1. Feedback from Nur Masalha on culture and collective memory seminars
Work package three seminars – Nur Masalha – Culture and Memory
Visit dates
30 June-8 July 2013, involving three Palestinian Universities: al-Quds University, Bethlehem University and Birzeit University
Seminars delivered at / on
I have taken part in, and contributed to (including translating from English into Arabic), Professor Peter Mayo’s pedagogy seminar and he has also taken part in my history, culture and memory seminar. My seminars were given in Arabic.
My own seminars were on
Palestine, History, Memory and Culture as Sites of Life-long Learning: Ideas for Nurturing
Altogether we had seven sessions held at four Palestinian university centre/venues:
2-3 July: two days plus one additional evening at al-Quds University
2 July: held at the Hanina Campus/in collaboration with Community Action Centre (in the Old City of Jerusalem)
3 July: one day and one special evening (on the ‘Nakba, memory and history’) held at the Centre for Jerusalem Studies (Old City of Jerusalem), al-Quds University. This evening in the Old City attracted a large number of local Palestinian and European expatriates based in East Jerusalem.
4-5 July at Bethlehem University, Institute for Community Partnership
6-7 July: Institute for Continuing Education, Birzeit University, Ramallah (at al-Masa Building).
There was also an informal planning meeting with Ms Najwa Silwadi at the Centre for Community Action (Old City of Jerusalem) on 1 July. At this meeting with Ms Silwadi the issue of the procedures of the seminars were discussed as well as potential future work with oral memory in connection with Palestinian refugees from Lifta village (located in West Jerusalem) currently residing in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
Outcomes
- The benefit from a co-learning experience and a dialogue across culture: The participants of the workshops in Palestine (coming from diverse educational and social backgrounds) and the two European partners have benefited from sharing new ideas on across cultural dialogues and ‘democracy from below’ and comparing experiences on a range of issues central to critical education and critical learning both in Palestine and internationally.
- Both Palestinian and European partners considered how new research on oral memory and culture (and how individual and collective memories interact) can nurture and enrich learning culture both in Palestine and internationally. The two European partners in particular have gained deeper insights into the complex issues and realities confronting the Palestinian partners. Overall this was an important co-learning experience.
- Contributing new material on oral history from below, memory and culture to the learning resources of the centres mentioned above: all Palestinian university centres have filmed/recorded our seminars. The heads of the centres have assured us that the recorded material will be used in future to to train others.
- The length of times allocated to these seminars varied from one university centre to another; for instance, I had one additional evening session al-Quds University (Centre for Jerusalem Studies), and generally the time allocated by al-Quds University was slightly longer than the other institutions.
- However overall the quality of the sessions at all four university centre were high and we had participants from all walks of life and diverse professions (as well as young students and adult educators) at all three universities.
- In Ramallah at the seminars at the Institute for Continuing Education I noticed the type of participants for the pedagogy seminar of Prof Peter Mayo and my seminar (on history, culture, memory and life-long learning) were slightly different; more Palestinian educationalists turned up for the pedagogy seminar, while more director of cultures centres and NGOs came to my culture seminar.
Feedback of relevance to sustaining the project of Lifelong Learning in Palestine beyond the project?
- After the seminar at Bit Hanina on 2 July, Professor Yousef Najajreh distributed a feedback sheet to all participants to fill in
- All seminars were filmed/recorded with a view to engaging other civil society organizations in Palestine in the future.
- Some of the material recorded can also be placed on websites.
Any points that should feed into the final report?
- I think more time could be allocated to these seminars
- At the end of the seminars many participants commented that more seminars would be needed in future and these could emphasis the praxis and applied side of many of the ideas discussed
Points that need to be valorized on the website?
