It
takes a village to raise a child
How to support diversity in Europe - EFC Athens
Athens July 1st 2004
Ladies and gentlemen, an
African saying tells us: It takes a village to raise child. Our society has the
mission to take care of the next generation. We offer children the tools to
take part in our complex society. Besides that children and young people need
to learn what it means to be a member of a community. That they have rights
and responsibilities. That society depends on them for the future.
A society which neglects
that mission will end up in chaos. This view seems to be an open door to
people who are involved in education but I want to express the enormous
responsibility of the European foundations to support educational projects on
diversity. By the way, diversity is not always a blessing. It means also more
conflicts of different interest and values and the difficult balance of
power. So diversity needs more communication and clarification of cultures
and behavior.
In the last years, we can
see in the European societies a change of attitudes towards migrants and
minorities. After nine eleven and the war against terrorism, we see that the
conflict in the Middle East is now revealing in our cities of Western Europe.
The result is islamofobia as well as anti-Semitism in all kind of different
fields of society. We know from experience that conflicts between ethnic
groups, between Us and Them, provide also conflicts in the educational
system.
Some teachers of mixed
schools in the Netherlands dare not pay attention to the history of the Shoa
because the classroom will change in chaos of dispute about the actual policy
of the state of Israel towards the Palestinians. Recently our organization
did some qualitative research on the issue of anti Semitism in mixed
classroom and made recommendations for teachers how to discuss these problems
of history and present. Some students showed pictures of Mr. Sharon with a
Hitler moustache. Information and reflection convinced them that this action
was very inappropriate, although you can agree with the actual policy of the
government of Israel. We conclude that conflicts as such are no problem, how
to resolve them in a non-violent and respectful way in the classroom, that is
the question. People have enormous experience in resolving conflicts in a
peaceful way. We should use this experience and educate the tools for the
school and youth work are places of exercising behaviour and attitudes in
order to create new perspectives.
All over Europe politicians
are calling for tolerance and respect. But at the same time some of them are
threatening the lives of migrants and minorities by making laws and rules
that represent the hard line of integration, which means adaptation and
assimilation to the dominant society. I have no opinion about their
intentions but I can see that the outcome of their strong approach is
disintegration.
The second and third
generation of migrants feel themselves more and more like strangers in the country
in which they were born. One young Dutch woman of Moroccan origin woman said
to me last week: “Sir, after nine eleven this country does not feel like home
for me anymore”. The blame of a small group of violators, who is making a
horrible joke of Islam, is put on the whole migrant population. There seems
to be no room in the mass media for voices of people who want to work on
peace from their religion. And this mechanism of the scapegoat has enormous
effect on our society. It strengthened the hostility and hate of the
fundamentalists against the dominant society. And on the other hand it
strengthened the prejudices and hatred towards minorities and migrants.
We badly need educational projects
in Europe in which integration means participation. If we ask minorities in
Europe to respect the basics of freedom and democracy, we have to invite and
challenge them to share these. We need to share our history and our different
cultures, for sharing these means also sharing European citizenship. We know
from experience that sharing our cultures and history will support us too to
understand our society in the present.
Our organization Peace
Education Projects has some answers to actual social tensions and challenges.
We do not have the final answers but we have a lot of experiences over the
last ten years in the Netherlands and about seven other European countries
like France, Belgium, Spain, Italy, N-Ireland and Russia. Our French partner
NGO, Ecole de la Pain in Grenoble, developed interactive material based on
our interactive exhibitions in Rwanda. At the moment we prepare with them an
interactive project in Colombia.
In 2000 we received for
these activities in the field of intercultural education the European Evens
Award by the Evens Foundation in Antwerp.
We use a simple definition
of Peace. When people take care for each other and the earth, there is a
situation of peace. When youngsters share their hopes and perspectives, there
is a situation of peace. When children resist bullying, unmask prejudices and
support other children, there is a situation of peace. Such definitions bring
peace into the world of children and young people. They can practice it every
day at home, in school, on the street.
We see ourselves as
instrument – makers, not as architects. We want to give children tools, not
readymade houses. The big advantage of this strategy is that children learn
to handle peace tools that are important for their whole life.
We don’t want to teach
children WHAT to think. We teach them to think by themselves. Children and
young people need to practice dialogue and debate. A democracy in which
diversity and respect prevail, need people to discuss its limits every day.
