Teaching in the Holy Land

In Beit Sahour

عربى

I'm with George Saadeh from the Shepherd's high school in Beit Sahour Now George when was the school started ?

The school started in the Year 1993.

Now you are here in the shepherd's fields, what are the Shepherds fields famous for ?

The Shepherds fields are in the city of Beit Sahour, It is when the angels came and acknowledge to  the Shepherds that there is a child born in Bethlehem and they stared singing and announcing the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ In Bethlehem.

So the school could be on the site where the angel Gabriel spoke about the birth of Jesus ?

Yes that is right, It is build on the lands of the shepherds fields, The Orthodox shepherds fields, which belongs to the Greek orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem .

So you must be very proud of that Fact ?.

Yes of course, we are proud of servicing our children and using the school to service our community and our children near the Shepherd's field.

How many students do you have here at the school ?

Totally we have 600 students, Boys and girls, Christians and Muslims and from Kindergarten 3 years old up to Tawjihii level High school 18 years old .

So you basically get the whole range of the kids right there from the very small right the way to very old.?

That is right all stages .

Now you say you are Muslim and Christian together is that a very good relationship that you have together within the school ?

That is right we have a good relationship and the school is open for  everybody and we have staff that consists of 54 teachers, also we have Christian and Muslim and we are servicing in education and in raising our children the right way, In democracy, accepting others, Living together sharing life together and the most important thing is working for, Emphasizing on Tolerance, emphasizing on our belief in God no matter whether you are Christian or Muslim or if you are a Christian from a different denomination, so we are servicing all the people that we can service.

Do the children come from all kinds of different backgrounds in life ?

They come from different backgrounds in our area, the surrounding area, First of all we are servicing the  area of Beit Sahour then the area of the Governorate of Bethlehem.

What sort of the needs do the children have ?

There are many needs when you live under Occupation and with many limitations there is a lot of need and there is much stress in our life, Economical stress, Political stress so you have to live a special life, you have to teach the special way, you have to deal with children that  are limited with Borders, they cannot go to the sea, the Mediterranean sea unless we have the permission so we are trying to live in a not normal atmosphere like other countries, so we are trying our best to deal with these issues as much as we can.

Do you have children that suffer from Trauma here ?

Different traumas not that Percentage, our life is a big trauma, So as I told you from the Occupation and the economical situation, Bad economical situation, yes some children they have special trauma But not like the children who have trauma in Gaza or the trauma of the children that are living in Syria. But we have our own special trauma that we need to deal with these children about it. But unfortunately we don't have the proper specialist, the psychological specialist to deal with our trauma situation Unfortunately.

Now there is obviously a political situation here, how important is it to teach peace to the students?.

It's very important to teach peace, It's very important to teach the debates for the children, how to negotiate, how to express themselves because of the lack of information for the children it’s a problem. Especially for the new generation. To introduce to them our history, Why the occupation happened, Why we are living like this, so we need some historical information to emphasize to them and to teach them how to dialogue, how to negotiate with each other, How to manage in their life how to administrate their work, how to administrate their life, it's very important, for the families to create a new generation which believes in peace, which believes in international law, never the less we are living under occupation that all the world they are seeing what is happening to us and they are not doing anything for us. So we have to help ourselves, we have to raise our children in a different atmosphere and to teach them why it's happening and never lose hope to reach solutions, we have to learn how to try to approach solutions towards peace and towards getting our proper legitimate rights to free Palestine and to have our own country.

What sort of activities do the students get involved in ?

First of all there is the Palestinian curriculum then outside this curriculum we have many un curriculum activities, Sport, Music , folk law dancing, arts, different activities like Question and answer, debates, planting agriculture, different things, we try to interfere with giving them uncurriculum materials to try and teach them varieties in our school, not just books, Arabic, English , Mathematics to let them share life.

Do these activities help to build confidence in a child ?

It helps to build confidence, it helps to  build knowledge it helps to tighten them with the local society, outside society, We have with some organization trips for outside like this summer we sent children to Cyprus to meet other children in Cyprus, Different culture, We sent some children to Denmark to meet other students to see how people there live in Europe , what is their mentality to compare and to learn, the more they learn the more they get strong in life .

Is cultural exchange important to the school ?

Yes cultural exchange is very important because we are not living in…. the global became very small for us, with all this IT technology  like Facebook , like Google, they have to learn more about other people so the world is becoming smaller and smaller so we have to prepare them for the outside world also .

Do foreign students come here to the school as well  ?

Foreign students they come to, we have some visitors from Denmark, we have some form the United States we had a summer camp, Art and Religion summer camp, a sports summer camp from the United States, they came and worked with our children during summer.

Now you are in a very biblical location, Is Christianity important to the school ?