I believe the four university centres we have collaboration with in these workshops (the Community Action Centre and the Centre for Jerusalem Studies (in the Old City of Jerusalem) and Institute for Community Partnership (Bethlehem) and Institute for Continuing Education (Ramallah) are doing extremely valuable work. But all four centres have slightly different orientations which are reflected in their different social parities. Also in terms of urgency I would strongly recommend valorising the work carried out by the two al-Quds centres in the Old City of Jerusalem, both of which are strongly community oriented, but with different areas of emphasis. The legal support offered by the Community Action Centre to thousand of Palestinian residents in the city and work with Palestinian women in Jerusalem is unique, while the work carried out by the Centre of Jerusalem Studies in connection with preserving the threatened Palestinian cultural heritage and actual physical sites in the city is of utmost importance.
Name / Date
Prof Nur Masalha, 16 July 2013
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2. Feedback on Pedagogy – Peter Mayo
Visit dates 30TH June-9th July
Seminars delivered at / on 2-3 July, Al_Quds, 4-5th July Betlehem, 6-7th July Ramallah Nur and I participated actively in the seminars conducted by each other and we also had a preparatory meeting with Najwa on July 1 in preparation for the Al Quds seminars. This preparatory meeting was part of the original plan.
Outcomes
1/ greater awareness of different pedagogical processes and unorthodox ones at that to strengthen continuing education work at the three university centres.
2 recorded material which can be used time and time again as learning resource.
3. Greater insights derived by European and Palestinian participants regarding the complexity of the issues and alternative approaches considered.
Feedback of relevance to sustaining the project of Lifelong Learning in Palestine beyond the project ?
We discussed the issues of collective memory through the Nakba and how this feeds into a process of collective and individual learning among Palestinians. We also engaged critically with a Freirean and critical pedagogy approach to lifelong learning relating themes from Freire and other relevant pedagogues to the situation on the ground in Palestine. Particular emphasis was placed on breaking the cycle of violence with respect to the notion of the ‘oppressor within’ or rather the ‘oppressor consciousness’. Dialogue and notions of teacher authority/authoritiarianism were given most prominence in terms fo the participants inputs. All material was recorded.
Any points that should feed into the final report?
Each session is recorded and can be used time and time again to serve as the basis for future workshops. Perhaps more time was needed for each session to follow up the presentations and discussions with workshops focusing on specific themes.
Points that need to be valorized on the website?
I think all presentations, which were recorded, ought to be placed on the website to get a sense of the discussions involved..
Name / Date
Peter Mayo
July 13 2013
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3. FEEDBACK ON IRELAND SEMINARS
Tony Walsh and Josephine Finn
Department of Adult and Community Education, NUI Maynooth.
Report
This brief report summaries the content of five sessions delivered by the Irish Team during their visit to Palestine in early June, 2013.
Methodology.
In keeping with the understanding that Lifelong Learning represents a radical approach to knowledge and education, we were at pains to create learning spaces in all the sessions which would encourage participation and enable the expression of differing, even contradictory views. Participants, including the Irish facilitators, came to the engagements with particular experiences with particular knowledge and different ways of knowing based in their formal learning experiences, their life worlds, culture and their own specific experiences of marginalisation, leadership and power. In a Lifelong Learning context, expressing, exploring and theorising such richness and variety is core to the task of creating new knowledge and fresh experience. We were also aware that our experience as ‘outsiders’ to Palestinian society, as well as the differing perspectives and experiences of group members formed rich potential for exploring diversity. As a result we chose to use a reflective conversational method of engagement based in the educational practices of Adult Education, and specifically in this instance in systems thinking and the work of Tom Anderson and his colleagues, (Anderson 1991). This appeared to offer a useful model for promoting relevant exchange, to challenge traditional notions of facilitators as ‘expert’, to honor the varied experience and understandings of participants and to promote critical reflection. The aim of Lifelong Learning is to create a society of critical and reflective thinkers committed to seeing their whole range of life experiences as opportunities for growth and learning.
Session Content.
It is difficult to summarise the content of sessions without adopting a reductionistic stance towards the rich and varied conversational exchanges which characterised all four sessions. As a result, the outline provided for each session is a representation of the group discussions. We are mindful that these are our (Josephine and Tony’s) particular impressions, compiled from notes taken both during and immediately after the sessions and therefore may not either totally accord with or fully capture other participants experiences of what happened.
