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EDUCATING FOR A HUMAN FUTURE |
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Short Introduction: “Educating for a Human Future” is conceived of as a five-day international conference for approximately 125 youth and young adults, ages 15-30, and 25 younger educators, up to age 40, from at least 30 countries and most of the world’s major religious and secular traditions. The work of the gathering will be the sharing of ideas by participants on the nature of an optimal future for humankind and the sorts of educational experiences most likely, in their collective opinion, to lead to such a future. The overall purpose will be to stimulate the creation of more educational experiences likely to lead to a brighter future for the world’s people. The conference will be conducted in English. The Jakarta event is not intended to stand-alone. Secondary school and university-based teams have been recruited at least four months beforehand to begin developing ideas on several key questions. In addition, each team will outline a modest but potentially impactful educational experiment to be refined at the conference for implementation at their school, institute or university after their return. The conference organizers intend to provide mini-grants to support the most promising of these experiments as well as technical assistance for all of them. The conference is named for the late Dr. Varindra Tarzie Vittachi (d. 1993), award-winning journalist, author, and associate executive director of UNICEF. Although Sri Lankan, Dr. Vittachi spent considerable time in Indonesia and wrote a book in the late-60’s on Indonesian politics Proposed outcomes include: (1) a booklet on the Jakarta Youth Vision for a Human Future (multi-lingual), (2) a Jakarta Youth Declaration on Principles of Human Education (multi-lingual), (3) an anthology of Best Educational Practices as Experienced by Jakarta Conference Participants from Around the World, (4) small local teams of students and young educators prepared to initiate modest but meaningful educational reforms in their schools, universities or communities back home, (5) a brief conference video (with multi-lingual voice-overs), (6) a conference website with chatroom and related listserve for post-conference interaction by participants, and (7) technical assistance to support follow-up activities, with emphasis on local educational micro-experiments. The concept of bringing youth together from different lands, faiths, and traditions in the interest of universal ideals is as old as the Olympic Games and as new as the touring performance company Up with People. The International Christian NGO World Vision, which sponsors medical, social, and community-development programs in over 100 countries, has a June-August youth program called World Vision Peace Ambassadors. Some 50 youth, one each from 50 nations, spend twelve weeks preparing for, visiting, and later debriefing from their trip to six countries. Like Up with People, they sing, dance, and do skits, with materials from many cultures. But unlike Up with People, their repertoire includes personal narratives about growing up in poverty or amidst war. Moreover, they hold dialogues with political, community, and youth leaders; do community service; and host media conferences. The Peace Ambassadors’ mission is to exemplify and speak for cross-cultural understanding, reconciliation, mutual enrichment, and world peace. |
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BLUE SKY ASSOCIATES Catalysts for Educational Change The V.T. Vittachi International Youth Conference on “Educating for a Human Future” Conference Prospectus WHAT? A five-day international gathering of students and young educators to discuss the principles and practices which characterize a truly human education—one that can lead to an optimal future for humankind. WHERE? Jakarta, Indonesia – Hotel Atlet Century Park (Senayan district, downtown). WHEN? June 25-29, 2001. FOR WHOM? 150 young people, ages 15 to 30, representing around 20 countries will be chosen. Approximately half will be Indonesian young people, including young teachers, from Greater Jakarta THE CONTEXT? The Vittachi Youth Conference is named for the late Varindra Tarzie Vittachi, an award-winning journalist, Associate Executive Director of UNICEF, and a long-time head of the World Subud Association. Throughout his career Mr. Vittachi sought to make the world a better place for children. His last book before his death in 1993 is titled BETWEEN THE GUNS: CHILDREN AS A ZONE OF PEACE. WHY? Young people are the real experts on what does and does not work in education. Because they have the biggest stake in the future, older people need to hear their ideas about an ideal education. OUTCOMES? 2. Jakarta declaration on principles of human education. 3. Jakarta anthology of best educational practices from around the world. 4. Student projects back home to demonstrate ideas discussed at the Vittachi Conference. 5. Coordination and furthering of follow-up activities via the Internet. SPONSORS AND PARTNERS? Among sponsors and partners are the Guerrand-Hermès Foundation for Peace, Lewes, England; the Jakarta Arts Festival, 2001; The Polk Family Charitable Fund, Chicago; the Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Mary, Rome; UNESCO Jakarta; the Cita-Buana International School, Jakarta; the Jakarta International School; the Subud International Cultural Association, Spain; Hui Jia Private School, Beijing; and the World Wisdom Project, Honolulu. COST? Conference cost for participants in Greater Jakarta is Rp 300.000, covering all lunches and breaks, the banquet Thursday evening, and conference fees. (Cost for local participants wishing to take all meals with out-of-town participants is Rp 500.000.) NEXT STEPS? For more information on the Vittachi Youth Conference on EDUCATING FOR A HUMAN FUTURE, contact or to register for the international conference, please contact: Dr. Reynold Feldman, International Coordinator, E-mail: reynold22@hawaii.rr.com or Fax. (+808) 5287297 Organizing Committee in Jakarta: Jak-ArtS. Widjojo Centre, Jl. Jend. Sudirman 71, Jakarta 12190, Indonesia. |
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| CONCEPT PAPER
for “Educating for a Human Future” by Reynold Feldman, Ph.D. Executive Director, The World Wisdom Project Executive Summary “Educating for a Human Future” is conceived of as a five-day international conference for approximately 125 youth and young adults, ages 15-30, and 25 younger educators, up to age 40, from at least 30 countries and most of the world’s major religious and secular traditions. The dates have been set as June 25-29, 2001; the venue: Hotel Atlet Century Park, in the Senayan District of downtown Jakarta, the Indonesian capital. The work of the gathering will be the sharing of ideas by participants on (1) the nature of an optimal future for humankind and (2) the sorts of educational experiences most likely, in their collective opinion, to lead to (or be characteristic of) such a future. The overall purpose will be to stimulate the creation of more educational experiences likely to lead to a brighter future for the world’s people. The conference will be conducted in English.
The Jakarta event is not intended to stand alone. Secondary-school and university-based teams will be recruited at least four months beforehand to begin developing ideas on several key questions (see pp. 4-5, below). In addition, each team will outline a modest but potentially impactful educational experiment to be refined at the conference for implementation at their school, institute or university after their return. The conference organizers intend to provide mini-grants to support the most promising of these experiments as well as technical assistance for all of them.
