Palestinian Global Teacher victor: 'My students are the true prize winners'

When Hanan al-Hroub returns to her classroom after a week’s absence on Sunday, her arms full of puppets, socks, wooden clothes pegs, toy cars and a clown’s wig, she will be additionally weighed down with a trophy inscribed with her name as this year’s winner of the $1m Global Teacher prize.

“I will carry the trophy aloft to my children,” the 43-year-old said at her home in Ramallah. “My students are the true winners of this prize. My inspiration came from these children.”Hroub, 43, was named last weekend as this year’s winner of an award described as the Nobel prize for teaching, out of a field of 8,000 candidates and a final shortlist of 10 from the US, the UK, Japan, Australia, Finland, Pakistan and India. “And Palestine,” she said with visible pride.

At a ceremony in Dubai, Pope Francis, the Duke of Cambridge and Bill Clinton were among those who paid tribute by video to the woman who grew up in a refugee camp in Bethlehem and was inspired to teach after her daughters were shot at by Israeli soldiers.

In the West Bank, supporters watched the televised ceremony on a big outdoor screen in the centre of Ramallah. When the pope read Hroub’s name, the crowd erupted in cheers and waved the Palestinian flag. Among them were Hroub’s adult children. “We were praying, and then we cried,” said one.

The judges chose Hroub after watching, and participating in, a sample lesson in which she used her tools of everyday items in her “play and learn” technique. At the Samiha Khalil school in al-Bireh, just outside Ramallah, Hroub’s pupils – aged between six and 10 – live in an environment where violence is endemic, she told the Guardian. They are often disruptive, unstable and manipulative; some engage in violent acts themselves.

“The environment outside the classroom is violent. Inside I provide peace, harmony and security,” she said.

Often wearing a clown’s wig and red nose, Hroub uses games to get children to work cooperatively in teams, building trust and respect, and rewarding positive non-violent behaviour. She has written a book about her teaching philosophy, called We Play We Learn.

Hroub only began working as a teacher in 2007. After leaving school, she was forced to abandon her plans for further education when Palestinian universities closed during the first intifada, or uprising, between 1987 and 1993. Instead she got married and had five children.

In 2000, when her youngest was established at school, Hroub resumed her education part-time at Al-Quds University. Within months, her husband, Omar, and two of her daughters were shot at by Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint near Bethlehem. Omar was injured in the shoulder and the girls were traumatised.