A New Global Education

Commentary

One of the greatest challenges is transforming educational theories into effective practices in the classroom.  On one hand it is wonderful and necessary to strive to introduce concepts of peace and self exploration into schools.  On the other hand is the classroom reality – teachers are already burdened with the challenge of implementing prescribed curriculum and teaching students what they need to know for examinations. There are numerous examples worldwide of teachers who have been introduced to student centered pedagogies yet are not implementing them.  We need to look at why these gaps exist between theory and practice.

While they strive to be universal, some of the theories and ideas presented in A New Global Education are very distant from the educational realities worldwide. What A New Global Education calls for is a paradigm shift.  I believe that a simple shift in outlook and purposes to the big picture behind why we are educating can be used to inspire and guide educators worldwide.  Through passion, innovation, dedication, inspiration and providing a living example, educators have and will be able to change the role of education in our world.

I introduce here schools and other initiatives that have succeeded in implementing holistic and child centered approaches to education.  Some of these schools and initiatives are in developing countries and some are here in the West.  What I have here is just a smattering of educational initiatives that stand out to me as an inspiration of what education could be.

Riane Eisler (2005:49), the creator of Partnership Education, has posed some wonderful questions about the inner workings of schools.  One challenge is that theory can often be abstracted from practice and reality. These questions serve as a guide when looking at participatory and student centered models of education.

• Are young people     treated with caring and respect?
• Do teachers act as     primarily lesson dispensers and controllers, or more as mentors and     facilitators? 
• Are students     learning to work together or must the continuously compete with one     another?
• Are they offered     the opportunity for self directed learning?
• Is education     merely a matter of teachers inserting information into young people’s     minds, or are students and teachers partners in a meaningful adventure of     exploration and learning?
• Do teachers and     staff participate in school decision-making and rule making?
• Does the     curriculum effectively teach students not only basic academic and     vocational skills but also the life skills they need to be competent and     caring citizens, workers and community members?

Living Examples

Aurobindo: Education at Auroville

http://www.auroville.org/education.htm

Auroville is an international intentional community recognized by UNESCO in South India based on Aurobindo’s vision and principles.  The aim of Auroville was to create a universal town where men and women of all countries are able to live in peace and progressive harmony, above all creeds, all politics and all nationalities.  Much devotion is given to education at Auroville. A number of educational facilities exist for both international children and local village children, often in a mixed environment.  Six schools from primary through high school exist for the children Auroville residents and seven for local Tamil children.   The aim, while working in close collaboration with the existing government educational structure, is to provide value-oriented education in an atmosphere of simplicity, beauty, joy and harmony wherein the children can develop naturally.  Auroville has created a new model of international education by educating local village children and foreign children in the same classroom.  The schools here have truly succeeded in fostering a sense of international cooperation and understanding.

Brockwood Park School, England (Krishnamurti)

http://www.brockwood.org.uk/intro/index.htm

“At Brockwood Park School we are committed to educating young people to meet life as a whole. Academic excellence is absolutely necessary, but equal importance is given to an ongoing inquiry into the way we live our daily lives. Many of the difficulties in today's world are the outcome of attitudes and beliefs that education for our times needs to examine. In the secure and friendly surroundings of Brockwood Park, students are encouraged to reflect on their own thoughts, feelings and actions and on those of others. Brockwood offers a setting where students and staff can learn to live and work together harmoniously and intelligently.”

CARE Pakistan

http://www.carepakistan.org/care/index.html

CARE is a progressive education endeavor in Pakistan. Today, CARE educates 86,000 children in a total of 171 CARE adopted schools.

City Montessori School, Lucknow India

www.cmseducation.org

CMS is the world’s largest Montessori school with over 30,000 students.  They received UNESCO’s prize for peace education in 2002.  The nonprofit private school was opened in by Dr. and Mrs. Jagdish Gandhi 1959 with five students. Devout Gandhians, the couple wanted the school to be an instrument for imparting values of universal brotherhood and the cultivation of virtues. CMS creates a climate of encouragement to facilitate all-around development of every child and trains them in high moral and ethical values.  CMS believes that ordinary children can develop in extraordinary ways when provided the right environment, motivation, and care.

Findhorn Foundation & Community

http://www.findhorn.org/home_new.php

The Findhorn Community was founded in 1962 in Scotland. Today the Findhorn Foundation is the central educational and organizational heart of a widely diversified community of several hundred people, spanning dozens of holistic businesses and initiatives, all linked by a shared positive vision for humanity and the earth, and a commitment to the deep and practical non-doctrinal spirituality established in the Findhorn Community by its founders. Its work is based on the values of planetary service, co-creation with nature and attunement to the divinity within all beings. “We believe that humanity is engaged in an evolutionary expansion of consciousness, and seek to develop new ways of living infused with spiritual values. We have no formal creed or doctrine. We recognise and honour all the world's major religions as the many paths to knowing our own inner divinity”.

Global Education Associates

http://www.globaleduc.org/

GEA's mission is to advance global systems that will secure ecological integrity, peace, human rights, economic and social well-being, and democratic participation, with special care to include the voices and perspectives of poor and marginalized people and of diverse cultural and religious traditions.

The Goldie Hawn Bright Light Foundation

http://www.brightlightfoundation.net/greetings.html

The goal of the Bright Light foundation is to help young people create and live more compassionate, responsible and joyful lives. The foundation works in three areas: classroom education with teachers, community education with parents, and in healthcare institutions.  The mission of the foundation is to untie scientists and educators to develop tools that improve students’ attention skills for learning and social-emotional competence.

