What Does Integrated Education Look Like? - HIH Principal Mohammad Kundos
Principal of the Hand in Hand Kfar Saba “Alif-Beit” School, Mohammad Kundos, recently spoke on the “Hinuch Barosh” (“Education in Mind”) podcast, and shared what it’s like for kids to grow up in a bilingual, integrated Arab-Jewish school.
What Does a Bilingual School Look Like?
“One of the questions that I’m asked the most is, ‘what does a bilingual school look like?‘ or ‘What does a bilingual reality look like?’ And it’s really simple. It’s an ordinary image of children coming to school. And within this unique and amazing journey, we enable them to get to know each other in two languages.
Which means, when we provide these kids a safe space to be themselves, it’s also a space to be with ‘the other’ in the most natural way, and in the most honest way. When I have the privilege to learn about ‘the other,’ I don’t lose myself. It’s actually the opposite. The moment I strengthen these children’s individual identities, on the one hand, and expose them, with great sensitive and professionalism, to the diverse mosaic of identities that we have in our country, I only strengthen their individual identity.”
Multiculturalism as a Point of Strength
“In bilingual education, for example, we don’t just teach a second language. When a child learns the language of ‘the other,’ they learn the language, culture, music, religion, values, sense of humor – the smallest nuances that make up this identity. And within all this, I also learn the social, political dreams of the person who lives in the same city as me. In 2000, there was an amendment to the education law, and the amendment states to ‘know the Arab culture, to know the heritage.’ We need to understand that it’s not just a matter of knowing. It’s that I, as a Palestinian, will be seen by my Jewish friends as a partner. The concept of belonging – where I find points of similarity with other people, from other societies, other religions, different identities, that enables me to understand the wonder of multiculturalism or pluralism. And to see it as a point of strength and start to see a partner in the other, and not an enemy. To see the other as someone I can learn from, and teach, and create a win-win relationship, and not a zero-sum game.”
Tangible Need for Change in Education System
“So in fact, these past two years further sharpened the tangible need to make a radical change in education to enable people to understand that bilingual education and shared living are not privileges. If we want to make a genuine change, this is the political process that we must undertake. To fight separation. Our job is to prove that I can disagree with you politically, socially, historically, and still respect you at the same time and fight for your rights just as I expect you to fight for my rights. And it’s with this that I want the kids to flourish and grow – with a sense of responsibility and commitment to the values that we’re teaching them. Values are not extra, they are the foundation.”