The conference is named for the late Dr. Varindra Tarzie Vittachi (d. 1993), award-winning journalist, author, and associate executive director of UNICEF. Although Sri Lankan, Dr. Vittachi spent considerable time in Indonesia and wrote a book in the late-60’s on Indonesian politics. “Educating for a Human Future” will take place in the context of the month-long Jakarta Arts Festival, which includes education under its umbrella. This concept paper is being used to recruit sponsorship from public and private organizations including the Indonesian Ministry of Education and Culture, the Jakarta International School, the Jakarta Offices of UNESCO and UNICEF, ASEAN, the World Bank, the Council for International Educational Exchange, World Learning Inc., the World Future Society, and Rotary International, among others. It is also being shared with UNESCO Associated Schools, Ismailiya Muslim Schools, Christian Brothers (Roman Catholic) Schools, the Association of International Schools, and Ford-Foundation-funded universities worldwide, to name a few, as well as NGOs interested in such issues as world peace, interfaith understanding, international trade, and environmental and educational improvement.
Proposed outcomes will include: (1) a booklet on the Jakarta Youth Vision for a Human Future (multi-lingual), (2) a Jakarta Youth Declaration on Principles of Human Education (multi-lingual), (3) an anthology of Best Educational Practices as Experienced by Jakarta Conference Participants from Around the World, (4) small local teams of students and young educators prepared to initiate modest but meaningful educational reforms in their schools, universities or communities back home, (5) a brief conference video (with multi-lingual voice-overs), (6) a conference website with chatroom and related listserve for post-conference interaction by participants, and (7) technical assistance to support follow-up activities, with emphasis on local educational micro-experiments. History of the Concept
The concept of bringing youth together from different lands, faiths, and traditions in the interest of universal ideals is as old as the Olympic Games and as new as the touring performance company Up with People. The International Christian NGO World Vision, which sponsors medical, social, and community-development programs in over 100 countries, has a June-August youth program called World Vision Peace Ambassadors. Some 50 youth, one each from 50 nations, spend twelve weeks preparing for, visiting, and later debriefing from their trip to six countries. Like Up with People, they sing, dance, and do skits, with materials from many cultures. But unlike Up with People, their repertoire includes personal narratives about growing up in poverty or amidst war. Moreover, they hold dialogues with political, community, and youth leaders; do community service; and host media conferences. The Peace Ambassadors’ mission is to exemplify and speak for cross-cultural understanding, reconciliation, mutual enrichment, and world peace.
Another root for this concept is the so-called romantic (versus classical) approach to the education of young people. The classical approach presupposes that children are blank sheets awaiting teachers to program them with appropriate learning. The Latin educare, which gives rise to the English verb “educate,” has the literal meaning of “to feed.” (Frequently the modern term is misderived from the Latin third-conjugation verb, educere, meaning “to draw forth,” “to educe.”) A similar tradition is seen in East Asian societies, where children are also considered empty until filled by adults. The complex Chinese character meaning “to educate” contains the ideogram for filial obedience (“old” over “child”) on the left and the ideogram for “to follow” on the right. By implication the teacher deserves the same kind of filial respect and obedience as parents, pesons in authority, and other older people. He or she passes down traditional knowledge to the student. The student’s job is obediently to follow, that is, to adopt what is received without questioning.
By contrast, the romantic approach to education, from Plato through Rousseau to John Dewey and A. S. Neill, posits that children are not empty vessels waiting to be filled by parents, teachers, and other agents of the prevailing culture. Instead, every child comes hardwired, as it were, with talents and interests of its own. If this inner content is not respected–let’s say, someone with a talent for singing is forced to become an insurance salesperson–the result will be an unhappy person who is at best a mediocre insurance salesperson. Teachers must work with what is there.
There is truth to both approaches, which serve as a kind of yin and yang for one another. Obviously, babies do not arrive on the scene knowing their mother tongue, the customs of their culture, the laws of the land, or how to drive a car. All these things must be learned from older people who already know them. On the other hand, babies do arrive with dispositions, inclinations, and capacities. Furthermore, by the time children have experienced ten or more years of formal schooling, they will have gained a sense for how they learn, what materials are easiest or hardest for them to assimilate, and what sorts of teaching seems to work best for them. They will also have acquired, to some extent at least, a feeling for what is important for them to know and whether or not their formal learning programs are helping them to learn these things.
The World Wisdom Project has regard for both the classical and the romantic approaches to education. Wisdom resides both inside individuals and outside, in the words and works of the world’s cultures. Human beings learn from others–parents, teachers, peers, et. al. But they also learn from themselves. The assimilation of information and knowledge from the outside is thus an interactive process between the material and the person who is engaging it. During the 20th Century educational psychologists have discovered that individuals learn in different ways: Some are visual, some aural, some kinesthetic (hands-on) learners. Piaget and others have also shown that learning correlates with predictable human developmental stages. Young children, for example, seem incapable of understanding ironic statements. That capacity clicks in later. A further issue relating to the history of the concept underlying this conference–and project–is the anthropological distinction between beliefs and practices which are universal to humankind (termed “emic” by U.S. anthropologist Clifford Geertz) and those which are specific to certain cultures (referred to as “etic”). Concern for cleanliness, for instance, is a universal among human populations. However, the frequency, thoroughness, and style of bathing vary between and among cultures. By the same token, all human cultures are concerned that their young be educated. Individual and group survival depends on children developing a knowledge base geared to their cultural and geographical surroundings. Yet that knowledge base consists of both global components (the implications of gravity, say) and local ones (the rules governing bowing in Japan).
An international meeting on education offers participants from different countries and cultures the opportunity to sort out, to some extent at least, the universals from the particulars. When the United Nations promulgated its Declaration of Universal Human Rights, it did so on the basis that all human beings have certain basic rights by virtue of their membership in the human race. So, when young people come together to share their vision for the future, it is likely to be a place where no one goes to sleep hungry, without adequate shelter, or in fear for their life. People there will be respected, in Martin Luther King’s words, for the content of their character, not the color of their skin. There, in the famous phrases from the Judeo-Christian Bible, human beings will beat their swords into plowshares and will study war no more. Moreover, after students and young teachers describe to one another the best learning experience they can remember, they should be able to create in discussion a shared understanding of the factors making for outstanding education.
Project Background
The impetus for this project came from an international meeting of educators held in Tlaxcala, Mexico, in June-July, 1999. The meeting was called and sponsored by the Guerrand-Hermès Foundation for Peace, of Lewes, England, which is also the founding funder and sponsor of the present project. Specifically, the Tlaxcala meeting brought together educators from four innovative schools known to the Foundation: Alfragide, an immigrant-and-refugee-oriented school in Lisbon, Portugal; Cita Buana, a K-12 private school serving an international clientele in Jakarta, Indonesia; Fundación Amor, a K-12 school-cum-community-development-center serving a slum in Bogotá, Colombia; and Fundación Educativa Pestalozzi, a school serving wealthy and poor children in Quito, Ecuador, by encouraging them to find their own paths to learning. A then doctoral student, now a Ph.D., Dr. Halimah Polk had studied the four schools for her doctoral dissertation. She found the following characteristics at all the schools:
• A loving and respectful environment • Attention to the whole child–body, mind, emotions, and spirit • Use of approaches to develop each individual’s authentic talent • The power of sensitive, respectful teachers • Openness to experimentation and innovation • The presence of strong, positive leadership • The relative smallness of the schools studied • The lack of bureaucratic red tape • The ability to respond to specific cultural needs (e.g., shyness in Indonesian children, passiveness in Ecuadorian children) • The use of multi-cultural materials/approaches to foster learning.
