• Remarkable images:  Haiti:  Two Years after the Quake
• TWB iTunes podcast:  Earthquake Research and Education in Haiti
• TWB iTunes podcast:  Post-Earthquake Education Efforts in Haiti

Two years after the 2008 Sichuan earthquake killed over 70,000 people in China, a shallow earthquake leveled Port au Prince, Haiti. Up to 300,000 lost lives and over a million homeless. January 12th, 2012 marked the two-year anniversary of this natural and “national” disaster, the effects of which could have been mitigated.

While it is unfair to compare one country’s reconstruction efforts with another, I cannot help but illustrate what is possible when teacher leaders are in charge.

That is where a member of Teachers Without Borders’ Advisory Board comes in: Sharon Ravitch, Ph.D of the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education.  Dr. Ravitch currently serves as Senior International Advisor to the Haitian Ministry of Education. Along with her colleagues in Haiti and beyond, she is addressing policy issues and educational reconstruction, as well as the coordination of services.

But Sharon Ravitch is doing something even more fundamental. She is relying upon local educational leadership and teachers – the educational pillars necessary to maintain a society’s structural integrity. She knows that teachers have their ears to the ground, always listening to the rumbling just below the surface.  She illustrates how teachers are the ones who recognize the fault lines, serve as a community’s first responders, and represent the only true, durable multiplier of change.

The epicenter of the Chinese earthquake of May 12, 2008 was close enough to TWB’s center of operation in Dujiangyan China (where educators were studying science inquiry methods) to decimate everything.  We lost teachers and students.  These were shoddy buildings in a densely populated area.

At least they had some kind of disaster plan.  It was, however, wrong.

I arrived in China shortly afterward during the relief and recovery stage.  Within months, Chinese teachers, geologists, and school administrators explored earthquakes from a geological and structural perspective, informed by accurate science.  Groups of teachers gathered around shake tables, stretched springs and coils, created and tested Popsicle structures.  They learned how to create lessons around structural and non-structural hazards; when to gather under one’s desk or escape the building based upon whether it was likely to sway or sink.  Officials crossed out inaccurate data about their escape plans and substituted more accurate versions. Building-phobic parents sent their children back to school.  Science became central to physical and emotional safety.

In Haiti, the same thing:  dense population, lousy buildings, shallow earthquake.  At the sign of any danger, Haitians often instinctively and immediately run indoors for protection.  Here, too, the buildings killed them.  Yet many Haitian Geology teachers knew exactly what to do on January 12, 2010, thus saving hundreds of lives (listen to our podcast with )

But this was the exception rather than the rule.  Despite the thousands of NGOs and rock-stars Haiti has been forced to accommodate with equanimity and grace, there remains enough rubble (measured in metric tons of concrete) in Port au Prince alone to construct a four-lane highway from Port au Prince to Los Angeles and back again.

When Chinese teachers in Sichuan first heard about the earthquake in Haiti, they wrote letters of support.  Sensitive to the emotionality connected with anniversaries, they writing again, sharing their love and shared sorrow with their colleagues in Haiti.

How many earthquakes will it take until the global community supports teachers from below the ground and up?  Anything less undermines the very foundation of society itself.

But this is something Dr. Sharon Ravitch has known all along.

LEARN MORE:

• Emergency Education: at Teachers Without Borders
• TWB Teacher’s Guide to Earthquake Science & Safety (free)
• Sharon Ravitch, Ph.D:  Teachers Without Borders Advisory Board
• Sharon Ravitch at the University of Pennsylvania
• Aga Khan Development Network:  Deep support for vulnerable communities
• PARSQUAKE:  Earthquake education in the global Persian community
• Interagency Network for Education in Emergencies:  A global leader
• IRIN News: Humanitarian news and analysis

Handkerchiefs in Plaza Hidalgo

After a successful Teachers’ Congress in Mexico City last week, I decided to celebrate with a friend by taking a walk in sunny Plaza Hidalgo.

Ringed by shops and restaurants and anchored by both an imposing municipal hall and a majestic church, the Plaza was alive with shoppers, lovers holding each other close, and families stooping down to hand their children ice cream cones. Police paced about, their automatic rifles bouncing from their bulletproof vests. Pigeons typed on discarded cobs of grilled corn. A tourist waited patiently for a fresh churro to surface from a submerged fry basket. A mime tagged closely behind an unsuspecting passerby, the crowd giggling with the collective secret.

It was a soundtrack of public conversation, popular songs hand-cranked by strolling organilleros, baritone saxophones riffs from a free jazz concert around the corner, and strident calls from a megaphone at a Mexican version of “Occupy Wall Street.” We navigated around tents and circled a carousel plastered with cardboard signs, as if the organizers had prepared hurriedly for a storm.  We pointed out particularly evocative slogans, turned our heads to make out the titles of books donated to a makeshift library, and snapped pictures with our camera phones.

