Kindergarten Teacher Training
Israeli and Palestinian Educators Working Together
Program Description
This program brings kindergarten teachers from the West Bank area of Jenin to the Arabic language Waldorf Teacher Training Program in the Galilee region of Israel. The Waldorf educational method is used in classrooms around the world, from London to Nepal from Los Angeles to Tel-Aviv. These teachers will learn how to create a warm and nurturing classroom and how through stories and other activities they can model respect for all human beings.
Goals
Our goal is to reach children before ingrained prejudices become their world view. It has been proven that when teachers reach children before prejudices are completely formed, and educate them in holistic education programs, they have much more capacity to build communities and work cooperatively to solve problems. Children who learn in holistic educational program, such as Waldorf, hold the key to changing the future’s course from violence to cooperation.
Training Includes
- Child development studies
- Arts and craft skills
- Music and storytelling in the curriculum
- Health, illness and proper nutrition
- Working with Parents
Background and Significance
Historically, kindergarten teachers in the West Bank have little or no training. The classrooms are typically more like child care than the place where “everything I need to know, I learned in Kindergarten”. This project aims to cause a transformation in the educational atmosphere of the whole area by bringing a humanistically oriented educational methodology into an often insecure, bleak and hopeless environment, and by doing so begin to lay the foundation for a new future of hope and cooperation.
We were asked by leaders in the Palestinian community of Jenin to provide this Waldorf Kindergarten teacher training for Palestinian teachers in the West Bank (this area of Jenin is a region from which many suicide bombers have come). This impulse came as a result of Shepha and Cal Vainstein’s visit to the West Bank last year when they met with various teachers and community members. In describing a Waldorf kindergarten to them, Shepha explained how it builds a feeling of safety and security for the young child which becomes the foundation that will allow them to develop their imagination and creativity.
These teachers were very interested in seeing such an education at work. Despite the hardships involved in passing through checkpoints between the West Bank and Israel, the Jenin group traveled to Harduf. Inspired by what they saw and experienced, a request was made to Salaam Shalom Educational Foundation to help fund the Waldorf training of one teacher from each of their Kindergartens. They are receiving their training at the first Waldorf Teacher Seminar for Arabic speaking students at Kibbutz Harduf in Israel. Despite the many logistical difficulties, the program began with 12 teachers in December, 2006.
We believe such an initiative can lead to the establishment of Waldorf Schools in the Palestinian territories and a chance for this healing impulse to take root in an impoverished and troubled community.
“As a teacher, I have seen Waldorf educational methods protect and deeply nurture, not only
the children, but the families and communities that embrace it. By bringing Waldorf educational methods to the Middle East, the Salaam Shalom Educational Foundation is giving Arab and Jewish children the chance to recognize and mutually admire their humanity and potential for peaceful living. In a time of uncertainty and instability, it is this nurturing and vision that will allow children to imagine and build peace in the future.”
Anjum Mir, Teacher, Westside Waldorf School, Santa Monica, California