In their discussions, the Tlaxcala participants came to use the term “human education” to refer to educational institutions based on such characteristics. Educators, the group concluded, should be like sensible farmers–providing conditions (fertile soil, water, sunlight, protection from wind and erosion) for the seeds to germinate and grow but never instructing the seeds on how to grow or what to become. The seeds each contain that information as their birthright. Who are we educators to tell corn to become wheat or vice versa–or to try to make seedlings grow faster by pulling on their tender stalks?
One immediate outcome was that a group of educators in Lewes, England, with support from the Guerrand-Hermès Foundation for Peace, acquired a building and, in fall, 2000, opened a new “human” school in accordance with the principles enunciated at the Tlaxcala Meeting. Despite the ravages of local flooding, the school has drawn a significant first-year enrollment and is off to a good start. The head of the school, moreover, is one of the Tlaxcala participants.
Another outcome was an all-day workshop for about twenty educators, a number of them attendees at Tlaxcala, in Portland, Oregon, USA. This meeting took place in early July, 2000. On this occasion the idea for the proposed conference in Jakarta and related activities emerged.
At this point it is important to mention the relationship of the aforementioned activities to the global interfaith organization known as Susila Budhi Dharma, or Subud. Subud was founded in the 1930’s in Indonesia by the Javanese religious leader Muhammad Subuh Sumohadiwidjojo. The spiritual practice of Subud, now followed in more than 80 countries, is said by its followers, based on their experience, to help them strengthen their faith, understand and follow a specific religious tradition (generally their religion of origin), develop themselves as persons of good character, and increase their capacity to understand people from backgrounds different from their own. The schools represented at Tlaxcala were all founded and are being run by Subud members. Dr. Varindra Tarzie Vittachi, moreover, was not only well-known professionally but was the long-time chair of the World Subud Council. And Jakarta has been selected as the venue for the Vittachi Youth Conference and the dates have been set in large measure because the quadrennial Subud World Congress will take place in early July, 2001, in Nusa Dua, Denpasar, Bali. The Vittachi Conference organizers anticipate about one-fourth of the total participants–half of those coming from abroad–will be young people or teachers already flying to Indonesia to attend the Subud Congress.
Yet while the organizers to date are all education professionals who also happen to be Subud members, the Vittachi Conference is not designed to be a Subud-oriented meeting but rather a diverse, cross-cultural, interfaith gathering of young adults, university students, and young teachers from around the world. In fact, the founder of Subud made it clear that Subud members are not to proselytize but to go about the business of living as ordinary human beings who try their best to apply what they know to their respective fields of endeavor. In this case, a group of humanistic educators from different countries are working together to develop an international conference that they hope will lead to positive local educational results far beyond the bounds of the Subud organization.
The Approach
The approach chosen for this conference will be sharing wisdom among individuals and teams, finding common themes and factors, and building on the conclusions reached. The conference will also provide an opportunity for (1) teams and individuals to model excellent teaching-learning strategies–in many instances using an aspect of their own culture as the teaching material–and (2) five or six teams each in break-out groups to present their ideas for an educational experiment to be undertaken back home and to receive constructive criticism from the other people present. Later, in a plenum session, the various (refined) plans for micro-experiments will be outlined. Each chronological segment will now be briefly discussed in sequence.
1.) Pre-Conference Preparation
Once teams of two-to-three students plus a young teacher/professor have been identified, they will be asked to spend time–first individually, then as teams–answering these questions: Individuals–those planning to attend the conference without being in a team–should also do these exercises, although they won’t have a team with which to share their responses. However, they will be able to do so with other individuals in multi-national groups at the conference.
(a) My Vision of a Human Future: When you hear the term “human future” in the sense of an optimal future for humankind, what do you think of or visualize? Write freely (without reflection during the writing process) for at least 30 minutes but no longer than an hour. Please be as concrete as possible. Contrast how things are now in the world with the ideal future you visualize. Feel free to talk about governance, technology, human interaction, or any other aspect that helps you paint a picture of your ideal future for humankind. These essays will be read aloud in the team setting. Afterward, team members will try to tease out and list the factors that seem to be involved. Team members will then discuss similarities and differences in their visions and name the factors which seem to be present in all the essays.
(b) My Best Learning Experience: Each of us has had learning experiences of differeing quality, from poor to outstanding. Think back across you life, in school and out. What single experience stands out as by far the best learning experience you ever had? Spend 30 minutes writing freely about the experience. Describe it like a reporter, answering the basic questions of what?, where?, when?, how?, and who? Then, once you have described the experience itself, read over what you have written and try to write a response to this question: What are the factors, in your opinion, that made this particular learning experience so excellent? It may help you to contrast this experience with another learning experience that was bad. Again, team members will share their written experiences by reading them out loud. Afterward, the group will talk about similarities and differences among the experiences. To conclude, team members will discuss the conditions and factors that constitute successful learning experiences.
(c) Criticism That Hurts and Criticism That Helps: One of the hardest skills sets to acquire but one of the most useful is the capacity to give and receive good, constructive criticism in ways that are helpful rather than hurtful and that enable the recipient to refine or improve his or her product or creation. It is said in schools of management that there are conflict seekers, conflict avoiders, and conflict managers. Most people fall into the first or second category. A relative few are skilled at managing versus fomenting or running away from conflict. The same is true for criticism. Knowing how unpleasant it often is to be told that our product or creation is less than it could or should be, we may choose to avoid offering our feedback to others even when they request it. We either make a diplomatic statement with no real content or say we like the thing in question when we really don’t. At the other extreme, we may be very blunt and hurtful in our criticism so that the recipient isn’t able to hear and profit by what we say even if there is more than a kernel of truth in it. Given this reality, reflect on times when your work has been criticized and try to identify a positive and a negative instance, that is, a time when the criticism was offered in a way you found more helpful than hurtful versus another time when the criticism was more hurtful than helpful. Write freely for 30 minutes about these two contrasting experiences. Then, after reading through what you wrote, note the factors that make for good and bad criticism. Again, team members will come together to discuss the differences between good and bad, usable and hurtful, criticism.
