Inspiration through Education; Imagine a World.
PLEITGEN: Welcome back, everyone. You know, there's an old British saying that goes, "Those who can, do, and those who can't, teach," meaning, of course, that people turn to teaching when they really aren't good at anything else. Tonight we meet two inspiring people who have proved that phrase very wrong. Hanan Al Hroub works in a primary school in the West Bank. She's just been awarded this year's prestigious global teacher prize for her efforts helping young schoolchildren traumatized by violence. And Colin Hegarty is a math teacher from London whose engaging online tutorials have helped thousands of children around the world achieve better grades. He was a runner-up for the $1 million prize. Well, Colin and Hanan joined Christiane Amanpour earlier this week.</s>AMANPOUR: Welcome to both of you, Colin here in the studio, Hanan out there in Dubai. Let me ask you first, Hanan, how does it feel, what was it like to be awarded and announced as the winner by the pope himself?</s>HANAN AL HROUB, GLOBAL TEACHER PRIZE WINNER (through translator): Very happy. I still cannot believe it. I didn't believe hearing my name as a winner. It's -- I respect him a lot and it's a big prize. It's a big prize that I'm very proud of.</s>AMANPOUR: Now unlike the special circumstances of the Palestinian territories, Britain is an intellectual hub, it's a science hub. People talk all over the world about the great British education. But today, "The Times" of London says that British schoolchildren are at the back of the class practically when it comes to global math achievement.</s>COLIN HEGARTY, GLOBAL TEACHER RUNNER-UP: Every successful system has a great culture behind it. So we need to promote maths, tell the good stories of maths in this country, tell our children that you can do maths and that's the teachers, that's the media, that's the parents probably more than anyone. We can't by osmosis let children realize they're not good at maths by the messages we give them. And I think confidence and belief that you can do it is the very first starting point, so that's what we should do in the first instance.</s>AMANPOUR: And, Hanan, you do a different kind of teaching. You're teaching traumatized children. Tell me how that came about.</s>HROUB (through translator): My way of teaching is play and learn, is to stop any violent behavior, any violent behavior in the classroom. If a social group is violent, than that's going to affect the whole society. I treat them that success can be for all of the students. I teach them how to converse, how to carry a dialogue. The games I teach them teach them how to participate, how to be efficient.</s>AMANPOUR: But how did it start, Hanan? Your own children witnessed a shooting, is that right? And they were very traumatized by it. Describe what led you to this.</s>HROUB (through translator): The story started as any story that a family in Palestine can go through. They were coming back from school and they saw the wife of their aunt -- of their uncle -- they saw them being shooted in front of them. And my children, they saw their own father, he was injured. It was quite a big shock for them. I suffered a lot due to that. They were isolated. They lost self-confidence. And they were violent between each other. And I noticed most of the teachers at school, they were not trained to treat this kind of shocks. So I had to deal with my kids by myself. And I started playing with them. I started looking for a library. I started looking for colors, for tools to draw things to help my children to get rid of that trauma. Their results at school got better --</s>HROUB (through translator): -- and I managed to take them out of that trauma because of what happened. And I took it as a responsibility and as a promise to myself that I will help anyone who has been through such an experience.</s>AMANPOUR: Colin, let me ask you. There have been so many high profile -- you know, the President of the United States, President Clinton, Ban Ki-moon, the pope, all these people said how important their early teachers were to them. And I just want to play something that one of your students has said about you.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's here to get us where we want to go. And he'll help us in any way possible. And it was just quite inspiring to have someone at such an important point in your life to just be, "I'm here whenever you need it, 24/7."</s>HEGARTY: In my own life, education was everything. I'm from very humble backgrounds in London: myself, my mum, my dad, my sister lived in a one-bed council flat in Kilburn (ph). My parents taught me education was a great enabler in your life. It's an opportunity to give you choice and an opportunity to allow you to do the things in life that you want to do, to help yourself but, more importantly, also to help your community and the problems that are in the world. I think it was said during the conference at the weekend that, for any problem we have, education is the answer. And, I mean, what greater gift is there, after the gift of life and love? I think the third greatest gift you can give to someone is the love of learning.</s>AMANPOUR: Were you always -- did you always love maths? Were you always a math wiz?</s>HEGARTY: Honestly, I just love learning. I was so lucky. My parents really told me that education was everything. And wouldn't it be great if one day like young children think of being a teacher just the same as they think of it being a doctor or a lawyer?</s>AMANPOUR: Well, you know, that brings me to obviously the next question. There are certain countries, let's say Finland and others, have been held up as some of the best education models in the world. They say that partly that is because they treat and pay their teachers as if they were the highest profession rather than, oh, I couldn't do anything else so I went into teaching. What is your view on how teachers should be valued by society?</s>HEGARTY: The worst phrase you hear is, you know, if you can do, do and if you can't, teach. It's such a tragic thing to hear. It's the exact opposite. To be a great teacher, listening to Hanan and all the others, you need incredible passion, incredible energy and incredible expertise. That's the one thing, all professions have a credible expertise. And to be a great teacher, there's a lot you need to learn about how the brain works, a lot you need to know about how to motivate people. These are skills that great business leaders have. And teachers are like business leaders. So I think we need to thank you for the Varkey Foundation for this award, because it started the conversation. And I think it's the right conversation to be having and it's --</s>AMANPOUR: And they're already talking about this as the Nobel for teaching. So the two of you, thank you so much. Colin, well done for being a finalist. Hanan, congratulations on winning this year's award. Thank you for being with us.</s>PLEITGEN: And up next, the young Palestinian boy living out a dream after surviving a nightmare that killed his family.