Dear
Friends and Colleagues,
TEACHING
PEACE: THE TASK FORCE
Some
years ago a German theologian, Dr Horst Laubner, gave me a copy of Professor
Samuel P. Huntingdon's 'Clash of Civilisations' as a farewell gift.
This has been a famously provocative book: encouraging many to believe
that massive global conflict is unavoidable. Some apparently believe
it started long ago.
Dr Laubner became a teacher: not of theology,
but of German literature and his first love, drama. As the director
of their annual play, he is a notorious ogre to his students. They may
hate or love him for it, but they obey him. He takes them out of themselves,
takes them, in essence, out of the bondage of their identities, and
every year they give entrancing performances to audiences from all around
their town of Metzingen in Southern Germany. I treasure the memory of
just three of these and I wish I had seen them all. Stephen Spielberg
could teach Horst Laubner nothing!
Long and late one evening, he and I talked about
the spiritual responsibility of teachers for their pupils. We believe
that all teachers have this duty of care, although some, perhaps many,
may say: Oh, no! Only the teachers with official responsibility need
be concerned with that.
We disagreed; and in memory of our agreement,
he had written a short sentence from his most recent play on the flyleaf
of Sam Huntingdon's book.
The play had been 'Im Weissen Rössl', a
rollicking operetta, banned by the Nazis in their time, of course, because
its author was Jewish, about a mythical Austrian inn-keeper, the host
of 'Little White Horse' - which does exist, incidentally, in a small
town in Upper Austria - his operatic daughter and her love affairs.
But this sentence, "Das Geschäft ist
richtig," would have a rather different meaning to us from the
one any audience would hear.
Let me supply for you the proper emphasis: 'This
work is right'.
The details of the play, however, I remembered
only later and very slowly. Instead, I was reminded of the doomed German
student movement of the early 1940s that called itself Die Weisse Rose,
the White Rose. In 1942 these young people, with one of their professors,
tried to protest against Hitler and his disastrous war. All the leaders
were quickly arrested, and all were executed in 1943. Amongst them was
a heroic young woman, the youngest of their leaders: Sophie Magdalena
Scholl.
Horst will forgive me if I confess that I had
forgotten that he had written - and even what he had written. I had
intended only to check another entirely unimportant reference.
He continued: "This sentence binds us all
in many ways: in the work of dramatic expression; especially in its
interplay with metaphysics: with the Spirit".
And at her trial Sophie had insisted: "Somebody,
after all, had to make a start. What we wrote and said is also believed
by many others. They just don't dare express themselves as we did."
Such spirit is all the more impressive when
confronting such evil and violence with firm resolve - and with better
ideas. "The ink of the scholars," said Mohammed "is worth
more than the blood of martyrs." Would he have imagined a time
when scholars would put an end to scholarship? And yet what do these
strange synchronicities, doubly peculiar in forming themselves around
missed prompts and mistaken reminiscences, tell us about our lives,
about ourselves?
'Somebody, after all, has to make a start.'
I want now to invite all of my friends, colleagues, and contacts, however
distant, to join another non-violent movement with a similar purpose
to that of young Sophie and her friends. Its purpose will be to try
to stop the next war: by providing the world with 'better ideas'.
There are dangers in this, obviously - interfering
with entrenched power is always dangerous - but the dangers to us are
far less than those faced by the White Rose. We cannot be shuffled into
prison. We will not be tortured. We will not face a judge with our sentence
already decided - and we will not be guillotined. Their trial was in
secret, whilst every noise that we make can be heard around the world.
Even if we succeed only in being heard, perhaps
this will cause others to pause and think. And this alone may reduce
this 'clash of civilisations' from being the most violent in history
to become instead a triumph of humanity; of wisdom; of the Spirit that
Horst invokes over mindless tribalism, stupidity, hatred, killing, and
death.
Although rarely quoted, this was Huntingdon's
hope as well. He declares it, unfortunately, only in his final paragraph;
that: "The futures of both peace and Civilisation [he means of
us all] depend on understanding and cooperation among the political,
spiritual, and intellectual leaders of the world's major civilisations."
But he does not say how both may be achieved.
Ten years ago my colleague, Dr Hartmut Köhler, and I began work
in this direction when we directed a two-year study for the European
Union Commission for Education. Its title was: "Mathematics Teaching
and Democratic Education" and you can still request its published
proceedings from him - in English, German, or Spanish - at the Stuttgart
Landesinstitut für Erziehung und Unterricht, LEU: that is, my translation,
the Stuttgart Institute for Development and Education.