(d) A Great Project for Our School, Class, Institute, Department, Community, etc.: The quality movement at production facilities around the world is based on the premise that line workers know most about making their product. If you wish to improve the production process, the argument goes, ask them for their suggestions. By the same token, secondary and tertiary (post-secondary) students are the people to ask if one wishes to improve the learning-teaching process. Because they are not the formal experts, however, they are usually the last to be queried for their opinion. Teachers and administrators are the individuals called on. This conference reverses the usual practice. Experts, except as facilitators, will be conspicuous by their absence. During the pre-conference period, student-young faculty teams will also consider prospective educational experiments for their school. Building from prior discussions on a human future and on best learning experiences, individual team members will come up with a modest (small, low-cost) educational innovation for trial at their school or college or, if appropriate, in the broader community (for example, at public libraries, senior homes, places of work, in several schools, etc.). After sharing these ideas in their team, team members will brainstorm for a single idea, possibly combining or adapting several of the individual ideas put forward, as their team project. With assistance from their young teacher, the team will introduce the proposal–if it is to be realized in their school or university setting–to members of their learning community for feedback. If the team cannot decide between several project ideas for their experiment, they can present both for feedback and refinement at the Jakarta Conference.
(e) An Example of a Good Teaching Practice We’d Like to Share: Each team (and individual) should prepare a ten- or fifteen-minute demonstration of an excellent teaching practice. It might involve introducing those present to each other, presenting a new concept (something to do with their language or culture, say), demonstrating an ice-breaking technique to get class participants involved in a discussion, offering practice in listening, speaking, memorizing, disagreeing, or non-hurtful criticism, etc. Time at the conference will be made available for four or five teams to meet together to give their presentations and to discuss afterward (in helpful, non-hurtful ways) their reactions to the techniques demonstrated and how they might be adapted or refined for use in their own cultures.
2.) Conference Activities see: The latest version for Tentative Program
Conference Coordinator Dr. Reynold Feldman, president of Blue Sky Associates: Catalysts for Educational Change and executive director of The World Wisdom Project, is a 61-year-old retired American university professor and administrator. After preparation at the Peddie School, Hightstown, New Jersey, USA, he received three degrees in English Language and Literature (B.A. in 1960, M.A. in 1962, and Ph.D. in 1966) from Yale University. He went on to teach English at Queens College of the City University of New York, the University of Hawaii at Manoa, the University of Maryland (Europe), Northeastern Illinois University, and Metropolitan State University (in Minnesota). On the administrative side he served as coordinator of Liberal Studies and assistant director of the experimental college (New College) at the University of Hawaii, intercultural activities officer at the East-West Center (Hawaii), director and dean of the Center for Program Development at Northeastern Illinois University, vice president for academic affairs at Metropolitan State University, and assistant to the chancellor for International Programs in the Minnesota State University System, with special responsibility to help develop a binational community college in Akita, Japan. Since retiring from higher education in 1961, he has worked as an evaluator or program consultant for the Blandin, Bush, and McKnight Foundations–all in Minnesota–and as a consultant to nonprofit organizations, including schools and colleges, in North and South America. After founding Blue Sky Associates in 1991 to foster positive change in higher education, he coordinated a number of Blue Sky retreats and several conferences. The major project created by Blue Sky Associates to date is The World Wisdom Project (WWP), the goal of which is to mobilize the world’s wisdom for the betterment of humanity. The Vittachi Youth Conference is a good example of the kind of work WWP is attempting to do. Its last conference took place in May, 2000, on Salt Spring Island, British Columbia, Canada. Called a Community Wisdom Gathering, it attracted 300 participants and has mobilized an ongoing dialogue among members of the 9,000-person island community. (For a conference report, see worldwisdomproject.org.) In addition to a number of scholarly articles and several academic monographs, Feldman has published two books on wisdom: A World Treasury of Folk Wisdom(co-authored, Harper Collins, 1992) and Wisdom: Daily Reflections for a New Era (Saint Mary’s Press, 2000). |
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Tentative Conference Program
Monday, June 25, from 7 pm: (a) Introductory Events: The first evening, Tuesday, June 26: (b) Morning–Group Suggestions on How to Share Tuesday, June 26: (c) Afternoon [after lunch and free time/siesta Tuesday, June 26: (d) Free Evening for Participation in Jakarta Arts Wednesday, June 27: (e) Morning: Plenum Reports on Visions for a Human Wednesday, June 27: (f) Afternoon: Sharing Best Learning Experiences and Wednesday, June 27: (g) Evening Free, as Before. Thursday, June 28: (h) Morning: Sharing Team Plans for Educational Thursday, June 28: (i) Afternoon: Free for Shopping, Going to the Pool, Thursday, June 28: (j) Evening: Banquet, Culture Show, and Keroncong Friday, June 29: (k) Morning: Concluding Plenum Session. A PowerPoint Friday, June 29: (l) Afternoon: Field trip to Taman Mini Indonesia Indah |
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| Honolulu, April 12, 2001 Dear Student, Young Person or Young Teacher in Indonesia, On behalf of Blue Sky Associates, the World Wisdom Project, and the Jakarta Arts Festival 2001 (JakArts 2001), I am pleased to invite you to participate in the Varindra T. Vittachi International Youth Conference on “Educating for a Human Future.” This conference is intended to give youth from around the world as well as in Indonesia a chance to share their wisdom, experience, and recommendations for improving education so that the world in general as well as each person in it may have a better, more human future. The conference will take place at the Century Park Hotel Atlet in the Senayan District of Jakarta from the evening of Monday, June 25, 2001, until noon on Friday, June 29, 2001 (5 days). Our goal is to have as many as 100 – 150 high-school and university students, working young people up to 35 years old, and young teachers up to 40 years old participate. At least half will be from Indonesia, the rest from countries outside Indonesia. There will be a small team of distinguished international educators who will facilitate the meetings; however, the focus will be on the opinions and ideas of the youth present. Below are (1) a Conference Prospectus, which will give you more information about the conference itself, and (2) the Conference Application Sheet, specifically designed for Indonesian youth and young teachers in Greater Jakarta. I hope that after you have had a chance to read about this conference, you will feel moved to fill out the Application Form and e-mail it to the e-address indicated. Meantime, thank you for taking the time to look through these materials. Sincerely yours, Prof. Reynold Feldman, Ph.D.
APPLICATION FORM FOR INDONESIAN STUDENTS/YOUTH/TEACHERS IN INDONESIA [Pls. type or print in BLOCK letters.]
