'The loss of education is the loss of the future itself': Gaza's Children and Educators on Two Years Deprived of Education.
'Our plea is for action, not compassion'.
A young student, 12, al-Mawasi
It has been 24 months since I was last inside a proper school. Two years since I listened to the school chime at my former school, occupied my place and raised my hand during my beloved lesson. At times I still distinctly recollect the familiar scents and noises: chalk dust, pencil shavings, cheerful echoes. But my school no longer exists; it was bombed shortly after the hostilities erupted. My learning materials incinerated, and several classmates lost.
I was in fifth grade on that fateful day: the final day I attended classes. That beginning of the day, air raid sirens blared through the passageways. Some students wept, others clasped palms firmly. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even her tone wavered. I remember hoping for a normal day; lessons, recess, a poem recital. Instead, that day marked the end of my former reality.
The war has taken so much. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.
Now I live with my mother and father, male relatives and female sibling in a congested safe space in this coastal area. The temporary partitions flap in the wind, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We queue for water and food. Energy access is fantasy and seclusion is unavailable. Optimism seems delicate.
At night, I look up at the night lights through the gaps of my shelter and ponder if my friends see the identical heavens. Some message me when they are able, expressing they miss school and have preserved their old notebooks; like valuables from a bygone era. I feel remorseful because I’ve forfeited all of mine.
I once dreamed of pursuing pedagogy to support local youth study, even when circumstances were difficult. Now I dream of being a writer – to write, to communicate and to demonstrate the world what it means to be a child in the Strip. I want to narrate our accounts of apprehension and need, but also fortitude. Because even in this place, amid death and ruins, our words continue.
When there’s some internet, I endeavor to educate myself online. Other times, I visit a small tent where volunteers educate us mathematics and language. The instruction is limited – the electricity cuts out or the airstrikes begin again but in these instances, I sense being. I recollect who I was: the girl who adored mathematics and poetry, who believed education could transform society.
Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our dwellings, schools and families. I lost my paternal relative, his spouse, and their offspring. I said goodbye to my beloved urban area, my previous home, which is nothing but rubble now. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.
To the global audience, I express this: preserve our aspirations. We seek no sympathy, we require steps. The youth are entitled to books, learning environments and safety. Education is not a luxury, it is a essential privilege. This region is not only destruction; it is youth who still dream beneath the drones at evening. It is my account and I will persist in composing, even if my only possessions is a broken pencil and a fragment of ripped sheet.
'They message: "are you OK, teacher?"'.
Naglaa Weshah, 40, instructor in a refugee camp
I have been instructing in Gaza for more than a decade. First in Khan Younis, then in Deir al-Balah, and presently in al-Bureij camp in the central Gaza Strip. In pre-conflict times, I used to teach several sets of about dozens of learners, nearly 240 young minds eager to learn.
Educating them was my mission and happiness in reality, and I still recall the sparkle in a learner's look when a concept was understood; the type of instance every teacher cherishes.
I always believed learning should be vibrant. My classroom was a area of recreation, aesthetics, and motion. We designed geographical illustrations, acted out historical events, and turned lessons into stories.
Merriment always permeated the space as interest substituted apprehension. Yes, even in earlier times, local youth were always afraid. My teaching space was a secure location but after the seventh, the situation transformed.
My educational institution became a refuge for families fleeing the aerial attacks. Shortly after, it was targeted and totally demolished. There are hardly any learning institutions still erect in this area now. For this period, nothing has been normal. The conflict has destroyed every facet of our existence: safety, homes, schools, hopes. Anxiety and sorrow are constant companions.
Many of my pupils are now deceased – youth who mentioned aspiring to be physicians, artists, and instructors. They were deprived even the right to exist. Those who survive experience hunger, displacement and fatigue – and yet, they still hold onto the will to learn.
Sometimes, when the online access enables, I hear from a small number of them. They write asking: “Are you safe, teacher?” We communicate concise phrases, abbreviated teaching, tiny sparks of contact amid the turmoil. They question if situations will ever return to usual. I state to them I don’t know.
Across the region, teachers, helpers and charities attempt instruction wherever possible: in tents, destroyed learning spaces, or congested safe zones. Learning has become an act of defiance, a way to declare: “Our presence continues.” And so long as we keep acquiring knowledge, we will persist.
A significant number of us are also parents. I am a parent of {three|several