In front of the carousel, children wore their parents’ T-shirts as smocks and painted cheery pictures on plastic easels. Close by, an assembly line of teenagers stapled, whitewashed, and tossed crosses on a pile, while others spaced them evenly on the sidewalk like a two-dimensional graveyard. It all felt festive, yet deeply serious – both political demonstration and day-care center, circus sideshow and serious drama, the engine of commerce and a democratic impulse. These were regular folks and invited spirits – Emiliano Zapata and Marcel Marceau – walking amongst them, tapping shoulders. This was getting interesting.

We came upon a group of people sitting in an arc of benches. Most heads were bowed, as if praying, while others chatted. Handkerchiefs, each with hand-embroidered messages, blew gently from a clothesline, like Mexican-Tibetan flags.

A young leader approached us. We steeled ourselves for the solicitation. She pointed us to the impromptu group of volunteers (of all ages), who have been gathering, she explained, to embroider commemorative messages of peace for each of the 5,000+ killed by senseless drug violence. They were making progress, she said without hubris, a self-organizing group without members, “Rojas Fuentes” (Red Sources), but growing just the same. She encouraged us to sit with the others and sew one of our own. Her voice was kind, solid, accessible, forgiving.

She held up one of the linen handkerchiefs by its corners. A wooden hoop stretched the fabric in place, revealing a blood-red stitch halfway through a poetic tweet. She told us that her group would continue on every day through December, and then replicate it elsewhere. Here on the bench, I sensed, one may begin as a stranger but leave as a friend because they all share a common bond. No one is untouched by Mexico’s drug war. It matters, she said. It matters very much.

The “it” to which she referred suddenly seemed both Mexican and global, small and profound. “It,” as the young leader implied, is an emerging, Mexican-style volunteerism, centered in human dignity despite the odds, that confronts force with faith, violence with vigilance. “It” is an undeterred belief that humanity’s better nature will, indeed, prevail.

She never asked us for money.

The mainstream media should broadcast more stories about today’s Mexico with images like this, the commons at work. They should translate those cardboard signs into other languages so that we can all read about self-reliance. And along with their prurient flashes of murder, the monotonous weather forecast, and sports scores everyone already knows, they should let the camera pan slowly over one handkerchief per day to mourn the loss of life, and include, perhaps, a child’s painting.

It is Día de los Muertos – the Day of the Dead – in Mexico. The Mexican people will mourn those who have passed with humility and grace. Some will visit cemeteries, sweep away debris from a special plot, and leave marigolds. Families will gather and eat a delicious, sugarcoated, doughy bread, Pan de Muertos. Neighbors will visit each other, share meals, and talk. They will honor La Calavera Catrina, “The Elegant Skull,” and make clothes for tiny skeletons, laughing wryly as they dress up contemporary political figures.

In Plaza Hidalgo, the Mexican people seem to be commemorating Dia de los Muertos all year long, honoring the dead and honoring life – lovers, mimes, families, children, volunteers, activists, embroiderers.

They will rise above this, and then some. They are teaching each other, and they will do so with handkerchiefs and red thread. It’s enough to sew an entire society back together.

Teachers Without Borders responded in China by tailoring our science-inquiry methods teaching program to include a practical connection between science and safety. That program has grown considerably and has been embraced by teachers in the region.

Middle school teachers in Sichuan go through TWB's Teacher's Guide to Earthquake Education

Today, on the 3rd anniversary of the earthquake, our work continues, undaunted. Located in – and endorsed by – the Qing Yang Teacher Learning and Resource Center, our office will enhance TWB’s science through emergency education program by providing staff, volunteers, and local teachers with a headquarters to collect and access resources, and hold regular meetings.

Our program now includes psychosocial assistance and has jumped borders. With support from the Cisco Foundation, TWB’s China Country Coordinator, Li Hong Xu, and Yu Lu Wang, an Assistant Professor of psychology at Chengdu University, travelled to Pakistan to provide a workshop on counseling in disaster situations. TWB’s staff in China met with staff from our partner in Pakistan, the Potohar Organization for Development Advocacy (PODA), to exchange ideas and resources that will strengthen their post-crisis recovery work in their respective countries.

In partnership with the National Science Foundation and Purdue University, our Director of Emergency Education, Solmaz Mohadjer, is in Haiti, talking to potential partners that can help implement an earthquake education program in local high schools. Centered near Port au Prince, the shallow earthquake in a densely populated area resulted in the loss of over 230,000 lives. We are obligated to be of assistance there as well.

In a few weeks, Ms. Mohadjer will travel to Central Asia through a new initiative, Parsquake, designed to bring earthquake education to the global Persian community. Millions of people living in Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan are highly vulnerable to earthquakes. With support from the PARSA Community Foundation, Parsquake is addressing this vulnerability by raising levels of earthquake awareness, education, and preparedness in these regions.

The mainstream news may not cover the anniversary of the earthquake in Sichuan, but we remember. I am writing you, dear colleagues in Sichuan, because we will always be there for you. Together, and with the help of the global TWB community, we will work tirelessly so that teachers and students – everywhere – can live and learn safely, and in peace.