1. FAMILY NAME : ……………………………………..……………………………..
2. PERSONAL NAMES : ………………………………..…..…………………….. 3. NAME I PREFER BEING CALLED: ………………………………………………………….. 4. GENDER: Female ( ) Male ( ) 5. AGE (as of June 25, 2001): …………………………………………………………………………. 6. MAILING ADDRESS: ……………………………………………………………………………… 7. TELEPHONE NUMBER (with country and city codes first): ………………………………………. 8. FAX NUMBER (if available; country and city codes first): ………………………………………. 9. EMAIL ADDRESS: ……………………………………………………………………………….. 10. COUNTRY OF CITIZENSHIP: ……………………………………………………………………………….. 11. PROFESSION: Student ( ) Field/s of Study: …………………………………………………………………. Worker ( ) Your Title and Field of Work: …………………………………………………………… [Note: If you are studying AND working, kindly answer both questions, above.] 12. IF YOU ARE A STUDENT, NAME OF YOUR SCHOOL: …………………………………………………………………… Please respond briefly to this question: 13. IF I COULD CHANGE THREE (3) THINGS ABOUT FORMAL EDUCATION TODAY TO HELP IT LEAD TO A MORE HUMAN FUTURE FOR PEOPLE AND OUR PLANET, I WOULD . . . (1) ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… (2) ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… (3) ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 14. CAN YOU PAY THE US$50 (Rp. 500.000) CONFERENCE FEE, WHICH COVERS ALL MEALS AND CONFERENCE REGISTRATION? Yes ( ) No ( ) 15. IF NO, HOW MUCH OF THIS FEE COULD YOU PAY? US$/Rp. = ……………………………….. 17. IF NO, HOW MUCH OF THIS FEE COULD YOU PAY? All ( ) Or [Indicate amount in US$ or Rp.] _____________ 18. CAN YOU PROVIDE YOUR OWN TRANSPORTATION TO AND FROM THE “CENTURY PARK HOTEL ATLET,” SENAYAN, DURING EACH DAY OF THE CONFERENCE, JUNE 25 – 30, 2001? Yes ( ) No ( ) 19. OVER ALL, HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR ABILITY TO READ, WRITE, SPEAK AND UNDERSTAND ENGLISH? Poor ( ) Fair ( ) Good ( ) Excellent ( ) 20. WHAT IS YOUR HOME LANGUAGE? ……………………………………………………………………… 21. WHAT OTHER LANGUAGE(S) CAN YOU UNDERSTAND AND SPEAK REASONABLY WELL? ……………………………………………………………………………….. 22. IS THERE AT LEAST ONE OTHER STUDENT, YOUNG PERSON (NON- STUDENT 35 YEARS OLD OR YOUNGER), OR YOUNG TEACHER (40 OR UNDER) AT YOUR SCHOOL/UNIVERSITY OR IN YOUR AREA WILLING TO FORM A LOCAL TEAM WITH YOU AND ACCOMPANY YOU TO THIS CONFERENCE? Yes ( ) No ( ) 23. IF YES, PLEASE LIST HER/HIS/THEIR NAME/S & EMAIL ADDRESS/ES: —Name— ………………………………………. —Email Address— ………………………………………. 24. DOES YOUR SCHOOL / UNIVERSITY / JOB KNOW ABOUT THE CONFERENCE, AND ARE THEY WILLING TO LET YOU ATTEND? Yes ( ) No ( ) 25. WHAT COUNTRIES BESIDES INDONESIA HAVE YOU VISITED SINCE AGE 12? 26. PLEASE LIST ANY HOBBIES OR EXAMPLES OF COMMUNITY SERVICE OR VOLUNTEER ACTIVITY THAT YOU HAVE DONE IN YOUR COMMUNITY, AT HOME OR IN INDONESIA. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… ******************************************************************************** DEADLINES: If you wish to be considered for financial aid, please return your completed application by May 15, 2001. Otherwise, completed applications are due by May 30, 2001. Applications received June 1, 2001 or later will be considered on a space-available basis. Thank you. |
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Short Introduction: “Educating for a Human Future” is conceived of as a five-day international conference for approximately 125 youth and young adults, ages 15-30, and 25 younger educators, up to age 40, from at least 30 countries and most of the world’s major religious and secular traditions. The work of the gathering will be the sharing of ideas by participants on the nature of an optimal future for humankind and the sorts of educational experiences most likely, in their collective opinion, to lead to such a future. The overall purpose will be to stimulate the creation of more educational experiences likely to lead to a brighter future for the world’s people. The conference will be conducted in English. The Jakarta event is not intended to stand-alone. Secondary school and university-based teams have been recruited at least four months beforehand to begin developing ideas on several key questions. In addition, each team will outline a modest but potentially impactful educational experiment to be refined at the conference for implementation at their school, institute or university after their return. The conference organizers intend to provide mini-grants to support the most promising of these experiments as well as technical assistance for all of them. The conference is named for the late Dr. Varindra Tarzie Vittachi (d. 1993), award-winning journalist, author, and associate executive director of UNICEF. Although Sri Lankan, Dr. Vittachi spent considerable time in Indonesia and wrote a book in the late-60’s on Indonesian politics Proposed outcomes include: (1) a booklet on the Jakarta Youth Vision for a Human Future (multi-lingual), (2) a Jakarta Youth Declaration on Principles of Human Education (multi-lingual), (3) an anthology of Best Educational Practices as Experienced by Jakarta Conference Participants from Around the World, (4) small local teams of students and young educators prepared to initiate modest but meaningful educational reforms in their schools, universities or communities back home, (5) a brief conference video (with multi-lingual voice-overs), (6) a conference website with chatroom and related listserve for post-conference interaction by participants, and (7) technical assistance to support follow-up activities, with emphasis on local educational micro-experiments. The concept of bringing youth together from different lands, faiths, and traditions in the interest of universal ideals is as old as the Olympic Games and as new as the touring performance company Up with People. The International Christian NGO World Vision, which sponsors medical, social, and community-development programs in over 100 countries, has a June-August youth program called World Vision Peace Ambassadors. Some 50 youth, one each from 50 nations, spend twelve weeks preparing for, visiting, and later debriefing from their trip to six countries. Like Up with People, they sing, dance, and do skits, with materials from many cultures. But unlike Up with People, their repertoire includes personal narratives about growing up in poverty or amidst war. Moreover, they hold dialogues with political, community, and youth leaders; do community service; and host media conferences. The Peace Ambassadors’ mission is to exemplify and speak for cross-cultural understanding, reconciliation, mutual enrichment, and world peace. |
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BLUE SKY ASSOCIATES Catalysts for Educational Change The V.T. Vittachi International Youth Conference on “Educating for a Human Future” Conference Prospectus WHAT? A five-day international gathering of students and young educators to discuss the principles and practices which characterize a truly human education—one that can lead to an optimal future for humankind. WHERE? Jakarta, Indonesia – Hotel Atlet Century Park (Senayan district, downtown). WHEN? June 25-29, 2001. FOR WHOM? 150 young people, ages 15 to 30, representing around 20 countries will be chosen. Approximately half will be Indonesian young people, including young teachers, from Greater Jakarta THE CONTEXT? The Vittachi Youth Conference is named for the late Varindra Tarzie Vittachi, an award-winning journalist, Associate Executive Director of UNICEF, and a long-time head of the World Subud Association. Throughout his career Mr. Vittachi sought to make the world a better place for children. His last book before his death in 1993 is titled BETWEEN THE GUNS: CHILDREN AS A ZONE OF PEACE. WHY? Young people are the real experts on what does and does not work in education. Because they have the biggest stake in the future, older people need to hear their ideas about an ideal education. OUTCOMES? 