Today, the world is alarmed with the Palestine-Israel Conflict or what the world refused to mention, a genocide, a crime of humanity, in which the impact can be seen in every level of the societies, with rallies, flashmobs around the squares, the streets and even in schools. Malaysia particularly, schools across the country have conducted Palestine Solidarity program to show their stand with Palestine. Schools are known to be the institution where successful future leaders are born. The structure of education and the programs integrated are essential to the children because they pave the way of life for them, the worldview they would be shaped into. Hence the importance of this program as a wakeup calls for what the world is facing, the current issue, which must be vocalized. From school, they will learn to communicate, listen, read, watch, and observe.
As preadolescence is the most crucial year of children’s development, they start to think hypothetically, consider several possibilities, think logically, and tend to follow examples portrayed by their surroundings. In other words, at this phase, they may discover and learn the consequences of decisions and choices like breaking the rules, it would, if not partially, be their foundation to the building of their moral and obligation. It is undeniable that these skills are enhanced by the school’s designated system such as rules, campaigns, and other programs. This Palestine Solidarity program especially, is a great program that will help nurture them and give impacts on children’s mind and growth which includes, in enhancing their thinking skills, bringing new spirit of determination on what is right and wrong, and primarily increase their knowledge about the history of the conflict.
At the early ages is the best period to enhance thinking skills in which children’s mind is molded from their surroundings and role model such as parents, older siblings, teachers, and their friends. Part of the development requires interactions and communication between the role model and the children to assure comprehensible and effective delivery and to prevent misinterpretation. One of the importance of having great thinking skills is to achieve the pureness of the heart. The heart is controlled by the mind in which they would feel empathy and sympathy after receiving signals from the brain interpreting the perceived experience.
While parents are the closest to children, the experiences they went through in schools with teachers and friends would add up to a lot into shaping the empathetic aspect of the students. In relation to the current issue, the Malaysian schools’ initiatives to expose their students, stimulating their thought process by conducting Palestine Solidarity program is commendable. From this program, the children will enhance their inquisitive thinking on the reason of solidarity, the conflict, and the current state. In addition, this program can act as a medium for the children to gather information regarding the issues and ask questions to their teachers, connecting the neurons and the dots inside their mind.
Upon the statement of the Education Ministry of Malaysia for every school to implement Palestine Solidarity Week, social media platforms were flooded with videos of this programs being held in schools. This program is indeed a medium that instills great value, a new spirit of determination to the children as they are exposed to the global crises regarding the Palestine-Israel, they are slowly exposed to humane values. The children are a pure soul that needs to be foster with great empathy, understanding, humanity and peace. These values are crucial to be planted into their heart at an early age.
As they are exposed to this controversial content through social media, it would lead to a big why for them regarding the crisis that has happened subsequently pushing them to seek and acquire more info pertaining to the issue. The implementation of a solidarity campaign is one of the best ways to develop children’s morals, in determining what is right and wrong in a more critical process. Being exposed to the actual narrative of the crisis and its history would help them to learn about humanity values and unity on a global level. Although it seems complex for their age, the awareness and concern instilled would produce a considerate generation towards humanity in the future.
Approaching the information would be quite challenging in this era especially with the unbelievable fake news emerging worldwide. For instance, the article regarding the decapitation of 40 Israeli babies was found to be fabricated few days after the widespread of the news. The impact of it is unmeasurable, in which the world responded rapidly with condemnation towards the so called ‘terrorist’. It made most sense to correspond this to a famous quote by Malcolm X, “if you’re not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.”
These challenges for young children to face and filter are indeed in the extreme and would need intellectual guidance. Schools play a significant role in providing the skills for information gathering and the required primary knowledge such as history and even language. In relation to this crisis, it opens the door for the students to be more active in acquiring the historical aspect of it, the background of the crisis, which can further justify the conflict that has happened. The supervision from teachers would guide them towards the facts and figures and eventually lead them to developing critical thinking on another level. Hence the birth of a well-informed and brilliant generation.
Albeit that, the school program on solidarity brings impact to the children’s mind and action to the issues Palestine-Israel in the terms of enhancing their thinking skills, bringing the new spirit of determination on what right and wrong and increase the knowledge of Palestine-Israel conflict in them. This solidarity program is one of the ways to educate the people regarding the issues, especially the children. By joining this, they will learn to stand on what’s right, be confident, and determine for the sake of Deen. Thus, this crisis was not only reflected on Deen itself, but it also shows the humanity in people.
Article by Aisyah Amiruddin