Our intention then was to show that the simplest
way to help young people to learn critical and constructive thinking
is through helping them learn mathematics properly: which means from
directed, but informal, multi-dimensional class discussion, rather than
from a teacher's formal, usually linear, instruction.
I had previously suggested that this link with
democracy has been long neglected, and so we felt our title was correct.
We were subsequently delighted to discover that independent research
directed by Professor Eva Vásárhelyi of the University
of Budapest, one of Europe's foremost authorities in mathematical didactics,
had found this method to be the most effective in all schools at all
levels.
So, School Boards, please take note! In mathematics
education, this is not only the most effective in increasing student
understanding, it is also the least expensive, by reducing student failure,
year repetitions, and dropping-outs!
Since then, slowly but surely, we have found
more allies. In America, Professor Hani Khoury, of Mercer University
in Georgia, insists on calling our approach the Socratic Methodology,
because it can be used in many other subjects. It is being developed
with government support in Germany, where Dr Köhler is now working
with teachers in over 50 schools. To support them and their classes,
he and his colleagues have collected four volumes of problems suited
this to this approach of learning through open, critical discussion.
Copies may be ordered, in English, from his Stuttgart office at: post@hartmutkoehler.de.
Earlier this year Professors Vásárhelyi,
Khoury, and I were invited to address the Qatar Foundation's 2006 Symposium
on Innovations in Education. Our various explanations of the value of
the Socratic Methodology were very well received. My own contribution
was a program, called 'Evaluating Change', to introduce this approach
into secondary schools without disruption over a five to six year period.
During this Symposium the proposal was made
to form a number of 'task forces' to develop the innovations we had
discussed and to report on their progress in the 2008 Symposium. In
addition to this, I have now been invited to contribute to the early
planning of the Haberman Foundation in the United States.
Its aim is the creation of a forum of 'world-class
thinkers' to begin the process (quote): 'of reforming education in every
country in the world, by bringing programs, products and human compassion
together in one room every one or two years".
Its draft agenda may be found in EducationNews.org
under the title: 'Learning, Listening, and Understanding'. The first
meeting of this forum is also being planned for 2008. It should be an
exciting year!
But both of these are very major initiatives.
On a far smaller scale, I have offered to conduct a number of informal
meetings in London next year, under the friendly aegis of the Next Century
Foundation (www.ncfpeace.org), of which I am an honorary senior member,
and for which I am already sending personal invitations. (Be warned,
however, that whilst I can perfectly well invite you, I cannot afford
to pay your expenses! This Institute is extremely ecological. It functions
on love alone.)
Finally, and most recently, I have realised
that this approach to learning mathematics offers a much more direct
expression of that Spirit that my friend Horst referred to.
Open, thoughtful discussion of mathematics can
also be understood as a very effective moral education: one that combines
the fundamental moral principles of the three major religions - precisely
those, paradoxically, which many now believe are preparing to meet in
a final Armageddon.
Let me sketch its outline for you.
Judaism contributes our respect of one guiding
Spirit, prompting the history of man's discoveries in mathematics and
the sharing of its powers.
Islam insists that we must seek to understand
and serve this Spirit through our own personal honesty and sincerity:
and children are born with both.
Christianity's demand is most difficult: telling
us we must love our enemies.
In an essay called 'Teaching Peace' - published by EducationNews.org
on November 4th - I explained how all three principles can be taught
together to children, entirely naturally, in their mathematics lessons.
Children may even find it surprising that a universal guiding Spirit
can will into existence several thousand religions and a hundred or
more non-religions. If honesty, sincerity, and intelligence are our
guides, the Clash of Civilisation should be perfectly impossible.
If you have managed to read this far - thank
you. I want then to invite you to register your interest in a non-violent
task force to develop and use these ideas; to be prepared to report
to the next Qatar Symposium, or to the Haberman Foundation forum in
2008; or simply to collaborate with other educationalists world-wide,
reporting progress in EducationNews.
The simplest way for me to do this is to send
this invitation to everyone my computer has ever registered over the
past ten years. Then I shall also ask EducationNews to publish this
proposal for me world-wide.
Forgive me, if none of this attracts you. If,
on the other hand, you would like to take part, please signal your interest
first by reading 'Teaching Peace' in EducationNews.org - and then by
leaving your comment, or your criticism, together with your email address.
Sincerely,
Colin Hannaford.