2. Jakarta declaration on principles of human education. 3. Jakarta anthology of best educational practices from around the world. 4. Student projects back home to demonstrate ideas discussed at the Vittachi Conference. 5. Coordination and furthering of follow-up activities via the Internet. SPONSORS AND PARTNERS? Among sponsors and partners are the Guerrand-Hermès Foundation for Peace, Lewes, England; the Jakarta Arts Festival, 2001; The Polk Family Charitable Fund, Chicago; the Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Mary, Rome; UNESCO Jakarta; the Cita-Buana International School, Jakarta; the Jakarta International School; the Subud International Cultural Association, Spain; Hui Jia Private School, Beijing; and the World Wisdom Project, Honolulu. COST? Conference cost for participants in Greater Jakarta is Rp 300.000, covering all lunches and breaks, the banquet Thursday evening, and conference fees. (Cost for local participants wishing to take all meals with out-of-town participants is Rp 500.000.) NEXT STEPS? For more information on the Vittachi Youth Conference on EDUCATING FOR A HUMAN FUTURE, contact or to register for the international conference, please contact: Dr. Reynold Feldman, International Coordinator, E-mail: reynold22@hawaii.rr.com or Fax. (+808) 5287297 Organizing Committee in Jakarta: Jak-ArtS. Widjojo Centre, Jl. Jend. Sudirman 71, Jakarta 12190, Indonesia. |
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| CONCEPT PAPER
for “Educating for a Human Future” by Reynold Feldman, Ph.D. Executive Director, The World Wisdom Project Executive Summary “Educating for a Human Future” is conceived of as a five-day international conference for approximately 125 youth and young adults, ages 15-30, and 25 younger educators, up to age 40, from at least 30 countries and most of the world’s major religious and secular traditions. The dates have been set as June 25-29, 2001; the venue: Hotel Atlet Century Park, in the Senayan District of downtown Jakarta, the Indonesian capital. The work of the gathering will be the sharing of ideas by participants on (1) the nature of an optimal future for humankind and (2) the sorts of educational experiences most likely, in their collective opinion, to lead to (or be characteristic of) such a future. The overall purpose will be to stimulate the creation of more educational experiences likely to lead to a brighter future for the world’s people. The conference will be conducted in English.
The Jakarta event is not intended to stand alone. Secondary-school and university-based teams will be recruited at least four months beforehand to begin developing ideas on several key questions (see pp. 4-5, below). In addition, each team will outline a modest but potentially impactful educational experiment to be refined at the conference for implementation at their school, institute or university after their return. The conference organizers intend to provide mini-grants to support the most promising of these experiments as well as technical assistance for all of them.
The conference is named for the late Dr. Varindra Tarzie Vittachi (d. 1993), award-winning journalist, author, and associate executive director of UNICEF. Although Sri Lankan, Dr. Vittachi spent considerable time in Indonesia and wrote a book in the late-60’s on Indonesian politics. “Educating for a Human Future” will take place in the context of the month-long Jakarta Arts Festival, which includes education under its umbrella. This concept paper is being used to recruit sponsorship from public and private organizations including the Indonesian Ministry of Education and Culture, the Jakarta International School, the Jakarta Offices of UNESCO and UNICEF, ASEAN, the World Bank, the Council for International Educational Exchange, World Learning Inc., the World Future Society, and Rotary International, among others. It is also being shared with UNESCO Associated Schools, Ismailiya Muslim Schools, Christian Brothers (Roman Catholic) Schools, the Association of International Schools, and Ford-Foundation-funded universities worldwide, to name a few, as well as NGOs interested in such issues as world peace, interfaith understanding, international trade, and environmental and educational improvement.
Proposed outcomes will include: (1) a booklet on the Jakarta Youth Vision for a Human Future (multi-lingual), (2) a Jakarta Youth Declaration on Principles of Human Education (multi-lingual), (3) an anthology of Best Educational Practices as Experienced by Jakarta Conference Participants from Around the World, (4) small local teams of students and young educators prepared to initiate modest but meaningful educational reforms in their schools, universities or communities back home, (5) a brief conference video (with multi-lingual voice-overs), (6) a conference website with chatroom and related listserve for post-conference interaction by participants, and (7) technical assistance to support follow-up activities, with emphasis on local educational micro-experiments. History of the Concept
The concept of bringing youth together from different lands, faiths, and traditions in the interest of universal ideals is as old as the Olympic Games and as new as the touring performance company Up with People. The International Christian NGO World Vision, which sponsors medical, social, and community-development programs in over 100 countries, has a June-August youth program called World Vision Peace Ambassadors. Some 50 youth, one each from 50 nations, spend twelve weeks preparing for, visiting, and later debriefing from their trip to six countries. Like Up with People, they sing, dance, and do skits, with materials from many cultures. But unlike Up with People, their repertoire includes personal narratives about growing up in poverty or amidst war. Moreover, they hold dialogues with political, community, and youth leaders; do community service; and host media conferences. The Peace Ambassadors’ mission is to exemplify and speak for cross-cultural understanding, reconciliation, mutual enrichment, and world peace.
Another root for this concept is the so-called romantic (versus classical) approach to the education of young people. The classical approach presupposes that children are blank sheets awaiting teachers to program them with appropriate learning. The Latin educare, which gives rise to the English verb “educate,” has the literal meaning of “to feed.” (Frequently the modern term is misderived from the Latin third-conjugation verb, educere, meaning “to draw forth,” “to educe.”) A similar tradition is seen in East Asian societies, where children are also considered empty until filled by adults. The complex Chinese character meaning “to educate” contains the ideogram for filial obedience (“old” over “child”) on the left and the ideogram for “to follow” on the right. By implication the teacher deserves the same kind of filial respect and obedience as parents, pesons in authority, and other older people. He or she passes down traditional knowledge to the student. The student’s job is obediently to follow, that is, to adopt what is received without questioning.
By contrast, the romantic approach to education, from Plato through Rousseau to John Dewey and A. S. Neill, posits that children are not empty vessels waiting to be filled by parents, teachers, and other agents of the prevailing culture. Instead, every child comes hardwired, as it were, with talents and interests of its own. If this inner content is not respected–let’s say, someone with a talent for singing is forced to become an insurance salesperson–the result will be an unhappy person who is at best a mediocre insurance salesperson. Teachers must work with what is there.
