Religious culture and moral knowledge course teacher Kevser Çelebi encourages students to participate actively in her lessons with the project she developed with her colleagues that integrates origami art into lessons to make abstract concepts more concrete.

Çelebi, who has been teaching religious culture and ethics for about eight years, started to work at Kartal Soğanlık Teacher Salih Nafiz Tüzün Primary School in 2015.

With her colleagues, she initiated the "Origami with Tales, Stories and Anecdotes" project, which they started on the international platform "eTwinning" last October.

Çelebi told Anadolu Agency (AA) that while they were thinking about making lessons more fun and conveying national and spiritual values to children in a better way, they thought of origami, the Japanese art of folding paper.

Çelebi stated that they initially developed the project with seven teachers, and their number increased to 10 with the participation of Religious Culture and Moral Knowledge teachers from different cities.

"We determine a theme every month. We do an origami activity related to the narrative of the theme. The new generation of children is more active and more mobile; therefore we have considered the constructivist approach. Frankly, we wanted it to be student-centered so that children would not get bored in the lesson and actively participate. For example, we did a patience activity, after telling the story of the Prophets Job and Jonah, we made a fish origami," she said.

Çelebi stated that she aimed to teach the origami technique to students in this way.

Mentioning that she explained the steps to the students one by one: "Students progress with me at every step. I sometimes support them when they cannot progress. We use peer learning from time to time. With peer learning, the child says 'I can do it, I can succeed,' and also shows patience while helping their friend. And when they can't, they gain values such as tolerance," she added.

Çelebi stated that they saw the positive effects of this project on students, and they received very positive feedback from parents and students. Noting that the students come to the lesson quite motivated, she said, "When I say, 'We will have an origami activity next week,' the students come to the lesson with enthusiasm and excitement."

Expressing that they want more teachers to participate in the project they have developed, she added: "Our Religious Culture and Moral Knowledge course is an abstract field and children in the younger age want to see a little more concrete elements in the lesson. Learning becomes more permanent with concrete objects."

Within the scope of the project, they have marked important days and weeks for the origami activity.

"For Mawlid al-Nabi (marking the birth of the Prophet Muhammad), we had our students make a rose origami to teach about our Prophet Muhammad. When we talk about the love of our values, I had the students make a heart origami, a fox for love of animals and shaped ships on Oct. 29 that celebrate that day," she said.

Fourth-year student Ali Eren Başak said that he was very pleased with the teaching of the subjects he studied in the Religious Culture and Moral Knowledge course with origami. He found the lesson very enjoyable and said that he liked making things out of paper on the subjects. "It's really fun to learn our lessons like this," he added.

Fatma Ela Başçı, another student, stated that her teacher told stories while doing origami. Emphasizing that she both gains knowledge and increases her origami skills, "This method has brought me closer to the Religious Culture and Moral Knowledge course," she said./aa

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan received a group of children at the Vahdettin Mansion in Istanbul where they followed an annual tradition of taking the seats of Cabinet ministers. 

During the event that was held to celebrate National Sovereignty and Children's Day and also the 102nd anniversary of the foundation of the Turkish parliament, Erdogan symbolically gave his seat as head of state to Sukru Emre Eren.

After celebrating, Erdogan gave the floor to Eren.

Later, the eighth-grader gave a speech and introduced his Cabinet.

The day started with top government officials and politicians attending a morning ceremony in the nation’s capital of Ankara at Anitkabir, the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the Turkish Republic. Those in attendance included Parliament Speaker Mustafa Sentop, National Education Minister Mahmut Ozer and other dignitaries.

The special day in Turkiye is marked by a festival for children and public offices, schools, and the private sector also hold programs.

The April 23 celebrations focus on children after Ataturk, the first parliament speaker. dedicated the day to children as the nation's future.

The Grand National Assembly met for the first time in Ankara in 1920 during the War of Independence to lay the foundations for an independent, secular and modern republic./aa

Italian government forecasts showing a steady decline in education spending triggered an angry reaction on Monday from the country's trade unions, which threatened strikes and protests.

The government's multiyear economic planning document (DEF) published on Friday showed education expenditure projected to fall to 3.5% of the gross domestic product in 2025 from 4% in 2020.

The 2020 level was already well below the European Union average of around 5% of the GDP, Eurostat data shows.

The DEF projections "show grave short-sightedness that our country will pay heavily for in the future," said Rino Di Meglio, the head of the Gilda teachers union. "We will consult our members and organize protests over the next few days."

The Education Ministry was not immediately available to comment.

Italian students are among the worst performers in the European Union in mathematics, science and reading, according to the Programme for International Student Assessment tests overseen by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

The DEF linked the projected fall in education spending to Italy's falling birth rate. This was rejected by the unions who said the fall in school-age Italians was being compensated for by immigration.

"We expect no decline in the school population, we have just absorbed 10,000 Ukrainian children in our schools in the last few weeks, this is what we have to face," said Di Meglio.

The teachers' section of Italy's largest union confederation, the CGIL, said it was "madness" for the government to be projecting education cuts while increasing military spending, as Prime Minister Mario Draghi has pledged to do.

The unions accused the government of backtracking on the priorities Draghi set out when he stressed the importance of education in his maiden speech to parliament 14 months ago.

"After heaps of rhetoric, we're heading for spending cuts," said Francesco Sinopoli, head of the CGIL's teaching union.

"We are returning to an austerity scenario when we should be increasing investment. If this goes ahead we will take to the streets with every possible protest, including strikes."/Reuters