The Jerusalem Project
Throughout this class, there have been
many things I have learned about myself and the world. Not only was I able to
gain a lot through engaging in the class material, but most of what I learned
about came from engaging with other students in the classroom. This class
effectively used a critical pedagogical approach to rethinking our education.
While normally, classes follow a regimented syllabus with regular paper
assignments and exams at the end of a section; this class was able to defy the
norm effectively. Through the use of our blogs, I particularly was able to
engage in class material more in-depth without worrying about the formalities
of a written paper. Looking for peace in a conflict deeply rooted with many
issues at times can be difficult, but this class made each of us want to look
for solutions. Instead of being inactive members of our society, we were able
to critically engage personal experience and knowledge with that of the
conflict. Unlike any other class I have taken before, videoconferencing influential
figures in the conflict was not only totally awesome but extremely beneficial
to our learning experience.
On a more formal note this class was able
to defy the norms of regular assignments and readings. We, of course, still has
readings that were to be done before every class. The readings at time were
extremely long, and reading 60 pages between classes is a little unfathomable
for someone taking 19 credit hours. The book that we read by Karen Armstrong,
to me, was not only extremely bland, but very tedious. It required much
attention when reading the text and it felt like we had too much information to
indulge in. However, because our assignments were in a blog post and not a
formal writing prompt, it gave us more room to only look at some of the massive
amount of information in one night, and pick out what was most appealing to us.
The coolest part was that after reading all of the blogs after one of these
assignments was that everyone picked different notches from the reading. This
way I was able to understand what I could through the text and then read my
classmates blogs to unpack more of the reading. Therefore, I was unable to
comprehend it more fully. Another benefit of being able to write in a public
forum is the fact that it is public. Anyone can get online and find my blog,
and if they think it sound interesting they can learn and read it. This way my
particular message of peace has more chance of moving around to others. Not
only are our personal blogs important as a public forum where other students
and people can engage, even though some people made their blog private, but our
blog homepage as a whole was particularly useful. Sometimes I would spend hours
just browsing throughout our home blog and listening to the music on the side. It
was during this time, I started to use more critical thought.
Because there were so many people in our
class that had a much deeper connection with the conflict, I felt like our
class was able to confront issues that most other classes, even like this, are
unable to do. To be in a class in Bloomington, Indiana and be studying a
conflict surrounding mostly Israelis and Palestinians, and actually having
Israelis and a Palestinian girl in the class made it particularly intriguing. It’s
not every day you get to sit by a girl that actually knows what it’s like to be
a part of the occupied West Bank… Or a boy that has wandered the streets of
Jerusalem since he was a kid. It’s especially not every day that you get to
work and be in a small group with both of these people. Here in our Living
Jerusalem class, I can say that I did that. I learned so much from these people
and the others with extremely prominent Jewish/ Israeli backgrounds. However,
hearing a personal account of what it was like to be Palestinian from someone I
would now identify as a friend is beyond cool to me.
Before taking this class I had a pretty
good idea about what I thought about the conflict and that was that the
Israelis were clearly oppressing the Palestinians and the United States was only
helping innocent lives be taken. I still agree for the most part with my
personal theories, but I have also been able to open up and see more of the
Israeli point of view. It has nothing to do with the fact that I don’t like
Jewish people or believe they do not have right to any land, because I know their
religion has been through much tribulation. But, it is my thought that because of
things like the Holocaust, Israelis and Jewish people would be more caring for
people and religions that are being oppressed. I’m not saying that what they
are doing to Palestinians is the same as the Holocaust. I just wish that they
would remember the pain of oppression and find ways to not force their own
oppression on other people. Now that I know more about the history of the
conflict and the constant back and forth game between the three religions, it
makes more sense to why Israel has taken so much control over the “sacred land”.
However, I am still extremely confused about humans believing they are inherently
right to all land. Land should be a place where we live healthily together
through our ecosystems, not somewhere where we kill it and all the people
living on it. Although, if people do feel an inherent right to land, it should
be open to different types of people and not exclude one type. Because of
groups of people like Hamas, the American and other foreign visions of
Palestine are particularly narrow. Most ignorant Americans hear Arab and think “terrorist”,
let alone hearing that Hamas is a political party in Palestine. Through this
class I think we were able to remove most of the ignorance and set forth to try
really listening and finding a solution to the conflict.
Videoconferencing Miriam Said was
most definitely one of the coolest opportunities that I have had this far in
college. While Edward Said is not only a huge benefactor to finding peace in
the conflict, he is a scholar I have read about in many classes with much
insight to share about the world. After
the conference I got to tweet (on Twitter) about my chance to ask her questions
and had many envious friends. How many classes get the opportunity to
videoconference Miriam Said and other extremely influential Arabs and Israelis?
Not only was the videoconferencing a
strong addition to the class, but the types of people we got to videoconference
were definitely not what I had been expecting. I expected to talk to more
formal groups or individuals. Instead we got to talk to artists, members of the
LGBT community, and individuals that have shown that peace is not only made through
government power, but through the power of people and the bond we each have
with each other. I think one extremely important idea to take away from this
class is the importance that music and art have in finding similarities among
very different groups of people. Today in school we are taught to become
consuming subjects that don’t appreciate the value of the arts, but even in an
issue where bombs are being sent of almost every day, arts have an importance. If
more teachers could envelop the critical pedagogy we have learned in this
class, I think people would be more intellectual in general. Instead of
learning and educating one particular way, we can find the strength of changing
techniques and trying different approaches to learning. This is the type of
learning that I benefit most from, learning where I am not only consuming the
information from a textbook, but engaging with my classmates and scholars on
the topic. Also not being taught at by a teacher, but having the experience of
turning around the teacher-educator roles so that I can express my own
knowledge on the topic to my peers.
There are very few things that I
would change about this class. The first is just technical, and that would be
to eliminate the importance of commenting on other people’s blogs. I think it
is more important to engage in this discussion personally then through a measly
comment on a post. The other thing I would maybe change is for the final
project and it would be having smaller groups to work in. While I loved
everyone in my group, working with six others on one individual topic is
challenging. I feel like working with groups of three or four on more specific ideas
would be more beneficial.
Overall, this is one of my favorite
classes that I have the opportunity to take at IU. It should be a model for how
all classes are taught here in the university due to its innovative and
critical learning. It would be a shame not to see the Jerusalem project carry
on because by the end of class you could most definitely tell that people cared
more about the conflict in general, and most people were able to open to up to
side they previously were unaware or weary of. It was more than a pleasure
getting to be a part of such a fantastic class.
