National Days are Days of Hope in the Primary School
Even before the war began, the teaching staff in the primary school felt that the so-called “national days” – Holocaust Remembrance Day, Memorial Day, the Nakbah and Israeli Independence Day – needed a new approach. “We needed a way to deal with these days that would reflect the values of our school,” says Principal Neama Abo Delu. “That is, despite the difficulties, we need to talk about hope and overcoming our differences.”
The school staff has been working on changing the content of these days for the entire year, including during an intensive two-day retreat to hammer out the details. Among other things, says Abo Delu, the fact that the entire staff had a part in the planning meant that the teachers of the younger grades, who do not normally have a large role in the planning of these days, were more clued in as to the way the days are structured and could work on devising the days’ events within their own classrooms.
The national days have always been challenging ones for the binational primary school. Each day has a strong tie to national and group identity, and the celebration of one may be a day of mourning for the other. The school’s programs must thus tread a fine line between identity and learning to see the whole picture, between belonging to a national group and belonging to the larger group of humanity.
The structure of the days was similar to those in previous years: Each one started in the classrooms with both Jewish and Arab teachers present, then went on to separate assemblies for the Jewish and Arab children. Finally, the whole school came together for a final event.
The difference, this year, is that the teachers were well prepared. The separate assemblies had the usual readings, songs and performances tied to the day. The fifth- and sixth-graders were responsible for these, and they performed beautifully. But there was a new emphasis on the opposite group, as well, and the children were asked to imagine what their friends and classmates were feeling and experiencing at the same time.
The final event was different as well, in that it focused on hope. For some children and staff, the national days are intense and difficult, and the final event is not one that tells them to forget everything they have just experienced and move on. Rather, it gives them hope that there is a way to accept their own identity and inheritance while sharing their lives with others whose history is at odds with their own.
“Due to the intensive work we did as a staff, the national days in the primary school were the best ever, and the calmest, as well,” says Abo Delu. “The children and teachers are aware of the war that feeds the divisions between us, but they managed to make these days really meaningful and to truly remind us that we cannot lose sight of our hope.”