Hyde Schools

Http://www.hyde.edu

The philosophy of the Hyde schools is that every student, every parent, and every teacher is meant to connect with a deep and special purpose in life. At Hyde, character development is the key to unlocking that purpose.  The Hyde school was founded by Joseph Gauld, a highly regarded mathematics teacher, who was inspired to open a unique school because he believed that the existing educational system was overly focused on student achievement rather than character. The school began with a focus on Five Words: Courage, Integrity, Leadership, Curiosity, and Concern, and the cardinal principle that every individual was born with a unique potential that defines a destiny. Hyde School is a unique 9–12 college preparatory boarding school, and a national leader in character education. Hyde has two private school campuses in the Northeast US and three public charter schools.

InnerKids Foundation

http://www.innerkids.org/

Founded in 2001, InnerKids is a national leader in teaching Mindful Awareness to children in pre-K through middle school. Mindful Awareness is a state of present attention in which one observes thoughts, feelings, emotions and events at the moment they occur without reacting to them in an automatic or habitual way. InnerKids’ Mindful Awareness activities take into account children’s developmental differences, train focused attention and awareness, and acknowledge clarity and compassion as part of the process of becoming more attentive and aware.

Oak Grove School, California (Krishnamurti)

http://www.oakgroveschool.com/

Oak Grove School offers innovative early childhood, elementary, junior high school programs, a college-preparatory high school, and a family-style boarding program all nourished by the educational vision of its founder, philosopher and educator J. Krishnamurti. Small classes in a natural environment are guided by experienced teachers who encourage discovery and inquiry while supporting exceptional academic, creative and personal growth.

Peace Education Center – Teachers College – Columbia University

http://www.tc.edu/PeaceEd/spiritethic/index.htm

Shikshantar – The People’s Institute for Rethinking Education and Development – Udaipur, Rajasthan, India

http://www.swaraj.org/shikshantar/

Shikshantar is “an applied research institute dedicated to catalyzing radical systemic transformation of education in order to facilitate Swaraj-development throughout India”.  Swaraj is based on Gandhi’s concept of self rule which centers on self sustainability. Shikshantar uses the city Udaipur as a learning city and challenges us to rethink the meaning of education and development.

Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education

http://www.sriaurobindosociety.org.in/subnav/educentr.htm

The Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education was Aurobindo’s first major experiment in education.  Founded 1952 in Pondicherry India, the school has been open to students from around the world since its inception.  The school currently serves 1200 students from kindergarten through the university level.  It is one of the most respected schools in the region. Pupils pay no fees at the Centre of Education - once admitted, the education is free.

The school blends Aurobindo’s philosophies with the British model of education. The format of the Centre of Education is based on Aurobindo’s concepts of Free Progress and integral education. The school strives to organize an environment and an atmosphere affording inspiration and facilities for the exercise and development of the five essential aspects of personality: the physical, the vital, the mental, the psychic and the spiritual.  The aim of the school is to help the child, as he reaches adolescence with its accompanying growth in awareness and maturity, to assume more responsibility for educating himself, so that he may find within himself the lines of his own development. Close observation and a continuous assessment of the child’s activities, as well as individual contact between teacher and student, eliminate the necessity of using examinations as a tool to evaluate progress.  The Centre of Education emphasizes the unity of all knowledge and to attempts to bring humanities and science closer together into a real sense of unity for the benefit of both.

Sudbury Valley School

http://www.sudval.org/

Sudbury Valley School and its affiliated schools provide a setting in which students are independent, are trusted, and are treated as responsible people; and a community in which students are exposed to the complexities of life in the framework of a participatory democracy. Students of all ages determine what they will do, as well as when, how, and where they will do it. This freedom is at the heart of the school.  Sudbury schools are found throughout the United States and worldwide.

Third Millennium Foundation

http://www.seedsoftolerance.org/initiative_tmf_center.html

International Center for Tolerence Education: A Do Tank for Social Entrepreneurs

University for Peace

http://www.upeace.org/

Headquartered in Costa Rica, the United Nations-mandated University for Peace was established in December 1980.  The mission of the University of Peace is to “provide humanity with an international institution of higher education for peace with the aim of promoting among all human beings the spirit of understanding, tolerance and peaceful coexistence, to stimulate cooperation among peoples and to help lessen obstacles and threats to world peace and progress, in keeping with the noble aspirations proclaimed in the Charter of the United Nations”. The university focuses its rigorous academic program on the fundamental causes of conflict through a multidisciplinary, multicultural-oriented approach.

US Institute for Peace – Education Sector

http://www.usip.org/ed/index.html

The Education program of the United States Institute of Peace seeks to address the needs of educators, students, scholars, international affairs practitioners, and the public to understand the complexities of international conflicts.

Resources

Borg, Carmel and Mayo, Peter. (2006).  Learning and social difference: challenges for public education and critical pedagogy.  Boulder: Paradigm Publishers.

Musil, Caryn McTighe.  (2006). Assessing global learning: matching good intentions with good practice.  Washington, DC: Association of American Colleges and Universities.

Noddings, N. (1992) The Challenge To Care In Schools: An Alternative Approach to Education, Teachers College Press, Columbia University, New York.

UNESCO. (2002).   Best Practices on Non-Violent Conflict Resolution in & out of school: Some Examples.  Paris, France: Antonella Verdiani, ed.

UNESCO. (1997). Thinkers in Education: Studies in Comparative Education Series.  Paris: UNESCO Publishing.  http://www.ibe.unesco.org/publications/thinkers.htm.

Wonderful resource highlighting 100     educational thinkers profiled.