This is not a top ten list on how to be a good father

I get annoyed with lists. Top ten tips for a greener household, top five exercises to get in shape, top twelve best foods, top ten things great fathers do. Come on. The top five, ten, or whatever the number of things that help you become a great father are worthless but I know they are ideal social media fodder and perfectly suitable to our era of convenience and quick fixes. The truth is, if someone were to ask me what makes a great father, I would just say, "Spend time with your kids." End of story.

I was scared at the prospect of becoming a father. I didn't know if I'd be any good at it, and thought how weird it was that I spent much of my formative years learning about useless things like Pythagoras' theorem, compound interest, the types of flora in the arctic and how to conjugate verbs in tenses I would never, ever use, yet no one ever told me how to be a good parent.

The second-hand smoke isn't so nice, but thanks for being there.

I didn't have a father long enough to learn from him. He passed away when I was three, so my memories of the two of us can be counted on one hand (well, two fingers). My mother regularly reminded me that she was both my my mother and father and always did what she thought was best. Through that I figured out, much later in life, that I should go ahead and try to be as much like her as possible. That meant being there for my kids.

Over the past twelve years I've done more kid things than I ever did in my childhood. I've drawn innumerable pictures of SpongeBob and Batman, and played with Lego, toys cars, and action figures. I didn't think it possible to watch the entire series of The Suite Life on Deck and Wizards of Waverly Place but I have. I've played in sandboxes and swung on swings that strained to support my weight. I've played tag in the pool and whizzed around on a scooter. But I've also cleaned up plenty of barf and poop and pee, zipped up coats and tied shoelaces and tried in vain to convince my children to comb their hair. I've tried to feed them healthy foods but have given in to Kraft macaroni and cheese far too often. I've listened to them tell me stories they made up in their heads and adventures they lived on the playground.

I've tried to hug them as much as possible, I've said "It'll be okay" after they'd fall and "Je t'aime" every night before going to sleep. I'd sit on the floor in the hallway waiting for them to fall asleep, trying to be as comfortable as possible and failing miserably because it hurt every time I would sit like that at the end of the day. I've screamed at them and felt horrible after. The louder I screamed the more I would think to myself, shamefully, My mother never spoke to me like that. I've said I'm sorry and hugged some more. And I've been lucky enough to have a wife who tells me I'm good when I'm good and lousy when I'm not.

I'm not perfect, but I'm there. I want to be there when my children need someone to talk to, I want to be there when they need a hug and won't admit as much, I want to show them how to shave and how to badly tie a tie. I want to say to them, after each one asks me a few years from now to borrow the keys to the car, "Over my dead body" because that's the answer I got growing up. The mundane moments of parenthood might not be very memorable, but taken as a whole they irrevocably strengthen a love that no child and no parent should live without. There are no top ten things you should do as a father, there are millions of things, starting with being there.

Let's get it right: teaching Palestine children about rights

I’m enjoying a beer in a dimly-lit bar next sitting next to three guys who splashed themselves with revolting amounts of cologne before walking in this place. They're yelling at each other, the way guys yell at each other around here and it looks like they’re pissed off at each other but they aren’t. My beer is cold, I’m tired from working too much but still feel damn good.

Participants during a training workshop in Jordan. Photo © UNRWA. 

The past eleven days have been relentless. With some friends at the UN here in Jordan and Lebanon, I’ve facilitated five workshops, four of them identical and the last one awfully similar to the other four, only longer. The participants attending the workshops were head teachers, education specialists, and other education staff working for UNRWA (the UN agency for Palestine refugees).

The content of the workshops was straightforward: to present a new human rights toolkit to be used by all 19,000 UNRWA teachers in the five fields of operation: Jordan, Syria, West Bank, Lebanon and Gaza. The agency’s been including human rights in its teaching practices for the past dozen years, but not in a consistent way. The time was right to have an agency-wide approach, and to this end a teacher’s toolkit was developed in English and Arabic and ready to be launched.

The reaction has been overwhelmingly positive, for which I’m grateful. The toolkit doesn’t provide anything radically new, at least in terms of human rights education methods that have been used in other places, but a lot of it is new for teachers of Palestine refugees.

During the workshops, participants got the chance to practice some of the toolkit’s 40 activities meant for use in the classroom. All the activities emphasize children’s participation and focus on one or more themes that shape the toolkit’s structure, including diversity, conflict resolution and strengthening community links. Participation isn’t enough, though. There’s also an emphasis on critical thinking, and that means children grapple with potentially heavy issues: gender inequality, various forms of discrimination, the right to a nationality and to return to their homeland, among others. But as one head teacher lamented, “Why should we teach children about human rights when we don’t even have them? We can’t go back home, we don’t have our nationality, most of us can’t work, we don’t have enough money and we live in poverty. We have almost nothing.” My answer, coming from an inescapable position of privilege, sounded hollow: “Think of what their education would be like if you didn’t educate them about their rights. Not having rights is no excuse not to learn about them.”

The starkness of children’s lives in the refugee camps was acknowledged – it’s been a way of life for over 60 years; it’s regrettable and for the moment inevitable. Despite this, the participants kept up an encouraging level of positivity throughout the workshops. I honestly thought I’d lose interest in facilitating the same thing five times in 11 days, but the workshops remained fresh and I tried to learn from my mistakes and improve from one workshop to the next. Now I sit content and assured that, for the most part, the toolkit was accepted by those trained and its future in UNRWA looks promising. When addressing an issue as potentially explosive as human rights for refugees whose rights are not fully enjoyed, I’m grateful for the delicate work undertaken by UNRWA staff in the past to encourage the acceptance of human rights education among reluctant teachers, angry or uninformed parents with staunch views, and a host of political parties that easily dismiss the notion of rights.

