1996 - This Is The UNICEF Blue, Very Coveted Notebook
My first English teacher is how I became interested in English, she was a NATO combat woman, so a soldier. And when she showed up, she was in full gear. And we were all just in awe, right? We were like what's happening? Because you usually saw soldiers doing other things not being teachers at that time, so she was the first soldier who was actually teaching us right, officially. And then she worked with us for not too long. I think maybe she was there for a couple of months. When English started to spread after the war, I think they were struggling to find English teachers. And that was very interesting. And what I remember the most from that, that's also my artifact for education.
Okay, so this is the UNICEF blue notebook. This is the UNICEF blue, very coveted notebook that everybody had at that time. Because obviously we didn't have school materials. And then we use these for the following five years after the war obviously because we were struggling economically as a country in general. So UNICEF would distribute these notebooks to all of the schools and all of the students would get them for their subject. So they were not that many. As you can see, they're really small. And there were not that many pages.
O’s Education Artifact
But we loved them. And we were very used to them. And I think that if you were to ask, maybe anybody my age, what do they remember from going to school in the war or after the war, I think that maybe 70% of them would say it's the UNICEF notebooks. So we all had the blue ones. But the most coveted ones were green, the green ones were very rare. So if you were lucky to get the green UNICEF notebook, you were the boss for the day, right? Because it's just, oh my god, you got a green one, how did you get it? So it's just yeah, it was so random. And so weird. But that's what brought joy to us, really the small things?
-O
My Goal Was Simply To Write
And you know, when you enroll in the gymnasium, it's pretty clear that you're going to study something. So somewhere around the second, between the second and the third year, I was already determined to study history. And why history, I just simply thought about what happened, and that I will be presenting the facts to people. And they can do whatever they want, you know, I don't have to judge, I can just present. Now, depending on whether you're a normal person, democratic and a civilized person, you're gonna take these facts and understand what happened. If you're a fascist, you're gonna deny those facts. And then that's your problem. But my job (as a teacher) is just to establish the facts and to present them. One of the inspirations was a photo of my grandfather, whom I actually never met. And I thought, how can it be that I had this grandfather, and I can't even put two sentences together to describe him, to say anything about him. And my goal was simply to write, to establish this, and if there will be, I don't know, 100 who will deny the fact there should be 100 who insist on those facts. And I thought if I don't do this and if enough of us don't do this, the revisionists will prevail at some point. And it'll kind of in the end up as if nothing happened. So that's more or less my motive.
-H
(The classroom) is affected by politics right now, because I can feel the fear of my students. So sometimes I have to talk with them about their fears, maybe they think that war will start again here. So, I have to talk with them about that and explain to them that they must not allow anyone to treat them in that way like nationality is the most important identity. I teach them that they have so many different identities. And that identity is not the most important. That's the way politics is influencing my teaching methods. Sometimes, I just talk with them, they stop their painting. And I explain to them that this situation is very difficult, but they will find a way. And to choose the right way is always important in life. You have a choice, but the right way is the one you should go through.
-J
2023 - The Way Politics Is Influencing My Teaching Methods
2023 - Controversial Questions and Topics
And then obviously you have to cover a range of topics with them. Not one of them, but so many of them being related to diversity in our country, to the tensions and struggles and problems and issues and controversial questions and topics that we're dealing with. You know, you have to tackle them in certain subjects, obviously, or they just pop up naturally. So, you know, sometimes you try to be objective and stay objective. But I say, I think that nobody is ever objective or neutral when you cover these topics. When somebody just mentions something, as a teacher, you get this, just like PTSD, all of a sudden you feel okay, or is this the moment now? Are we discussing this now, right? Or is this the issue that we have to deal with now? Or just ignore this? Or do I have to?
So it's in a way, how will I handle this as a teacher? So no matter how much training you have, or how much you personally work on how to deal with your own personal traumas, I think that it's, it's always there. Right? And I think that you're always questioning yourself on how you're dealing with these things, or your own personal history. And are you being biased sometimes? Or are you being too subjective, or too emotional? Right? I think that's one of the things that I constantly ask myself. In a society that's still pretty traditional there's a lot of pressure on women, too, in the sense that you are too emotional about all of this, right?
-O
2023 - War Never Stopped Here
We have in our program subjects like painting the still life portraits figures, we are focusing on elements, which are important for visual arts, like color lines, form, texture, and that. But three months ago, before the elections, I had one situation, when a student asked me, "Is it going to be war here again?" and I told her that I can't explain and be sure but not to be afraid. So yeah, we talk about that, but we paint other things. Because I think they have to overcome that fear. It's present. They are always listening ( to the media) that someone wants to separate parts of this country, that the war will start in a few months, or will be here very soon. So that's the point. We are living in constant fear, and, like in a conflict situation. So the conclusion is that war never stopped here.
-J
2023 - I Am Actually Living My Research
And I'm not one of those people who are just researching on a computer. I am more practical. I do research on a computer, I do sit in my office, but I am actually living my research. I have visited all of those places. I have taken part in the Peace March. I know all these locations where they were bombed, where they were hiding, so I'm a pretty active researcher. As much as I research on the computer in the office I also go places and talk to people.
-H
During The War, That Was Not A Time For Poetry
This is something I did in school. I would go down the hall and children would be arguing and even having fistfights. And instead of yelling or trying to punish somebody, I would just start reciting poetry and they would all fall silent. I always made sure that I'm teaching my children so that they do not even notice the social and national differences between them.
That was before the war. During the war, that was not a time for poetry. What I was trying to teach the children was to be anti-war, and to recognize and condemn violence. That was how the priorities shifted. Before it was poetry. Then during the war, it was just for me to create children that hate violence.
And I always taught them, whoever is religious, there's only one God and that all people are equal, and not even Jesus treated them like this. And I always concluded every class with the sentence that I do not want to live in a city where all the religions are not living together.