There is truth to both approaches, which serve as a kind of yin and yang for one another. Obviously, babies do not arrive on the scene knowing their mother tongue, the customs of their culture, the laws of the land, or how to drive a car. All these things must be learned from older people who already know them. On the other hand, babies do arrive with dispositions, inclinations, and capacities. Furthermore, by the time children have experienced ten or more years of formal schooling, they will have gained a sense for how they learn, what materials are easiest or hardest for them to assimilate, and what sorts of teaching seems to work best for them. They will also have acquired, to some extent at least, a feeling for what is important for them to know and whether or not their formal learning programs are helping them to learn these things.
The World Wisdom Project has regard for both the classical and the romantic approaches to education. Wisdom resides both inside individuals and outside, in the words and works of the world’s cultures. Human beings learn from others–parents, teachers, peers, et. al. But they also learn from themselves. The assimilation of information and knowledge from the outside is thus an interactive process between the material and the person who is engaging it. During the 20th Century educational psychologists have discovered that individuals learn in different ways: Some are visual, some aural, some kinesthetic (hands-on) learners. Piaget and others have also shown that learning correlates with predictable human developmental stages. Young children, for example, seem incapable of understanding ironic statements. That capacity clicks in later. A further issue relating to the history of the concept underlying this conference–and project–is the anthropological distinction between beliefs and practices which are universal to humankind (termed “emic” by U.S. anthropologist Clifford Geertz) and those which are specific to certain cultures (referred to as “etic”). Concern for cleanliness, for instance, is a universal among human populations. However, the frequency, thoroughness, and style of bathing vary between and among cultures. By the same token, all human cultures are concerned that their young be educated. Individual and group survival depends on children developing a knowledge base geared to their cultural and geographical surroundings. Yet that knowledge base consists of both global components (the implications of gravity, say) and local ones (the rules governing bowing in Japan).
An international meeting on education offers participants from different countries and cultures the opportunity to sort out, to some extent at least, the universals from the particulars. When the United Nations promulgated its Declaration of Universal Human Rights, it did so on the basis that all human beings have certain basic rights by virtue of their membership in the human race. So, when young people come together to share their vision for the future, it is likely to be a place where no one goes to sleep hungry, without adequate shelter, or in fear for their life. People there will be respected, in Martin Luther King’s words, for the content of their character, not the color of their skin. There, in the famous phrases from the Judeo-Christian Bible, human beings will beat their swords into plowshares and will study war no more. Moreover, after students and young teachers describe to one another the best learning experience they can remember, they should be able to create in discussion a shared understanding of the factors making for outstanding education.
Project Background
The impetus for this project came from an international meeting of educators held in Tlaxcala, Mexico, in June-July, 1999. The meeting was called and sponsored by the Guerrand-Hermès Foundation for Peace, of Lewes, England, which is also the founding funder and sponsor of the present project. Specifically, the Tlaxcala meeting brought together educators from four innovative schools known to the Foundation: Alfragide, an immigrant-and-refugee-oriented school in Lisbon, Portugal; Cita Buana, a K-12 private school serving an international clientele in Jakarta, Indonesia; Fundación Amor, a K-12 school-cum-community-development-center serving a slum in Bogotá, Colombia; and Fundación Educativa Pestalozzi, a school serving wealthy and poor children in Quito, Ecuador, by encouraging them to find their own paths to learning. A then doctoral student, now a Ph.D., Dr. Halimah Polk had studied the four schools for her doctoral dissertation. She found the following characteristics at all the schools:
• A loving and respectful environment • Attention to the whole child–body, mind, emotions, and spirit • Use of approaches to develop each individual’s authentic talent • The power of sensitive, respectful teachers • Openness to experimentation and innovation • The presence of strong, positive leadership • The relative smallness of the schools studied • The lack of bureaucratic red tape • The ability to respond to specific cultural needs (e.g., shyness in Indonesian children, passiveness in Ecuadorian children) • The use of multi-cultural materials/approaches to foster learning.
In their discussions, the Tlaxcala participants came to use the term “human education” to refer to educational institutions based on such characteristics. Educators, the group concluded, should be like sensible farmers–providing conditions (fertile soil, water, sunlight, protection from wind and erosion) for the seeds to germinate and grow but never instructing the seeds on how to grow or what to become. The seeds each contain that information as their birthright. Who are we educators to tell corn to become wheat or vice versa–or to try to make seedlings grow faster by pulling on their tender stalks?
One immediate outcome was that a group of educators in Lewes, England, with support from the Guerrand-Hermès Foundation for Peace, acquired a building and, in fall, 2000, opened a new “human” school in accordance with the principles enunciated at the Tlaxcala Meeting. Despite the ravages of local flooding, the school has drawn a significant first-year enrollment and is off to a good start. The head of the school, moreover, is one of the Tlaxcala participants.
Another outcome was an all-day workshop for about twenty educators, a number of them attendees at Tlaxcala, in Portland, Oregon, USA. This meeting took place in early July, 2000. On this occasion the idea for the proposed conference in Jakarta and related activities emerged.
At this point it is important to mention the relationship of the aforementioned activities to the global interfaith organization known as Susila Budhi Dharma, or Subud. Subud was founded in the 1930’s in Indonesia by the Javanese religious leader Muhammad Subuh Sumohadiwidjojo. The spiritual practice of Subud, now followed in more than 80 countries, is said by its followers, based on their experience, to help them strengthen their faith, understand and follow a specific religious tradition (generally their religion of origin), develop themselves as persons of good character, and increase their capacity to understand people from backgrounds different from their own. The schools represented at Tlaxcala were all founded and are being run by Subud members. Dr. Varindra Tarzie Vittachi, moreover, was not only well-known professionally but was the long-time chair of the World Subud Council. And Jakarta has been selected as the venue for the Vittachi Youth Conference and the dates have been set in large measure because the quadrennial Subud World Congress will take place in early July, 2001, in Nusa Dua, Denpasar, Bali. The Vittachi Conference organizers anticipate about one-fourth of the total participants–half of those coming from abroad–will be young people or teachers already flying to Indonesia to attend the Subud Congress.
Yet while the organizers to date are all education professionals who also happen to be Subud members, the Vittachi Conference is not designed to be a Subud-oriented meeting but rather a diverse, cross-cultural, interfaith gathering of young adults, university students, and young teachers from around the world. In fact, the founder of Subud made it clear that Subud members are not to proselytize but to go about the business of living as ordinary human beings who try their best to apply what they know to their respective fields of endeavor. In this case, a group of humanistic educators from different countries are working together to develop an international conference that they hope will lead to positive local educational results far beyond the bounds of the Subud organization.
