Keynote address delivered by Dr. Richard Schneider as Convener of the International Consortium on Embracing Peace Education at Martin Luther University in Shillong (Northeast) India on November 6, 2010
This is the first day of the rest of our lives:
Let us create a blueprint for peace through education.
Your Excellency… Martin Luther Christian University hosts, distinguished and esteemed guests, participants from India and abroad, students, and peace workers, we invite you to join us on the exciting journey that we are about to undertake together.
As the Convener, with my Co-convener beside me, we warmly welcome you to the International Peace Education Consortium.
I want to personally thank each of you for coming to this beautiful place to participate in this one-of-a-kind event.
We, together, stand at a remarkable time in the human and planetary drama of our Earth and in our relationship to one another. We are seeing old ways and systems fall away but which have not yet been fully supplanted with adequate replacements. We are on the cusp of an exciting adventure to embrace and address the peace and education possibilities of our time. We are co-creators here to discover how we can work together in the best way. It is a wonderful time to be alive as we have the future ahead and can mold and shape our new vision in the best way for our children and for ourselves if we have the will, values, determination and energy.
We must yet reassess and correct some of our learned premises about each other and the world. We still have some of the mantras of the past that are no longer relevant and do not fit today’s world views. Our consciousness exists in our inner being.
There is also the outer way where we project our thoughts and values through our institutions and programs. An alignment is accomplished through education by the examination and redefinition of our belief and value systems.
We must free ourselves from the restrictiveness of our past beliefs. We must remove the blinders that we have become accustomed to and that we are often not even aware of.
War, or any other violent behavior, is not genetically programmed into human nature. Warfare has changed so radically that we know war is a product of culture. Biology does not condemn humanity to aggression. The same species that invented war is equally capable of inventing peace.
What about all the differences that seem to exist? There seem to be so many. There are differences among people, nations, and values. We must embrace the fact that differences are part of the very core of the solution if we will grasp the opportunity for growth. When we work with differences and find the relationship of the difference to the whole we can begin to understand another’s view without accepting it.
When I personally met the Dalai Lama in Costa Rica some years ago, he said to me “War is obsolete, you know. Of course, the mind can rationalize fighting back but the heart, the heart would never understand. Then you would be divided in yourself, the heart and mind, and the war would be inside of you.”
Mahatma Gandhi said: “Your beliefs become your thoughts. Your thoughts become your words. Your words become your actions. Your actions become your habits. Your habits become your values. Your values become your destiny.” “If we are to have real peace, we must begin with the children.” “Listen to your inner voice…and become the change you wish to see.”
What place does education have in this world view? Education is a very strong force in shaping values and in bringing together traditions and innovation. Education, to be effective and useful in today’s world, must be democratic, sustainable, holistic, and experiential. Additionally, we must respect and draw on the resources of cultural and individuals, groups and organizations to discover each of their special talents and potential contributions.
Rabindranath Tagore said “Don’t limit a child to your own learning for he was born in another time”. He also said “The highest education is that which does not merely give us information but makes our life in harmony with all existence”. And finally “You can’t cross the sea by merely standing and staring at the water”. It is action that is called for, creative and dynamic movement forward, and the implementation of our ideals into concrete action. We cannot afford to stand and stare at the water.
Rodrigo Carazo, former President of Costa Rica and co-founder of the United Nations University for Peace, and a long time dear and trusted friend, said “If you want peace you must educate for peace”. Costa Rica is the only country in the world to abolish its army by public vote and then use the money to build schools. Even today Costa Rica stands as the model and example of what can be done for peace education.
Dr. Robert Muller, Rodrigo’s co-founder of the United nations University for Peace, spent 38 years in highest level positions at the United Nations, died just a few weeks ago at age 87. Dr. Muller said: “Peacemakers perform the most advanced cosmic function. They are the ultimate instruments and fulfillment of the divine nature. This is why in all religions they are considered the highest, the most beloved, the saints, the immortals.”
I especially like what he said to me some years ago as we were sitting together on his Bench of Dreams in Costa Rica, “Do not let grass grow on the path to happiness. Use that path as often as you can.” Robert became known as “The Prophet of Peace” as well as “The Father of Global Education”.
There is a somewhat dated saying which was true for a very long time: think globally, act locally. The fact is in today’s world we must turn this to mean that we must think and act both globally and locally at the same time. The interconnectedness is everywhere. The fact is that what we do here and what we do when we return from where we came with our actions, choices and decisions will have an impact far beyond what we can reason. Albert Einstein said “The splitting of the atom has changed everything but our way of thinking. We need a whole new way of thinking if we are to survive.” “A human being is part of the whole, called by us the ‘Universe’. He experiences himself (herself). His thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest- a kind of optical illusion of his consciousness. Our task is to be free from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty”.
In today’s world we simply must think globally and internationally and integrate these values as part of our daily life. We must all become global citizens in thought and action as our interdependence is evident in all we do. There are very few faraway places any more. Instant communication and travel have made the planet small. The interdependency of cultures, national identity and ideological belief systems must be reviewed and revised. For too long, we have allowed belief forms to divide and separate us in the most divisive of ways.