Of course we are a Christian school, we are Christian followers of the Orthodox dominant, the Greek Orthodox help in educating our children so our belief in God as a Christian, Christianity is very important for us to teach our children the real Christianity and how to understand it, how to live it so it is very important with us. Because Christianity is not just religion it’s a way of living, it’s a spiritual way of living, it’s a spiritual way to approach God  and to have some ethics from our Religion and its very important for our Christian families to sustain because you know that we are Christian here less than 1 and a half percent. Palestine now we are around 47,000 people and we are decreasing because of immigrating outside because of hard economical life, Occupation is affecting us and our families we are struggling to exist in this country and in the middle east all over so it is very important to teach the proper religion, Christian religion for our student, and how to live with others how to accept others religion.

Is it one big family here ?

I think so, we are trying to be one big family and we are trying to service our children as you know, all our staff consider the children our Children, That is why we are saying children Our Children.

Why is every child special ?

Why every child is special? Because from our Christian way, our Christian belief, When God says "Let the children come to me because they are our be lovers", they are our be lovers they are our family, they are our extended children, we are human being, naturally everybody takes care of their children and we are taking care of our children to continue our life taking care of the family When Joseph and Mary they  came they created a family, that’s what we call the Holy Family  so the family here is very Holy for us with their children, with their grandfathers with their fathers so this social connecting we are preserving the family, taking care of the family and part of the family is our children. 

Now you had a famous Grand, Grandfather tell us a little bit about that .

Well my first Grand, Grandfather he was the first Mayor of Bethlehem when the Ottoman Turkish empire declared Bethlehem as a City and announcing city councils so he was the first mayor of Bethlehem in 1860.

That must be exiting to have that historical content.

Well that’s right and in history that means our roots go back 100 years and thousand years as a Bethlehemite and as a Palestinians  we are since our Lord Jesus Christ, some people they say  " Where Palestine" No we are here Our roots from here and we are still existing, I became the Deputy Mayor of Bethlehem between the years 2005 and 2012 after elections and all these things so we are trying to service the city we are trying to service our people in the way that we can.

Do you have historical artifacts and historical pictures from that time ?

Unfortunately no but it is recorded because pictures it was limited, not available for us unfortunately .

You are a Christian school right here in the Shepherd's fields, what is it like at Christmas time here in the school ?

Well Christmas time is special for us, Special in Bethlehem, Special in Beit Sahour where the Shepherds field are, So we celebrate Christmas, decorating but what's the real meaning of Christmas ?, it's how to take care of each other, how to teach our children there are poor people, Christmas in its physical meaning and it's trying to not just to pray, not just to celebrate, not just to have Santa Clause, it's also how to take care of the poor, how to start living from the beginning, Its birth, how to birth every year as a Christian, how to help each other , how to come closer to God  and this is the meaning of Christmas for us.

Do you have things like a Christmas tree in the school and do you do Christmas Nativities, acting the Christmas story ?

I call it Christmas spirit starting from November they are preparing for Christmas, we have a Christmas tree, we have Christmas Decorations, each class they have their own way of decorating, Celebrating we start Christmas Carols teaching the students how to sing, Silent night and all those Christmas songs you know to live the spirit of Christmas and we give them Santa Clause to come and give them gifts for the small children, celebrating with the Christmas spirit for all the children, they see it, it's very important for us and at the same time it’s a way of letting them enjoy life, let them enjoy life from the spiritual way, from the material way and at the same time to be connected together, What's the meaning of Christmas spirit ? , Its living with, remembering the child, our Lord Jesus Christ when he was born, he was a child and to bring a good relation with the church, with God and with each other, To celebrate.

Why do you do what you do ?

This is life, for me as a Palestinian and as a Christian this is our way of living together our way of Getting closer to God and bringing the same society , Celebrating together, its cultural first of all and we have to do it because this is life.

Are you making a difference in the lives of the children ?

Of course, when you are a teacher and by the way the first teacher we consider is the Lord Jesus Christ, he came approaching teaching this religion for him teaching giving an example ,it’s the same way that we are doing, So for us the first teacher he was our example for Teaching, Jesus Christ. he was preaching, he was giving examples the same thing like when you are teaching Arabic you give examples, you give a way of living, you give a way of how to study, the same thing we are living. So it's very important for us Education, knowledge and how we  going to live in this big globe with different contradictions and at the same time, Palestine we don't have oil, we don't have sources of income except from tourists coming, Christian Pilgrims coming here, So education is very important, to educate our children when they emigrate in the future they can work in any place that they approach, So it is like a weapon for our children to face life with it, to work and to sustain and to keep living no matter whether they are living inside or outside of Palestine, So education is very important for us, That's one, that's why you have here the highest percentage of the children they go to school, even between the Arab countries, Palestinians they are the most highest percentage, Boys and girls going to school.

What is your prayer for the future of the school ?

We are praying to sustain, for God to give us strength to continue our work because it's not an easy work nowadays teaching, Educating, with our circumstances living under occupation, with all this contradiction in the world, only we pray to God to give us health, Prosperity and the ability to continue teaching our children.