Exploration 2Decisions and Urgency: Leaving HomeDiving into the stories
When we watched Malak’s story, these were some of the pressing questions that bubbled up:
- Why was this a journey from somewhere and not to somewhere? Usually, when we plan trips we say we are going to a place.
- Why did Malak have to leave Syria?
- Where was she headed?
We also find ourselves wanting to know more--in fact, that seems to be what happens when learning really takes place, right? Answers sometimes lead to more questions--and more learning, repeat! For example we found ourselves considering the following questions almost immediately after we reviewed our original reactions to Malak’s Story:
- Where is Syria?
- What countries border Syria?
So we began to review our questions and decided we wanted to know more about the history of Syria and what events created circumstances that made Malak’s family willing to risk such a dangerous journey. Like any modern researcher would, we began with a google search.
The first search terms we plugged into the google search bar were Syrian refugee crisis explained. Scanning through the search results and thinking about valid and trustworthy sources, we noticed a link to a United Nations site, and it felt like a solid place to start.
https://www.unrefugees.org/news/syria-refugee-crisis-explained/
While this link gave us some background information, we weren’t quite satisfied with the explanations. But, we did notice the date March, 2011. We were inspired to start a new google search using this date and playing around a bit more with search terms. This time we entered the following terms Syrian Refugee Crisis Timeline to see what we could discover.
When the search results appeared, we decided to open a link to another UN site.
We definitely think this link may be useful as we continue to learn more about Syria, but it didn’t really address what made people flee Syria. Something that happened as we were reviewing the search results is that we came across the term, unrest. Unrest felt like an important part of the story we were trying to piece together. So, back to the search bar we went! This time we entered, What caused the unrest in Syria. Tada! RESEARCH really means to RE-SEARCH! We found this British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) resource--
This site really helped to give us a solid understanding of the background of the conflict in history. It also brought about some more questions. We found ourselves wondering about the differences between Suni and Shia populations and we wanted to know if Bashar al-Assad is still President of Syria. So we put those questions down in a notebook and highlighted them in pink. We decided that pink will be the color used to remind us to come back to questions we think are important to spend time on as we continue our exploration.
Go to Next Exploration
And that exploration includes a closer look at the details involved in the journey itself for children like Malak and others. Let’s go!
Rock Your World is a program of Creative Visions
Rock Your World is a Program of Creative Visions, a 501(c) (3) organization that supports creative activists - individuals who use the power of media and arts to create positive change in the world.