My warmest regards,
Dr. Fred Mednick, Founder, Teachers Without Borders

I didn’t hear the grenade explode. Having traveled to Saltillo from San Diego that evening, I must have been sleeping soundly. But apparently, on my first night in Saltillo, someone threw a grenade at a police station three blocks away from where I was staying, with TWB’s Mexico Coordinator, Deya Castilleja and her mother. I heard the news when I awoke and Deya told me we wouldn’t be heading to school until we were sure it was safe to leave the house.

Right to left: Stephanie Knox Cubbon, Deya Castilleja, Chery Verlanga, Ricardo Verlanga, Gladys Garcia, Asgad Verlanga, Can Norfolk

I had come to Mexico to give the keynote speech at the launch of the Peace Education Program in Saltillo. Deya and five local teachers had planned a morning of workshops to generate interest in taking the entire course, which they will offer through a blended model of face-to-face workshops and online meetings using the TWB Toolset and WebEx platform. It is a beautiful model, exactly what we envisioned and dreamed of when we were developing the program. We want the program to be adopted, contextualized and taught by local teachers who are passionate about building peace in their communities.

The epidemic of violence is new in Saltillo. A few weeks ago eight people were killed when there was an altercation between police and gangs, and other incidents have been reported. The grenade was suspected to be another incident of the gangs retaliating against the police for making arrests. Meanwhile, the streets of Saltillo were unusually quiet as residents feared to go outside.

On Friday, Deya and I were invited to judge a science fair at Colegio Inglés school, our host for the conference and where all of the facilitators teach. Colegio Inglés is an English-immersion school that has students from ages three to eighteen, who start learning English as soon as they walk through the door.

After the science fair we went back to the office of Gladys Garcia, the principal of the school and one of the facilitators. She had some last-minute details to go over with us, and showed us the posters they had made, in Spanish and English, of guidelines for the day’s workshops. They were a compilation of various principles of the program, guidelines for creating a peaceful atmosphere. I was so excited because the posters exemplified a part of my keynote that addressed creating a “zone of peace” in the classroom.

Gladys then told me that they also wanted to offer the program to parents. This had been another dream of mine since developing the program, as I know that although teachers have a huge impact on students, students also learn from their parents at home, where they develop many of their values and habits. If they are leaning peace at school but are victims or observers of violence at home, it can be confusing and counterproductive. On the other hand, if they are having the same peaceful ideals and practices reinforced both at school and at home, what great peacemakers they can grow to be! My heart soared, as this was yet another vision we had for the program, being fulfilled by these dedicated teachers.

The rest of the day we spent tidying up my speech. Spanish is not my first language, and I have not studied it formally in great depth, though I have spent extensive time in Spanish-speaking countries and tried to engage in home study. Deya patiently helped me correct my prepositions and articles– two of my greatest challenges as a native English speaker – until it was polished and intelligible.

We arrived at Colegio Inglés, I quickly printed my speech, and people started filing in. When I sat down, the room was about half-full, but when I stood to give my speech, the room was at capacity with more than 100 teachers.

I was nervous. It was my first keynote speech and I was not even presenting in my first language! I tried to speak clearly and not to lose my place on my papers, while simultaneously coordinating with someone else turning the PowerPoint slides. But I made it; I did it. Afterwards, one of the district officials commented on my Spanish, saying, “You know, Stephanie apologized for her Spanish, but I could understand her much better than I can understand politicians!”

Then there were the workshops. Participants broke off into smaller groups to attend one of six workshops for two hours. Afterwards, participants demonstrated what they learned in their workshops. I decided to spend about 20 minutes per workshop, observing and taking photos.

I was completely blown away by each facilitator. They all demonstrated not only how well they knew the program, but also how much they had taken it to heart and taken ownership of it. Each workshop started with a warm-up exercise for the participants to introduce themselves. They then explained the guidelines for the “zone of peace” that they had created, and finally moved into their workshop theme.

The six themes were derived from the Dr. Joseph Hungwa Memorial Peace Education Course, but the material had been adapted to the local context. The workshop titles included Violence Prevention; Effective Communication; Verbal Violence; Human Rights Education; and Peace Education: Implications for Mexico. All the workshops were interactive and relied on participants to discuss the topics and create a presentation or learning outcome to share with the group.

I had the chance to see the facilitators in action and demonstrating their knowledge and commitment to the program. In several of the workshops I watched as the facilitators fielded challenging questions, having to deal with parts of the program that they weren’t necessarily addressing in their workshop. I was hugely impressed with their responses and their knowledge of the program and its content and principles.

Several of the facilitators commented on how the program had changed their lives, and all of them emphasized the deep personal change that the program inspires. During her session on Verbal Violence, Chery Verlanga quipped, “I am Chery, and I was violent,” playing on the famous saying of Alcoholics Anonymous members. But she emphasized the “was”, explaining that she is now making a concerted effort to change her life so that she is no longer a perpetrator of verbal or physical violence. “The program is addictive and brings important changes to your life,” she added. To hear these teachers describe how the program had impacted their personal lives was deeply moving to me, as this is really the foundation and goal of the program. Perhaps the most important part of peace education is actually integrating the principles of peace and nonviolence into your own everyday life. Once you do this, the actual teaching of peace flows quite naturally. The teachers indicated that they were seeing the world differently as a result of the program – again, another dream reached.

