Recycling in Jerash

Dear all,
I spent this morning at Jerash Prep. Girls' School No. 1 and saw some great practices that I want to share with you. I will start with this one. I promise I will tell you more and I would like to encourage all of you to share what you think are best practices. I think sharing is one of our top values here, rightJ
You are all aware that we have two new textbooks this year: the second and the seventh grades. To tell you the truth I heard a lot of complaining about the seventh grade textbook, one of them was that the topics are very strange for our students. I searched my memory for a strange topic in the textbook that I read thoroughly and could think of none, so I asked for hints. Most of the teachers gave me the same answer, RECYCLING. A good number of the teachers thought that the idea is not part of our culture and that it is very difficult to be explained. Those who attended the workshop on the seventh grade new textbook in Irbid heard some of this; I heard a lot more in many schools. Of course, I had many things to say then and I strongly argued that it is a great topic to be taught and that it is not strange and can be related to students own life experiences. We discussed many ideas and moved on leaving the space for creative teachers to fill.
This morning, Yarah Alloqta, a creative teacher in Jerash Camp. Prep. G/S no.1 invited me to her class to show me the project she worked on with her students concerning recycling. I was impressed. I am very proud of Yarah and her students and I will let you read what she wrote about her own project. I brought you some pictures too. EnjoyJ
Ghada

Jerash Camp Prep G/S No.1  

Seventh Grade project

The students of the seventh grade at Jerash Camp Prep G/S No.1 initiated a project, where they have turned their classroom into a recycling center.

Inspired by a module in their books, which talks about global warming, the students felt they have to help the world to slow down global warming by doing some easy simple things.
 First, they lunched a survey, where they asked the school students about how clean is the school and if they would like to join class in their project.  The survey revealed that most of the students in the school are not satisfied with the level of cleanlessness of the school and they want to participate in the seventh grade project. Then, the students of the seventh grade designed a brochure containing four simple ideas to recycle in each class, the ideas are:

      1-        Use the crisps paper (chips) to make decorations such as butterflies and letters to write some               words.

2-        Use the bottles of water to plant trees and decorate the class windows.

3-         Collect the cans of the fizzy drinks and sell them to the cans collector man and use the money earned to buy things for the class.

4-        They made their own the classroom bin by using boxes.

The students also hold a meeting with school parliament encouraging them to do the same in their own classes.
As a teacher, I was surprised with how the students can be creative if they were just given the chance to think, dream, produce and participate. The students of this class are academically poor achievers, but when it comes to initiations, they are creative.
As a teacher, I can never forget there smiley faces, when they saw the school headmistress and the English language supervisor stepping to their class and congratulating them for what they have done.
Producing something out of nothing is the heart of this project.
My piece of advice for teachers all around the world: Believe in your students, they can.

Yarah Alloqta