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| Children working together to clean up and beautify their communities |
Dr. Katrien Beeckman, Head, Principles & Values Department, International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies presented her address at the International Conference on Migration and Multicultural Education. Seoul National University, Korea, in July 2012. She proceeded, after observing humankind's need, to focus on solutions that include values-based education and curriculum.
Beeckman went on to point out that “We need to nurture a mindset that:
- is critical, including self-critical,
- is open and curious or welcoming and celebrating diversity as a source of learning, adventure and joy,
- can engage in a constructive dialogue and look for creative solutions to problems with others rather than camp on its position, focus on differences and blow things into dangerous and unhealthy proportion.”
The solution to the fear and lack of understanding comes from values-based education, that a number of groups are focusing upon in order to affect change in a good way. While some people are involved in tearing down institutions, other people are looking toward building and bettering their communities. Beeckman is one of those individuals who looks toward that better way, as she advances education that helps people learn how to understand and work together cooperatively in ways that teach skills that are people and solution oriented.
Besides learning how to get along and to get past fear, countries also need innovators, as Forbes article underlines is important for the United States. The writer tells us how creating innovators is critical to education, so that society moves ahead and has good leadership as well. So combined with values-based education. children learn how to work together peacefully, help others, master basic skills and obtain information that fosters innovation.
Religious groups have schools where they teach basic skills and values related to principles of faith. Often, however, what is missing is the application of those values in ways where students actually accomplish something in the community where there are specific needs. In sedentary classrooms children have instruction in language, math, sciences, and the arts but seldom take that learning into their neighborhoods, where they can actually see how applying knowledge can bring positive change.
One of the groups actively pursuing values-based education are the Baha'is. They have developed a framework that brings the child directly from the classroom into the community where they work on projects that can help that community. They learn how to read, measure, outline, develop and implement ideas in teams or groups with leadership that moves through the activities to the final completed projects. Their projects have been successful in many places throughout the world. The film Frontiers of Learning provides an overview of their programs.
Whether it is the homeless child on the streets of Egypt or the middle-class child in a suburban area of a major city, young people are seen as falling behind morally, spiritually and practically, while those who believe in empowerment understand that how we think about a child becomes the message he or she will follow. That means if we judge a child as someone who has little value or whose behavior and attitudes are so outside of what we judge to be good or of value, then that judgment fosters the negative for the child's future. Empowering, values-educators tell us, means a vision of every child as having hope, purpose, accomplishment and the mission to serve others.
