Binational School for Jewish and Palestinian kids

This year, as in every year for the past 40 years, a new first-grade class was led into the school. The first graders had already had a chance to meet their teachers, and now they walked with one of them through the rainbow arch and the beribboned one, down the red carpet lined on both sides by the sixth-grade class.

The sixth-graders welcomed them to the school taking turns speaking to the school body, staff, and parents in Hebrew and Arabic. Kids with younger siblings entering first grade took the stage to relay their wishes for their brothers and sisters.

Principal Neama Abu Delo welcomed them as well, wishing everyone a year of peace to all, as well as scholastic achievement, a year of learning to learn and play together, and a year of learning to overcome challenges and blossoming.

The ceremony included the best wishes from the head of the children’s welfare section of the local council, a song from the fourth-grade class and finally, Nir Sharon, Co-Executive Director of the Educational Institutions, told the children and their families that 40 years ago, the school started with 11 children.

He reminded them all that over the years, the primary school has always served as a bubble – in the best sense of the word – of sharing, coexistence, and peace, and it will continue to do so over the coming year, no matter what happens outside the precious bubble our teachers and children work to maintain. “You are now, as they were then, our hope for peace,” he told them.

This year, American Friends of NSWAS is sponsoring the Primary School’s fifth-grade class.

The NSWAS Primary School is the first school in Israel to institute a bilingual, binational curriculum for children aged kindergarten through sixth grade. Students learn together in Hebrew and Arabic, and 90 percent of enrollees travel more than 20 miles each day to attend.

“What makes a Primary School education so special is that Jewish and Palestinian children experience learning side-by-side and as a totally normal situation. They see how things can be when we find common ground.” —Raida, fifth grade teacher

This semester, students are embracing a special project that makes them all teachers for a day!

The children are volunteering to lead lessons on topics that interest them; fifth-grader Rina recently led a sewing lesson for the class.

The class also completed a two-week study project on the planets in our solar system; at the end of the two weeks, the students visited other grades to share what they had learned.