The theme of parental involvement came up repeatedly throughout the day. This is obviously a great concern to the teachers, and it is brilliant that Gladys and the other facilitators have already thought of this and plan to offer the parents a course in the fall.

The last workshop I attended closed with a quick survey of how the participants felt. Their responses included words like committed, safe, happy, content, tranquil, and hopeful.

After the workshops, each group presented a learning outcome from their session. It was impressive what the groups came up with in less than two hours. The first group presented a PowerPoint on violence prevention, that included an analysis of five types of violence (verbal, psychological, emotional, physical and sexual); they also talked about how establishing a classroom zone of peace would be a first step in violence prevention. The human rights group presented a song geared towards preschoolers, and had the whole crowd singing along. They also presented a lesson plan for making commitments to human rights at the individual, family and community levels. Another group presented a role play/drama that demonstrated how children want peace and anyone can make a peaceful change. The effective communication group told a story. The verbal violence group presented seven principles for preventing verbal violence, which they called “Peace Speaks!” (“La Paz Habla!”).

Then Ricardo Verlanga, one of the facilitators, discussed the plan for offering the full course, which begins in two weeks and will be facilitated by the five teachers in Saltillo through the online/offline format. I was so impressed with their plan, and their motivation to develop the curriculum to offer the course to teachers, which they said would be finished this week. These facilitators are some of the most dedicated, committed, hardworking individuals I have had the fortune to meet, and to know that they are now committed to working on peace education in Saltillo is a dream come true.

The day ended, and participants gave very positive feedback. Out of approximately 100 participants that day, at least 50 immediately enrolled in the certification course. A great turnout. The day went well beyond my expectations.

It is a fantastic start, with great momentum, but the work is only beginning. These 50+ teachers will now be studying the course, and slowly starting to implement and integrate peace education into their classrooms. I’ve been invited to return in the fall to attend another conference and launch the parents’ course.

The seed of peace has been planted in Saltillo, a place that is struggling with an epidemic of violence. These teachers give me great hope, not only for this small town, but for the world.

Stephanie Knox Cubbon, TWB's Peace Education Coordinator (left), at rally in San Diego

After recently attending a peace rally in San Diego to commemorate the 8th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, I left with one strong impression: We in the peace movement need to better align ourselves with the principles of peace  if we are going to be effective in our intentions to end all wars and create a peaceful and just society. As a peace educator who considers herself to be part of this movement, I believe that peace education could help us to achieve this alignment, promote greater integrity and offer improved results for societal transformation.

The peace movement needs to express our messages in a peaceful way, which includes both the language and format of delivery. While the majority of speeches at this event did not have this problem, the language used in several speeches was at times violent, ranging from pervasive swearing – which was particularly disrespectful as there were children in the audience – to jeering at police officers stationed at the event. The way the peace movement communicates its messages must be aligned with the essence of the movement: peace, nonviolence and compassion. This does not mean that there is no room for anger. Anger has its place; it serves as a wake-up call, raises awareness and helps to motivate action. However, angry, violent speech alienates and turns off listeners, preventing true dialogue and understanding from occurring. Using nonviolent, compassionate communication rather than vitriolic ranting would align our speech with our message, and we would be more effective at reaching a wider audience and fostering understanding.

Another aspect that stood out to me as a peace educator was the format of the rally: speech after speech, lecture after lecture, which went on for hours beyond the schedule. Yes, this is the traditional format of protests or rallies, but isn’t the peace movement supposed to be intrinsically non-traditional? From a peace education perspective, any peace event should be an opportunity for dialogue and interaction, not just passive listening, lecture and speech, which is akin to what Paulo Freire referred to in education as the banking system. The repetitive nature of the speeches and the dissemination of knowledge without opportunity for dialogue is a form of oppression in itself, which the rally was intending to raise awareness about and eradicate. Through peace education, a more open, dialogic and interactive event could promote greater awareness-raising and transformation for all.

Both the violent language and the format resulted in exclusion, both of the mainstream community and even within the movement itself. The “us versus them” mentality, which was heavily steeped in anti-government and anti-corporate speech, is exactly the root cause of violence and oppression today. If we perpetuate that way of thinking, thus perpetuating hate, we will never create a peaceful world. This doesn’t mean that we have to agree with the policies of our government, corporations, or those who use violence, but it means we need to remain open to dialogue, and accepting that they are human too, and together we must find solutions to the problems of injustice and violence that we face today. Excluding and alienating part of the population will not serve this. At its very essence, the movement must seek to promote inclusivity, a fundamental principle of peace education. If we are to truly live peaceful lives, this means being open and accepting of all human beings.

This leads us to self-reflection, another key component of peace education. Members of the movement need to take a step back and examine our methods to see if we are truly living our message. We cannot preach peace, for example, while holding a sign that states “Bomb the Pentagon.” Peace means an eradication of all forms of violence, including eradicating violence against those who are currently committing it. Otherwise, we wind up in the cycle of perpetual violence and oppression that humanity has been stuck in for millennia. It should be so obvious that the peace movement would be against violence that I shouldn’t have to write about it, but the fact that the banner was there indicates that I should. Ultimately peace education and the peace movement must seek to end this cycle through nonviolent action in all its forms.