The reasoning that we have dominion over the Earth is both antiquated and wrong. As long as we must think we have dominion over the earth or each other, we will only have separation and division. This is one of our great weaknesses that must be corrected if we are to have sustainable and peaceful human relationships.
We must develop true partnerships with each other and with the Planet. We do not own the Planet any more than we own our children as our property. Both are on loan to us for the purpose of developing our consciousness in this workshop of life. These are gifts for our own growth and development as caring, giving and happy individuals determined to become part of a better world for all.
The German poet and novelist Wolfgang Van Goethe once said “Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world”. We spend our days waiting for the ideal path to appear in front of us, but we forget that paths are made by walking, not waiting. A Buddhist proverb says: “If we are facing in the right direction all we have to do is keep on walking”.
Democracy needs education, and education needs democracy. If we want a healthy democracy, we must have citizen involvement; and to get it we need to start with our children. A community certainly uses resources, organizes and regulates itself, maintains balances among competing interests, and must co-exist with the rest of the community. If democracy is the natural state of all living things, then democracy in the classroom- not unrestricted freedom, but freedom with responsibility- is the only healthy way to educate.
We must support the improvement of the justice system especially at the local and state level. We must encourage the democratic process wherever it is found and strengthen it where it is weak. We must aggressively tackle the issue of corruption and deceit at every level and smooth the playing field for every segment of society. In our daily lives, we can think and feel peace within ourselves. We can treat each other with kindness and consideration, and we can live according to our own highest ideals and values.
What is our intent for the next three days? First, we come together as colleagues and friends to share our positive experiences and to generate new ideas and forms.
We are here to collectively examine existing models for peace in our time. We are here to explore with each other how to extend these models into operational frameworks across culture, language, and beliefs. Models without action are simply like air without moisture, a meal without food.Secondly, we come together to build new models and think through how to implement and distribute those new models into working forms. Buckmeister Fuller, one of the great futurist thinkers in the last century, observed that we don’t create real change by fighting existing structures, but by building new structures that are more attractive and functional. Then the old structures die of simple neglect.
We must create a new system which will have a bold new mission – helping families and communities raise and educate healthy, capable young people. It will be a locus of child advocacy and its loyalty would be the well-being of children, families, communities, and the planet, rather than to administration, curriculum or political correctness. The systems would be an integral part of the community, not a separate entity.
Throughout, we need to re-envision who our learners are. In times of drastic change – which will be with us the rest of our lives – “students” will be everyone. We must all gain, enhance and maintain new skills and cooperative, peaceful efforts if we are to succeed in living the lives and creating the future we hope for. We must discard the notion that education is a one way street from teacher or professor to student. This will not be an easy task, even though it will be essential to create the new thinking required of each of us.
Third, for those who wish to go further, we will launch a permanent democratic forum that will create its own energy and direction through an active working body of dedicated individuals and organizations that will be recognized through IGE’s ECOSOC status at the United Nations.
With this forum we can create and develop strategies and cooperative projects in close consultation and partnerships with each other.
We are at a stage of human history where vision, compassion, communication and creativity are far more important than traditional literacy. Re-envisioning what learning is about and redesigning our school systems will provide the single most powerful avenue available to help us navigate an uncertain future. We then help create the kind of future our children and grandchildren deserve.
There are many practical things we can do in our daily lives and with each other to further our intentions of peace. We must re-evaluate and overcome the dangers and consequences of aggressive and intolerant nationalism. This does not mean giving up our culture. In fact, giving up the negatives and concentrating on the positives in nationalism strengthens our very cultural identification and values. We must search for and strengthen social harmony and stand up against discrimination of every kind. Discrimination in all its forms must go.
Dr. Robert Muller said: “The word foreigner should be abolished from the languages of the world. We are all Earth inhabitants, not foreigners. Young people sometimes call foreigners ‘internationals’. That is already a progress.”
We stand on the cusp of a new worldview which is already underway. This view must be formed, taught and learned by all of us; parents, teachers, families, and the community. We simply cannot wait any longer. Our planet cries out in environmental desperation, our hearts cry out for the sick, destitute and hungry, the tortured and lost, the refugees, and for ourselves.
We become part of the solution or we remain part of the problem. Now we must determine, each of us, individually and collectively, to educate ourselves and others for the world we want and deserve.
A new sense of moral and spiritual values needs to be at the center of our transformation. Right now we are at drift in a sea of conflicting opinions and valueless choices, and we are about to drown in that sea unless we awaken to a new sense of value and responsibility.
The task before us, you and me, is awesome in scope and complexity. We are up to the task if we believe that we are. It is not just for survival but rather for the restoration and improvement of a peaceful humanity and the planet. Education can chart the way from the past, to the present and into the future. Together we will build a better world with an educated and committed citizenry in concert with our living earth. Work is already underway, here and elsewhere, so let us go forward hand in hand, heart to heart. We ask you become full participating partners in this common effort.
Let us take this pledge and give it to our children as a gift: “I am a Peace Builder; I pledge to build peace. I pledge to give up put-downs, to right wrongs, to seek wise people, to help those in need, and to heal differences. I pledge to build peace at home, at school and in my community, every single day.”