2nd June 2013
Seminar 1 10.00am – 12.00 noon
Location: Al Quds University
Group: Deans of Faculty, Departmental Heads and Academic Staff
Seminar Title: Leadership for Lifelong Learning
Outline:
· The challenges of a Lifelong Learning philosophy for leadership in the university and in wider society.
· Promoting social participation and the challenges for educators in addressing the building of civil society.
· Differing notions of leadership; leadership and culture; culturally determined leadership conventions and styles; leadership efficacy; training for leadership.
· Power and its explicit and implicit manifestations in society, community and group; the discomfort of (and resistance to) naming, particularly implicit power.
· Gender and leadership.
Seminar 2 2.30 -4.00pm
Location: Community Action Centre
Group: Women’s community education group
Seminar Title: Community based lifelong learning
Outline:
· The challenges of a Lifelong Learning in the university and in wider society;
· Promoting social participation and the challenges for education in building civil society;
· The position of women in Islamic societies;
· Being part of a dominated group;
· Gender and education.
3rd June 2013
Seminar 3 10.00am - 12.00 noon
Location: Al Quds University –
Group: Academic staff and students engaged in community activism and outreach
Seminar Title: The learning society
Outline:
· Characteristics of the learning society;
· The necessity of recognising and questioning the power structures of the dominated groups as well as those of the dominant group;
· Working with leaders in society and community; understanding their varying assumptive worlds;
· Developing a reflexive way of being; leaders and self-critique.
Seminar 4 2.30 – 4.00pm
Location: Community Action Centre, Jerusalem
Group: Reunification of Families Group –
Seminar title: Narrative as a method of maintaining agency
Outline:
· The position of women in Islamic societies;
· Gendered inequality and marginality;
· Being part of a dominated group;
· Narrative research; story telling, change and empowerment;
· Ways of developing agency.
4th June 2013
Seminar 5 10.00am-12.00 noon
Location: Community Action Centre, Jerusalem
Group: Community leaders in Jerusalem
Seminar Title: Community leadership and lifelong learning
Outline:
· Social integration: not assimilation but a recognition of, respect for and sometimes a celebration of difference, underpinned by a commitment to equality;
· Spirituality and its relationship to ethics and different forms of morality; learning from the ‘other’;
· The distinctive qualities required for community education and leadership in the context of occupancy;
· Altruism and leadership; recruiting and training altruistic leaders;
· Developing and sustaining vision for change;
· Promoting a lateral approach in addressing the solution of problems;
· Building participative skills - collaboration, partnership, useful alliances.
5th June 2013
Meeting: 3.00-4.00pm
Location: Bethlehem University – meeting with project partner
Discussion about forthcoming seminars proposed by Bethlehem University.
OUTCOMES
Feedback of relevance to sustaining the project of Lifelong Learning in Palestine beyond the project?
The underlying premises developed on in all sessions reflected the conviction that Lifelong Learning represents a paradigmatic shift regarding the nature of knowledge and questions the validity of traditional ‘top down’ understandings of the education process. Within Lifelong Learning there is an emphasis on interrogating power interests in the normative definitions of ‘knowledge’ and of ‘knowers’ which obtain in any society or community. This introduces radical implications not just for education but also for traditional notions of leadership, participation and agency in the wider society.
Any points that should feed into the final report?
The methodological approach for the seminars proved very useful in creating an environment for open and engaged discussion (see note above). A note about the approach could complement the pedagogical paper submitted by the Maltese Team.
Points that need to be valorized on the website?
Name: Tony Walsh and Josephine Finn
Date: 20th August 2013
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4. Feedback on Glasgow seminars of national considerations
Keith Hammond
Glasgow
Work package three seminars
Thoughts on policy recommendations
Overheads on website
Film on website
Visit dates 4th July 2013
Seminars delivered at
Birzeit
Film and notes sent to Birzeit and placed on website before event – just in case I could not get to the seminar.