As diverse members of this movement, we can unite by choosing to live the principles of peace, including nonviolence, inclusivity, dialogue, self-reflection and the rejection of all violence. Through peace education, these principles can be promoted and our efforts can be strengthened. If we don’t integrate these principles ourselves, how can we ever hope to transform the wider world? Furthermore, we must put an end to the false “us vs. them” dichotomy that plagues our world today, leaving us in the endless cycle of violence. A movement grounded in peace principles, and which examines these principles through peace education, can end this cycle, end wars, and lead us to constructing a peaceful world.

Stephanie teaching in Tijuana

I awoke, startled by the light of the full moon, thinking it was the sun rising and that I had overslept. Luckily I had not, and had plenty of time to prepare for my 5am departure to the train station to head towards the US-Mexico border. I sipped coffee and read the morning paper which included an editorial about the drug-related violence in Mexico. The main argument was that the US needed to make Mexico a top foreign policy issue. The author outlined a number of solutions to the violence, which ranged from increased US support of the Mexican military to dealing with the domestic demand for narcotics.

As I read the article, I disagreed with the idea that the military is going to make things safer in Mexico, but strongly agreed that the issue needs to be addressed in the US, by raising awareness of the correlation between drug violence and drug use, and addressing the US’s seemingly endless appetite for drugs. Without the high demand for narcotics in the US, there probably wouldn’t be a drug war, and our collective complicity in the violence south of the border needs to be acknowledged and addressed.

Education was not mentioned as a solution in this article. But education – specifically peace education – is my offering. Peace education is not the “magic bullet” that is going to quickly fix the problem, but a long-term, sustainable part of a solution that might lead to an end to the violence. And this approach is needed on both sides of the border.

The day before, I was telling someone about my planned trip to Tijuana, and they asked, with some disbelief and skepticism: “But what can teachers do about the violence?” I believe teachers have one of the most important roles to play in society in general, and particularly in addressing these problems. No, the teachers are not going to immediately stop the drug cartels who are waging war against one another and Mexico’s citizens. But teachers can instill values of equality, justice and compassion in their students and teach them the skills to solve conflicts creatively and create a better world. That is the role of teachers, and by my measurements, the most important. Teachers may not stop bullets from flying today, but they might stop a student from picking up a gun or joining a gang tomorrow.

With these thoughts on my mind, I boarded a train, then a trolley, which took me straight to the US-Mexico border in San Ysidro, the busiest border crossing in the world. When you get off the trolley you walk up some stairs, across the highway, down some stairs, through a turnstile, and you’re in Mexico! No one checked my passport, nor my bag, or asked me where I was going. It was a far cry from US immigration, and as I crossed over the highway I could see the long line of cars waiting to enter the US, in what was probably a 2+ hour long line. It felt surreal as I walked over the pedestrian bridge, a teacher without borders, leaving the US behind to go work with teachers just a few miles south, but seemingly a world away. I also couldn’t help but imagine that every day, guns cross that border, as easily as I did; that my suitcase, which was chalk-full of peace education manuals, could have just as easily been filled with semi-automatic weapons.

Tijuana is very close to San Diego – less than 20 miles – but these days Americans are less likely to go visit. In the past, Tijuana was a major tourist destination, and many US citizens would travel down for the day to shop, sightsee, and sometimes indulge in booze, drugs, or sex. Nowadays, media reports of the drug-related border violence have been keeping tourists at bay.

After crossing the border, I waited near a queue of taxis to meet my hosts.

Escuela Preparatorio Federal Lazaro Cardenas is situated in an old luxury facility, which had been a thriving establishment during the times of American prohibition. Seized by the government and left to decay, it was reclaimed some years ago and converted into a public high school which receives some 5,000 students annually. The workshop was to be held for teachers in the International Baccalaureate (IB) program, which the director, Amanda Ruiz, told me is the only program of its kind in a public high school in Mexico (most are in private schools), and is one of the oldest IB programs in the world.

The group of 14 teachers, including 2 from another local bilingual school, were animated and eager to talk about peace education, in spite of it being an early hour during their mid-year holiday. The discussion flowed easily in a mix of Spanish and English. In spite of our language differences, and the teachers have a genuine interest in creating peace in their classrooms, schools and communities.

Workshop participants

When we discussed peace, the teachers brainstormed words such as solidarity, compassion, equality, and democracy. Peace is commonly misunderstood as the absence of war, but the absence of war did not enter into their definition, which was based on the presence of values and traits. One surprise for me was our discussion of violence. When talking about different models of peace education and the importance of relating learning to the students’ lives, we brainstormed the kinds of violence that their students experience in and out of school. I expected drug violence near the top of the list, as in the US, all we hear about Mexico is the drug violence. However, the teachers listed forms of violence that are very similar to what US students experience: physical and psychological bullying, exclusion, domestic violence. Two groups chose exclusion as their topic to explore for an applied lesson in peace education, which I thought was interesting. While the drug violence certainly plagues Tijuanenses, the reality for high school students is much more similar to their US counterparts than I had imagined.

