#cisv

My incursion at the 25th CISV National Conference in Urbino

Leila In StressLand by Leila Charafeddine

                                                                                               October 18, 2020 

During my undergrad, I spent a lot of my time working with kids mainly because I really love kids but also because I love education. In lots of ways I view Public History as an alternative or an addition to traditional education. So as not to bore you, I have selected only a few of my “I love kids” experiences--these are the ones I feel are most topical.

I don’t want this blog post to sound like an entrance essay cataloguing my experiences in undergrad or a resume bragging about all the cool things I’ve done. But I wanted to talk about the wonderful ways I’ve worked with kids and I guess make the argument that kids want to learn, you just need to get to their level about it. 

Let’s go in chronological order, shall we? 

In my first year of undergrad I worked with UNICEF at UofT. I was a programme leader who would go to a Boys and Girls Club once every other week to teach grades 5s and 6s about the United Nations and the Declaration of Human Rights. We would spend two hours together talking about privilege, human rights, and identity. While we had planned activities for each session, often a large portion of the time was spent talking about the ideas after the activity. 

Also, in my first year I worked with Engineers Without Borders to run a Social Change and Youth Leadership Conference. Before you ask – I applied to Queens Eng and worked with EWB as a high school student. It was two-day conference for high school students about the role of technology in social change. My job was to find people way smarter than me to run workshops I could barely follow. These kids were wild. They spent a weekend talking about engineering theory and applied mathematics and I spent most of the time in awe and silent. 

In the summer of 2019, I took four 11-year-old kids to Germany for a month. It was through Children’s International Summer Villages (CISV) who I had travelled with as a child. The idea is that 12 delegations from 12 different countries come together for 4 weeks for a camp. The camp is centered around four pillars: conflict resolution, human rights, diversity, and sustainability. Basically, there are about around 70 spaces for activities—12 of those were taken up by each delegation teaching the camp about their country. The rest were activities designed by me and 11 other ‘adults’ that surrounded the four pillars. We did everything from classic games like Lifeboat to complex simulations. After every big activity, we would debrief as a delegation. This gave my kids a chance to reflect on the ideas the activity had brought up and connect them to life at home. I have never consistently slept less in my life. On average, I slept 3 hours a night. It was the greatest four weeks of my life. 

A selection of photographic proof of me losing my mind. I would put up an adorable photo of me and my kids here but strangers on the internet might read this. If you want to see it go to my instagram. 

Most recently I spent a week at my alma mater high school teaching a grade 10 class. I reached out to one of my favourite teachers and offered to come back and volunteer with him—the perks of being a lifelong teacher’s pet, I guess. He was happy to have me in and I actually taught for an entire week by myself (he was nearby but rarely in the room). 

I spent Holocaust Awareness Week teaching a class of grade 10s about the Holocaust. It was a blast, well as much as it can be with a subject matter like that. I was initially concerned that the students wouldn’t be very engaged. Turns out that should’ve been the least of my concerns. Twice we got stuck down rabbit holes that left us falling behind the planned schedule. On the Wednesday I was teaching about the non-Jewish victims of the Germans and I was concerned that we would have too much extra time at the end, we didn’t even finish the lesson that day. 

I didn’t go over this to brag about all the things I’ve done with kids, although I do love bragging about my CISV kids. I wanted to talk about this because I deeply believe that kids are engaged with history.

Most kids love learning. And most kids love asking questions. It’s about presenting information in a way that they can engage with. And even more importantly, it’s about emphasizing how asking questions is the foundation of all knowledge. 

We recently discussed the issue of trying to teach non-historians to think historically. This can be really difficult for adults who have preconceived ideas about the past, but for kids, questions are second nature. Kids don’t mind when you say, “well actually, historians debate this all the time” or “well, considering the evidence, what do you think?” because it invites them in. They want to have a seat at the table and when you give it to them, they engage with you. 

It’s school itself that teaches us not to engage. It teaches us that retention is all that matters and that asking questions only slows down the learning process. Slows down??? Son, questions are the learning process. 

In each of these experiences, the kids I worked with were engaged and interested. They asked thought provoking questions and wanted to know more and more and more (until I eventually had to say “guys, I actually don’t know” or “this is way too far off topic”). I’m not saying this is because I’m some sort of god of teaching or anything. I’m saying this because kids want to learn, they really do, they just don’t want to be talked at, and honestly, who does? 

This has been a very long winded way of saying that I think educating kids isn’t as difficult as it might initially seem. Kids like to talk, they like to ask questions, and they will engage – just get on their level!! 

My schedule for posts is wild. Thinking next week will be about photography .. or maybe Marvel’s Black Panther. Stay tuned.