced. If teachers are bound by an idea that something should be done this way or that this is a good class, they stop thinking for themselves and simply do it that way. The important point is for teachers themselves to develop the perspective of looking for ways to improve classes and conducting classes by always creatively expanding that perspective to match the conditions of the children. In this way, teachers create a system in which children take a leadership role in creatively learning and developing, which is one of the major roles of educational technology.

The experience of learning through international exchanges was an important experience for not only the Palestinian refugee children but also Japanese children. For example, Japanese children thought that at school it was alright to ask about anything they did not know, but they came to understand that it is important to think about what they ask Palestinian children. Thinking about the reason for that deepened their understanding of global events and issues and changed their view of the world.

In Japan, efforts are being made to reform education, and this includes introducing the idea of active learning by striving to foster new skills, such as key competencies, important skills stipulated by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and needed in the 21st century as we are facing drastic changes. Through actively learning, children try various roles, such as being a speaker, evaluator, supporter, group leader, recorder, etc. In addition, the use of ICT broadens those possibilities even more. When playing various roles, there are situations when the values and ways of doing things children have acquired will not be applicable. In those situations, children reexamine what they consider normal, develop questions, and broaden their perspective and values. In this way, children learn to adapt to changing situations through various experiences with other countries in which their current values and ways of doing things are not applicable. Children discover new things about themselves, broaden their options, and increase their possibilities, and this probably leads to the development of key competencies.