On the second day, I was joined by Jill Covert, Peace Studies professor at San Diego City College, who led us through an exercise about conflict management styles. The exercise outlines the main styles that people use in conflict management, and gives them fun labels like Collaborating Owl and Accommodating Koala. The teachers enjoyed this exercise and made jokes about their conflict management tendencies.

As we crossed the border in the afternoon, just a few trolley stops away, the flag of Mexico waved proudly in the January breeze. Our humble effort in peace education is a small one, but I hope that it can grow and promote values and actions that will lead to sustainable, positive change.

Take a close look at the photograph above. What do you see? School courtyard? Teachers? Children?

Let me tell you a little about what I see when I look at this photograph. This is East Africa. The photograph was taken a couple of years ago, at an elementary school in a small town. I was standing inside the school’s staffroom, looking out the window at the school’s playground.

At first glance, there’s probably nothing extraordinary about this photograph: it looks like it’s recess and the children are enjoying their time away from their desks and textbooks. There are two teachers interacting with the students.

But look closely. Look at the teachers’ faces.

This story begins with those faces because they are not happy faces of teachers interacting with their pupils at recess. Both faces are serious. The teacher on the left seems lost in thought. She seems sad.

Let me tell you why.

Only 10 or 15 minutes before I took this photograph, these students were in class. Many of their classmates remained in class. But these students, the ones you see in this photograph, were asked to assemble in the courtyard. If you look closely you will see that the teacher on the right seems to be checking something, perhaps a clipboard or some notes. What she is holding in her hand is a list of students who have been asked to leave their classrooms and assemble here. The reason they had been instructed to leave class and meet the teacher here in the courtyard is because their parents have not paid their school fees. These students are being sent home.

Why am I telling you this? I wanted to share this story because today is Human Rights Day. As a teacher, whenever I think about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, whenever I think of Human Rights, and whenever Human Rights Day comes along, I think of Article 26:

Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.

And that’s exactly what I kept thinking about on that cloudy morning in East Africa, standing in front of that window, looking at a group of elementary school children pulled out of class to be told that they were being sent home. I wanted to help, and I knew I couldn’t really do much. I was angry. I was devastated.

All of this took place in a country that had abolished school fees several years prior to this morning assembly that I recorded with my camera. Yet, this was not an isolated incident, and later on the teachers explained to me that this happens throughout their country and many others in their part of the world. Yes, the tuition fees have been abolished, they said, but parents are still asked to pay for meals and for uniforms. In some cases, they have to pay to help cover maintenance fees. In many areas, parents chip in to cover the teachers’ salaries. So, yes, it’s true, the teachers said to me, the tuition fees don’t exist anymore, but education still costs money.

I live in a country where Article 26 is taken for granted. It is taken for granted by teachers, parents, children, teenagers. I also know of many other places around the world where Article 26 is taken for granted. But, I also know of and have visited places around the world where Article 26 and many, many other articles in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are fundamental human rights only on paper and where, for many different reasons – some of them very complex – human rights, including the right to education, are not respected.

As someone who cares deeply about education, I have spent a lot of time thinking about what I can do and what my colleagues – teachers around the world – can do to ensure that education is not taken for granted and that access to education is respected around the world as a fundamental human right. I believe that it is our responsibility as teachers – the largest professional group in the world that currently includes almost 60 million of us – to teach, every day, about Article 26 and the other, equally important articles in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Whenever I raise this issue, I am often asked to recommend organizations that accept donations to help improve access to education around the world. I am not going to do that here. In fact, I want to challenge you today not to donate money. Instead, I hope that you will do what you do best: teach.

Make sure that the students in your own classroom know about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, that they know that education is a fundamental human right (most of them don’t, believe me), and that they also know and are deeply troubled by the fact that there are children around the world who do not attend school and who, for reasons beyond their control, cannot attend school. In doing this, you will be helping to build an army of human rights advocates, of young people who will grow up valuing their education and committed to human rights and global peace. That alone, that focus on human rights in your classroom, will do much more to advance human rights than your cash.

Think also about your own professional development. Teacher professional development needs to be more than attending conferences, reading professional journals, and engaging in online communities to exchange lesson ideas or links to valuable resources. Teacher professional development includes a responsibility to raise awareness about issues that affect teachers, classrooms, and students around the world. If our colleagues working in states run by dictatorships or rebels, in places plagued by conflict or poverty, or in places affected by natural disasters, cannot count on their fellow teachers around the world to make their stories heard and work towards global peace, who can they count on?

The photograph I shared with you at the beginning of this post does not depict an isolated incident. You and I know that access to education is being curtailed around the world. According to estimates by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, 68 million children of primary school age were out of school in 2008. The reasons are varied, but this fact remains the same: millions of children around the world do not have access to education, to a fundamental human right.