Our
organization is specialized in the development of tools to teach and
to learn peace. These tools result in educational software, video films,
musical projects and interactive exhibitions. The
activities are aimed at pupils and teachers in education, youth work and the
whole community.
We developed an interactive
methodology in the field of prejudices, the scapegoat phenomenon, tolerance
and diversity. In this learning process, three aspects are involved:
Knowledge
(to
know, to be aware) Information
Skill (to
act, to be able to) Exercise
Attitude (to
want, to relate to) Performance
Knowledge and skills are not enough. You can know what a prejudice is
about, you are able to make a difference between a fact or an opinion, but
you also need the desire and attitude to respect other people.
Knowledge and skill can be reached at the short term, attitude is
something of the long run. It is very difficult to influence because we need
a village to raise a child and yet we live in a Global Village. Social values
cannot be developed and adopted in a short campaign for they appeal to our
basic emotions of fear, security, trust and hope. It takes time, rehearsal,
and role models to identify.
A few months ago we
presented a new interactive exhibition: The Peace Factory in the Netherlands.
In July we present a bilingual German – Dutch version which will travel
trough the Euregio. In this factory you will find 15 machines. For instance:
the tolerance monitor, the violence wheel, the scapegoat mill, the freedom
keeper, the power selector and the lie detector. The visitors are producing
peace and freedom. The workers discover the limits of tolerance, the rules of
freedom and the many different ways of conflict resolving. The metaphor of
the factory implies an active attitude. The visitors make choices, are doing
exercises and clarify their opinions.
The connection between war and peace, past and present, has been made
visible in the peace factory. But during their stay in the factory the participants
will discover, it deals all about themselves, their values and behaviour.
What makes the interactive exhibitions in so many countries to a
success? From research of the universities of Utrecht, Moscow and Belfast we
can present you the following conclusions:
The pupils
-
Experience learning as a
pleasure.
-
Can handle facts, opinions
and prejudices.
-
Improve their attitude
towards the scapegoat phenomenon.
-
Learn effective by
interaction with peers.
-
Can mention perspectives of
peace in daily context.
-
Like “learning by doing”.
-
Clarify and communicate
social values.
-
Exercice multi - intelligence
tools.
-
Can participate with
various learning styles.
(cognitive, affective, artistic,
physical)
-
Experience themselves as a
part of social problem as well as a part of the solution.
The
teachers
-
Are mediators and partners
in learning.
-
Co-operate in research
instead of transforming information.
-
Like to teach pupils that
find learning a pleasure.
-
Experience more
satisfaction in their profession.
-
Educate children to think
by themselves.
-
Communicate and clarify
social values.
-
Exercise all human
potentials in problem solving.
-
Mention that the learning
process has a positive effect on social context.
The interactive methodology
-
Contains different learning
concepts as an answer to diversity.
-
Has a non-moralistic
approach.
-
Offers innovative means of
self directed learning.
-
Have positive effects in
countries with (violent) social conflicts.
-
Presents social problems as
a challenge for all people.
-
Can be implemented to
different means like traveling exhibitions, table exhibitions, educational
software, view-boxes
-
Involve pupils and teachers
in the project from the early start.
-
Includes a process
evaluation with clear and positive objectives, target group as a source,
themes to local context.
There is an extended need among NGO’s to
improve their educational expertise. They want to share their common concerns
and their desire to make a difference in Europe. You as members of the
European Foundation Center are in the position to carry out a policy that
supports an innovative long lasting educational answer to nowadays challenges
concerning diversity.
Finally I want to share some recommendations
with you.
How European
Funders Promote Understanding and Diversity?
Foundations
should:
-
support long lasting
educational projects instead of short running campaigns.
-
arise a task force on
diversity education in Europe.
-
agree with NGO’s upon a project as business
partners.
-
facilitate educational projects in which:
·
objectives are clear and transparent
·
views on learning and teaching are innovative
·
profit and target groups are strongly involved
·
an exchange of expertise with other European
NGO’s is
foreseen.
“People want to change, but not to be
changed”. This motto of our interactive methodology is simple and effective. If you want to
learn more, I took all kind of information for you. If you visit Holland one
time, you are welcome in our center. And if you have ideas to transfer the
interactive methodology to other European countries, we solicit the favor
with all our pleasure and energy.
Thank you very much!
Utrecht, June 1 2004
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