Of course not everyone was convinced. There was one participant in nearly every workshop who dismissed the toolkit by saying it was nothing new. Another participant told me much the same thing and added that “Perhaps there are human rights violations in countries like America, but we don’t have such things in my community.” Citing a specific example of rights violations, he went on to say that there was plenty of domestic violence in the US, but such was not the case where he lived. “I’ve never seen any.”

I quelled my initial reaction to dismiss his assertions and prepared myself to belt out a polemic that would put him in his place, but I kept my mouth shut and saw through the corner of my eye a growing number of hands raised throughout the room. The indignant stares of other participants – both women and men – were all I needed to rest assured that my thoughts would be reflected in their words. And indeed they were. As one woman said, echoing my earlier words, "You don't have to teach about human rights only when your rights are violated. Everyone needs to learn about human rights." Besides, another participant noted, there is domestic violence everywhere, only it isn't always talked about. Their reactions were a relief to me, but his comments were a sad reminder that, even among those who are charged with the responsibility to educate children about tolerance, equality, and dignity, there’s still a lot of educating that needs to take place. But nothing’s going to stop the spread of a “culture of human rights” – it’s alive and well where Palestine refugees live, and it’s time for for the rest of the world to know about it.

The guys have left the bar, my beer glass is empty and this techno music sucks. Time for bed.

“Do people in other countries think we’re terrorists?”

I admit I'm surprised by the question. The girl is no more than fifteen, sitting quietly among other students her age at a secondary school in Gaza. They're all members of the school parliament – a student body elected by peers and representing them in discussions with school management.  I'm with a couple of UN staff and we’ve just spent the past 45 minutes asking them about their activities. They set up peer mediation groups for students with disagreements; they coordinate trips to local organizations, including visits to the elderly; they raise funds to help poor students; they provide support to students traumatized by the latest rocket attacks back in November; they help students with their homework; they keep the school clean. They are articulate, enthusiastic, and eager to talk about their accomplishments. They even put on a slideshow partway through.

The school bell rings, signalling the start of the afternoon shift; the students are ready to go, but my UN friends ask them if they have any questions for us. As a young girl speaks, my friend nods and translates into English. “She wants to know if people in other countries think that all Palestinians are terrorists.”

For a split second I’m sixteen again and standing on the stage of my high school auditorium at the end of the Christmas play feeling the suffocating heat of my Santa Claus costume and ready to pull it off when a young mother walks up the stairs holding her young son by the hand and tells me he missed Santa at the mall and could he say to me what he wants for Christmas? I want to say Duh I’m not Santa but spot the sad look in the kid’s eyes and realize that maybe this moment means more to him than me so I play along and give him my best Ho-ho-ho and –

– Looking at the dozens of eyes staring back at me waiting for an answer I want to say No of course not don’t be ridiculous. But that isn’t the truth. All you have to do is travel a few kilometres north of the border and ask that question to people on the street and you’ll find at least a some who swear that every man, woman, boy and girl in Gaza is nothing but a terrorist. I want to say No don’t be silly but that just isn’t so. There are people I’ve met who know about my work for Palestine refugees and when I speak of Palestinians’ suffering the response is always “Yes, but” and I grow tired of it. “Yes, but the Palestinians receive millions in donations and the money goes back to firing rockets into Israel.” “Yes, but there are always two sides to the story. Israelis live in constant fear for their safety.”  “Yes, but they are the ones who put bombs in baby carriages and kill us.”

Girls at a secondary school in Gaza.

I pause a moment before answering the girl. “No,” I say, “not everyone thinks that. My friends and family know a lot about Palestinians and of the suffering that they are going through. They ask me what your lives are like; they ask me how a peaceful solution can ever become a reality. They are genuinely interested in seeing you live a life of dignity, and we all know that the actions and words of those in power – anywhere – are not necessarily a reflection of the hearts and minds of the people who must live by their rules.” Part of my answer is a copout; it's too easy to rely on what friends and family think because they are sympathetic to Palestinian autonomy and freedom. But I withhold speaking about the more nuanced reality that exists, one in which many people are divided on their (often strong and ill-informed) opinions about Palestinians.

The girls I meet are hopeful in a place that is rotten, broken, smashed, bombed, cracked, patched together, and filled with garbage on the streets. Nearly every street corner has a weather weary poster of a martyr brandishing a machine gun looking very Rambo-epic and ready to die. Turn the corner to walk into a school and you see walls plastered with malformed paintings of SpongeBob, Mickey Mouse and Papa Smurf smiling right at you. The juxtaposition of violence and fear with happiness and a safe learning environment is enough to mess anyone up; that the girls still have hope is nothing short of miraculous. I don’t know if my answer means anything to them, but they need to know that their hope has to lead them to a better life.

Nablus, Jerusalem, Gaza: three sketches

...Last Monday I left a workshop for teachers in Nablus. Beautiful sunny afternoon, just ate some kunafa with a couple of friends. Get back in the car and my friend driving slows down as we near the entrance of the city and says, "There's been an incident." As we slow down we see a few dozen boys and young men walking towards us, their eyes bloodshot and faces wet. One boy stares at me as we drive by, the effects of the tear gas obvious in his eyes...

...A walk through the Old City in Jerusalem, zigzagging the different quarters, capturing an image of a mosque's minaret at sundown, barbed wire protecting a neighbouring building, the watchful eyes of security cameras never far away...

...A banal scene in Gaza, a woman stepping out of a taxi, groceries in hand, probably making her way home. Behind her lies the rubble of a bombed-out police station, destroyed during the violence that seized the city last November.