Take a look at that photograph again and imagine being one of the teachers in that courtyard who have been told to interrupt their class, stop doing what they so passionately love, assemble a group of students, check off their names on the roster, and send them home.

Then, imagine walking back into your classroom to face their classmates, those fortunate enough to be allowed to stay, and to learn.

There’s a lot of work ahead of us, but I am hopeful that we’ll manage. After all, there’s almost 60 million of us.

This past week here in Barcelona at the Mozilla Drumbeat Festival: Freedom, Learning, and the Web, I decided to volunteer, rather than pontificate – setting up chairs, carrying water, and taking notes for a new generation of internet pioneers. I went “like way analog” this time, scribbling away on a steno-pad while the wired and exuberant hacked and hashed and mashed their way through a landscape and community they are convinced they can build and shape.   Those little air-traffic controllers were very, very busy.

Perhaps this crowd can – and will – be the change they wish to see in the world (or, at least, the catalysts).  Information exhaled and inhaled each day, participants simultaneously giddy and distracted, many peering over shoulders to catch a glimpse at others’ screens – a natural inclination when newness presents itself.  I, for one, vacillated between skepticism of -and affection for – those connecting the teacher and the technician, the educator and the e-tool creator.  I believe the conference was a success largely because of face-to-face connections.

I particularly loved the gathering of those interested in the future of the library and the ease with which the facilitators helped us tell and gather stories of libraries in several countries:  libraries as book-mobiles on donkeys, libraries as community centers, libraries as information hubs.  My jet lag downright evaporated when we collaborated on new designs that validated the need for accessibility, availability, accessibility, affordability, and adaptability (UNESCO).  It was electric, rather than electronic.

Though I cannot remember whether my designation at Drumbeat was as a “Document Scholar” or “Scholar Documenter,” I nonetheless felt both appreciation for the title and an obligation to be, in fact, scholarly.  In that spirit, here are a few words of wisdom extracted from my steno, turned into sentence form, transferred to Etherpad, backtracked to my blog, and flicked over to my Kindle and itouch (I feel a need to add all of these references to technical gadgets so that I would not be dismissed as a Luddite – a word, by the way, referring to bands of English workers who destroyed machinery they felt was threatening their jobs).  Hmmm.  Here goes:

Stand on the shoulders of giants and validate the contributions made by generations that were, themselves, also restless, undaunted, dissatisfied with the status quo, exploratory, and driven to make something happen overnight.  Remember that tweets were once haikus.  Symbols first appeared on the walls of caves.  Moveable type helped make classics accessible.  P2P was once a form of basic trading in the village marketplace.

Be careful not to build a digital form of the very institutions you find so distasteful, even the online ones. Words bandied about or overheard in sessions:  “institutional inaccessibility,” “Blackboard-dominating,” “frontal teaching,” “corporate machines,” “colonial,” “exclusive.”  Several demos focused on building global repositories of social media for teachers made viable only if the community of users is large enough, resources plentiful enough, and bandwidth ubiquitous enough.  I have now a stack of business cards and brochures and URLs and photographs of Post-It Notes.  Sure, today’s classrooms can be stifling and anachronistic.  At the same time, classrooms can, by their very existence, also be a form of liberation and the ultimate expression of human rights.  70+ million children do not go to school at all.  Most of them only dream of putting on a uniform, carrying books, seeing each other.

Figure out how your application (and your motive for building it) can work even if the electricity is off, then build it because its effectiveness can scale.   Challenge yourself at the level of the worst-case scenario.  In South Africa, for example, there are some classrooms of 60+ children who, in alternating rows, bend over so that the children behind them can use their backs as a desk. Can your app work there?

Watch your grammar when you’re in a foreign land. If you hack an RSS news reader to include a social component or html5 video with tags or other meta-data, consider what it might mean to a Pakistani who pays too much at a local cyber-cafe in order to stay up to date and skims the following headline:  “20% of Pakistan is Submerged in Flood Water,” followed by:  “56 people like this” (next to the thumbs-up icon).  Really?  They do?  They like this? I don’t.

Though it is true that the best meetings are impromptu and largely unscripted, seek diversity as a natural starting point. Try not to convene a group of hackers in a basement unless educators know where the stairs are and can find you (literally and figuratively).  I promise, we won’t slow you down.  Similarly, to educators:  don’t convene a private cabal without corralling an equal number of Red-Bull hackers who, indeed, are your friends if you just let them dream with you after class or in the faculty lounge.  Really… lighten up.

At the Drumbeat Festival, I learned two important things that challenged and changed me:

First, my insistent, and somewhat obnoxious, drive for instant practicality can obscure and squash creativity. While I may have often felt that many creations were solutions looking for problems, I also realized that innovation does not need a rationale in order to flourish.  The rough and inaccessible could, indeed, be made smooth and useful if only given a chance.  The innovator should not feel the need to justify pure creation.  Art does not need a reason to exist.   There is a reason we all carry within us a certain measure of arrogance;  it’s motivating, as long as it’s not foisted on me.  I learned to let it all be and to pay attention.

