Fidaq Zataar - Winner of the Global Teacher Prize

The Global Teacher Prize is an annual 1 million dollar award that will be given to an exceptional teacher who has made an outstanding contribution to the profession.

The winner is:

Fidaq Zaatar
Palestine

Fidaq wanted to be a teacher. The first Intifada happened during her university years and she had to go through several Israeli checkpoints every day to go to class, sometimes waiting for hours. She nevertheless wanted to instill values of patriotism, respect, justice and tolerance in young people.

Now Fidaq teaches in an elementary school for girls in Nablus. Her pupils come from underprivileged backgrounds where most parents are illiterate or have very little academic education and do not appreciate the value of their daughters’ education. To fight this attitude, she holds regular seminars on the importance of women’s education and the role it plays in advancing society. Every week she invites parents to join their daughters in class.

Fidaq’s teaching methods centre on computerised interactive lessons for 1st and 2nd year pupils. She also includes self-made cartoons, drama and music in her lessons, which creates a stimulating learning environment. To address behavioural issues and foster leadership, democracy and teamwork, she often asks her students to work in groups. As a result, the rate of absenteeism has gone down significantly and all students learn to read within one year.

Fidaq trains other teachers in the region in e-learning and active learning strategies and has been sharing her lessons via recorded CDs and videos.

http://www.globalteacherprize.org/finalist/fidaq-zaatar

No news link, yet. Just heard on tv.

Hi Zack, just been watching on Sky, you haven't got it quite right, she is one of three Palestinian teachers norminated.  They interviewed them, two ladies, one man.  They all said that they want the world to come and see how Palestinian children are taught to counter the lies put out by 'other nations' cough cough.

Properly the only 3 teachers not teaching hate of Israelis, hold my hand up to here but sad if that is why it has been rewarded

I see pictures in newsreels on tv, and photo's in newspapers and on my pc of young kids in Palestine training with AK47's, being taught how to stab jews, being taught that Jews are pigs and monkeys ect. I am not imagining it, I SAW it. What is going on Sassy?

nicko wrote:I see pictures in newsreels on tv,  and photo's in newspapers and on my pc of young kids in Palestine training with AK47's,  being taught how to stab jews, being taught that Jews are pigs and monkeys ect. I am not imagining it, I SAW it. What is going on Sassy?

The fact that it made "news" nicko, is prima facie evidence that it is not the norm.

People make this mistake all the time. They derive a picture of the world from what they see on TV, never stopping to put it into context. If it got on the TV news, it was extra-ordinary, not ordinary.