Around six people there but very good discussion. Two from NGOs and the others were students from Birzeit …
Outcomes
Clarification of some very basic ideas that need to be understood and might be useful input to policy discourse …
Connection with the work of the Qattan Foundation who attended.
Dr Ziad Hkalaf – Director General of the A M Qattan Foundation – made a lot of interesting and very relevant points and described how the ‘holistic’ vision of the foundation already pushed towards LLIP aims ...
Able to follow through with visit to the Foundation, to spend time looking around the facilities, to use the library and talk with young teachers about lifelong learning. As a result I was able to send twenty years of the Philosophy of Education (UK) journals out to the British Council for the Qattan Foundation library. Hopefully these journals add to their facilities …
Feedback of relevance to sustaining the project of Lifelong Learning in Palestine beyond the project ?
There are several outstanding Centers focused on ‘outreach’ in Birzeit. One person pointed this out who was from Womens Studies. There is no reason why contact cannot be established with some of these centers as well as our partner in the Center for Continuing Education.
Any points that should feed into the final report?
The seminar was filmed and should go on the website. Not sure the point needs to be valorized but Dr Mimi asked ‘what is the first move to be made in introducing lifelong learning?’ which I thought was a very sharp question.
I answered that an extensive debate should be introduced with the CCE and its partners, and the discussion should be about the meaning of lifelong learning for Palestine. Meaning should be discussed in the context of the economy, building the stock of young professions in a culture of social capital that frames national aspirations …
There are some very important documents that need to be fed into the Palestinian public debate. Palestinians should mould their own idea of lifelong learning in the broader global knowledge economy that we hear so much about. Centers like CCE in Ramallah are perfectly placed for to begin the debate, rolling it out to so many centers in and around Ramallah …
There are pockets of workin existence that are doing work already very close to LLIP. We need to map these out and encourage connections in networks. We had a very limited amount of time to spend in the early visits and so we missed a lot in places like Ramallah …
Points that need to be valorized on the website?
The aims and objectives of the Qattan Foundation. The PNGO network needs to be promoted. Far more work on networks …
Name / Date
KH 30th July 2013
5. Feedback on Glasgow seminars on Leadership
Keith Hammond
Glasgow
Work package three seminars
Leadership (afternoon) chaired by Dr Asma IMAM
Visit dates 4th May 2013
Seminars delivered at
Al Quds – about 15-20 participants from both the university and NGOs in Jerusalem. A great mix of men and women, young and old, academic and non-academic …
Particularly interesting were several managers from a big hospital on the Mount of Olives, Jerusalem.
This seminar was no doubt a success because of Dr Imam’s chairing. She intervened and asks for points to be clarified in relation to real situations in public health organisations …
Outcomes
Feedback sheets were given out but I have not seen these yet.
1. Just about everyone spoke in this seminar. Lots of challenges to points made which meant they had to be clarified, reflected upon because of different contexts.
2. People hung around afterwards and there was lots of networking. Swapping of information. Excitement about the LLIP project.
Feedback of relevance to sustaining the project of Lifelong Learning in Palestine beyond the project ?
The seminar brought out some quality thinking from all the participants. No one looked like they were not engaged in the discussion. At one point the young cameraman put aside his headphones and spoke about young people being the future leaders of lifelong learning. Very lively seminar.
Some of those who stayed behind wanted more … especially on the contrast between ‘organic’ leaders who can work in all directions and traditional leaders who work within top down structures but do not work across different organizations.
Any points that should feed into the final report?
The final report should reflect the range of new capacities that have been developed in the Al Quds team. Collectively they cover a wide range of disciplines and work well together by making very different contributions.
This team, however, like the team in IUG would be perfect for delivering lifelong learning workshops more broadly across different educational settings in Jerusalem. A very impressive team in Al Quds.
Points that need to be valorized on the website?
The event was filmed and it should go on the website.
Name / Date
KH 19th May 2013
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