Second, I realized that the Mozilla Drumbeat Festival (faithfully, #drumbeat) may have used somewhat hackneyed, manic Marxist rhetoric and caffeine to fuel itself, but so what? My organization, Teachers Without Borders, needs you. We need your repositories and platforms, your xml and html5, your acronyms and hash-tags and @-signs and mashups.  We need your conviction and drive for social justice, provided you’re open enough to embrace the courage of your contradictions and give it to us for free so that we can focus on giving away our own assets, too.

Together, let’s continue to ask both difficult and playful questions and honor each other. I know that I will do my best to connect it all to a human narrative, to solving problems, and to the pressing and emerging issues facing those who work in classrooms far away from our three-day festival at a gorgeous Museum of Modern Art in Europe.

To the conference organizers, fellow volunteers, and fellow travelers at the Mozilla Drumbeat Festival: Freedom, Learning, and the Web, as well as for those who are connected through those tiny internet traffic controllers, I am truly grateful.

- Dr. Fred Mednick, Founder
Teachers Without Borders

Photo credit:  Some rights reserved by Zbigniew Braniecki

We hear it in Nigeria, where teachers found themselves protecting their children during the violent outbreaks in Jos earlier this year.

And it’s heard in Pakistan, where we’re using OERs we authored, along with materials from our colleagues, to create and sustain child-friendly schools in the aftermath of the floods that covered 20% of the countries.

We’re going because openness resonates with human rights, access to high-quality content that can save lives, and community development at its best.  We’re going because we believe that the next stage for the OER community is a new open format – OERganizations – seamless, interoperable coops that make sacrifices for each other, rather than build killer apps or one-stop solutions or magic bullets.

We’re going because we want to share our content, tools, code, intellectual resources, and members, rather than build a silo and an empire.  We’re going because the organizers seek to convene those who gain pleasure from that kind of sharing and because attendees seek a café, a clearinghouse, and a marketplace.

Teachers Without Borders is a ten-year old, hard-scrapping, in-the-field NGO, but teaching without borders is a timeless concept and the glue for our collective well-being.

In a world that sits precariously on the brink, we need openness now more than ever. We’re going to get closer to that goal in Barcelona. I’m planning on it.

How do you notice the presence of superlearners within the respective communities that you serve? What is their effect on other community members?

First, perhaps, a definition of superlearner is in order. For us at Teachers Without Borders (an international non-governmental organization devoted to local teacher development – on a global scale), our definition of superlearner is observational, rather than empirical, but consistent. Superlearners (a) remove barriers to all forms of learning so that they can seek, find, discover, and create information (b) use street smarts to apply and advance advanced concepts to problems (c) superlearners remain so (rather than learn in bursts, then implode) because they are making progress, even if the goal of understanding something continues to elude them. In short, they pursue knowledge with a kind of manic zeal, they can think on their feet, and they climb the stairs of their accomplishments

In what ways might superlearners become frustrated at the existing learning and collaboration structure of their workplace? What can learning executives do to meet the needs of superlearners and to harness their energy?

The hip answer to the issue of superlearner frustration is the following: they have to function within a stultifyingly boring, cubicle-based, command-and-control environment in which their voice is not heard or their accomplishments not acknowledged. While we may agree that learning takes place best in a non-intimidating and engaging environment (recent research in cognitive science provide pretty compelling evidence for this), our experience is much more nuanced than that. Kids are soaking up TED talks (lectures, really) and iPads are passive, consumer devices. But TED talks are really good and, more than an “i-fad,” mobile devices do remove barriers to access.

A workplace that jumps to the other extreme – unlimited freedom, unfettered creativity, unbridled enthusiasm for every idea, no matter what its value, is just, well, bad teaching. Superlearners find (and contribute to) the sweet spot of independence and obligation; creativity and grunt work; enthusiasm and skepticism. They have to feel, most of all, that they have contributed to the structure itself (2 days in the office, 3 days out; a structure of feedback and discipline that creates a sense of duty and play, for example). Executives would be well served, then, to come out and ask the question to their staff: “How do you learn best?” Stay away from questions having to do with productivity. Let sales go through the roof because people multiply your executive brain.

Finally, collaboration is not necessarily the answer to every issue – communication is. Sometimes we cannot possibly learn when there are others around, or even (God forbid) when we have to share everything. Though I believe our products must be shared, collaboration for super learning has its place. For me, it is at the initial brainstorm stage and then – when it matters. But don’t turn it into a mantra.

What types of social or informal learning opportunities do you have in place that you feel can potentially meet the needs of superlearners?

I am not a fan of “team-building” exercises. The Geico commercial says it all (A trust exercise involving the clueless executive falling backward, expecting the hapless gecko to catch him). But I have also learned the hard way that superlearning is falls apart when we, as an organization take ourselves too seriously, when we consider teaching and learning so hallowed, so revered that we may lose the human dimension. We know this well – that we can become superlearners when we’re having fun or when we blow off the next session at the conference and go out to lunch with someone we’ve just met who, it ends up, can really, really teach us. After all, we go to museums to find a muse. Superlearning often happens when no one is looking…or even trying.