The Approach
The approach chosen for this conference will be sharing wisdom among individuals and teams, finding common themes and factors, and building on the conclusions reached. The conference will also provide an opportunity for (1) teams and individuals to model excellent teaching-learning strategies–in many instances using an aspect of their own culture as the teaching material–and (2) five or six teams each in break-out groups to present their ideas for an educational experiment to be undertaken back home and to receive constructive criticism from the other people present. Later, in a plenum session, the various (refined) plans for micro-experiments will be outlined. Each chronological segment will now be briefly discussed in sequence.
1.) Pre-Conference Preparation
Once teams of two-to-three students plus a young teacher/professor have been identified, they will be asked to spend time–first individually, then as teams–answering these questions: Individuals–those planning to attend the conference without being in a team–should also do these exercises, although they won’t have a team with which to share their responses. However, they will be able to do so with other individuals in multi-national groups at the conference.
(a) My Vision of a Human Future: When you hear the term “human future” in the sense of an optimal future for humankind, what do you think of or visualize? Write freely (without reflection during the writing process) for at least 30 minutes but no longer than an hour. Please be as concrete as possible. Contrast how things are now in the world with the ideal future you visualize. Feel free to talk about governance, technology, human interaction, or any other aspect that helps you paint a picture of your ideal future for humankind. These essays will be read aloud in the team setting. Afterward, team members will try to tease out and list the factors that seem to be involved. Team members will then discuss similarities and differences in their visions and name the factors which seem to be present in all the essays.
(b) My Best Learning Experience: Each of us has had learning experiences of differeing quality, from poor to outstanding. Think back across you life, in school and out. What single experience stands out as by far the best learning experience you ever had? Spend 30 minutes writing freely about the experience. Describe it like a reporter, answering the basic questions of what?, where?, when?, how?, and who? Then, once you have described the experience itself, read over what you have written and try to write a response to this question: What are the factors, in your opinion, that made this particular learning experience so excellent? It may help you to contrast this experience with another learning experience that was bad. Again, team members will share their written experiences by reading them out loud. Afterward, the group will talk about similarities and differences among the experiences. To conclude, team members will discuss the conditions and factors that constitute successful learning experiences.
(c) Criticism That Hurts and Criticism That Helps: One of the hardest skills sets to acquire but one of the most useful is the capacity to give and receive good, constructive criticism in ways that are helpful rather than hurtful and that enable the recipient to refine or improve his or her product or creation. It is said in schools of management that there are conflict seekers, conflict avoiders, and conflict managers. Most people fall into the first or second category. A relative few are skilled at managing versus fomenting or running away from conflict. The same is true for criticism. Knowing how unpleasant it often is to be told that our product or creation is less than it could or should be, we may choose to avoid offering our feedback to others even when they request it. We either make a diplomatic statement with no real content or say we like the thing in question when we really don’t. At the other extreme, we may be very blunt and hurtful in our criticism so that the recipient isn’t able to hear and profit by what we say even if there is more than a kernel of truth in it. Given this reality, reflect on times when your work has been criticized and try to identify a positive and a negative instance, that is, a time when the criticism was offered in a way you found more helpful than hurtful versus another time when the criticism was more hurtful than helpful. Write freely for 30 minutes about these two contrasting experiences. Then, after reading through what you wrote, note the factors that make for good and bad criticism. Again, team members will come together to discuss the differences between good and bad, usable and hurtful, criticism.
(d) A Great Project for Our School, Class, Institute, Department, Community, etc.: The quality movement at production facilities around the world is based on the premise that line workers know most about making their product. If you wish to improve the production process, the argument goes, ask them for their suggestions. By the same token, secondary and tertiary (post-secondary) students are the people to ask if one wishes to improve the learning-teaching process. Because they are not the formal experts, however, they are usually the last to be queried for their opinion. Teachers and administrators are the individuals called on. This conference reverses the usual practice. Experts, except as facilitators, will be conspicuous by their absence. During the pre-conference period, student-young faculty teams will also consider prospective educational experiments for their school. Building from prior discussions on a human future and on best learning experiences, individual team members will come up with a modest (small, low-cost) educational innovation for trial at their school or college or, if appropriate, in the broader community (for example, at public libraries, senior homes, places of work, in several schools, etc.). After sharing these ideas in their team, team members will brainstorm for a single idea, possibly combining or adapting several of the individual ideas put forward, as their team project. With assistance from their young teacher, the team will introduce the proposal–if it is to be realized in their school or university setting–to members of their learning community for feedback. If the team cannot decide between several project ideas for their experiment, they can present both for feedback and refinement at the Jakarta Conference.
(e) An Example of a Good Teaching Practice We’d Like to Share: Each team (and individual) should prepare a ten- or fifteen-minute demonstration of an excellent teaching practice. It might involve introducing those present to each other, presenting a new concept (something to do with their language or culture, say), demonstrating an ice-breaking technique to get class participants involved in a discussion, offering practice in listening, speaking, memorizing, disagreeing, or non-hurtful criticism, etc. Time at the conference will be made available for four or five teams to meet together to give their presentations and to discuss afterward (in helpful, non-hurtful ways) their reactions to the techniques demonstrated and how they might be adapted or refined for use in their own cultures.
2.) Conference Activities see: The latest version for Tentative Program
Conference Coordinator Dr. Reynold Feldman, president of Blue Sky Associates: Catalysts for Educational Change and executive director of The World Wisdom Project, is a 61-year-old retired American university professor and administrator. After preparation at the Peddie School, Hightstown, New Jersey, USA, he received three degrees in English Language and Literature (B.A. in 1960, M.A. in 1962, and Ph.D. in 1966) from Yale University. He went on to teach English at Queens College of the City University of New York, the University of Hawaii at Manoa, the University of Maryland (Europe), Northeastern Illinois University, and Metropolitan State University (in Minnesota). On the administrative side he served as coordinator of Liberal Studies and assistant director of the experimental college (New College) at the University of Hawaii, intercultural activities officer at the East-West Center (Hawaii), director and dean of the Center for Program Development at Northeastern Illinois University, vice president for academic affairs at Metropolitan State University, and assistant to the chancellor for International Programs in the Minnesota State University System, with special responsibility to help develop a binational community college in Akita, Japan. Since retiring from higher education in 1961, he has worked as an evaluator or program consultant for the Blandin, Bush, and McKnight Foundations–all in Minnesota–and as a consultant to nonprofit organizations, including schools and colleges, in North and South America. After founding Blue Sky Associates in 1991 to foster positive change in higher education, he coordinated a number of Blue Sky retreats and several conferences. The major project created by Blue Sky Associates to date is The World Wisdom Project (WWP), the goal of which is to mobilize the world’s wisdom for the betterment of humanity. The Vittachi Youth Conference is a good example of the kind of work WWP is attempting to do. Its last conference took place in May, 2000, on Salt Spring Island, British Columbia, Canada. Called a Community Wisdom Gathering, it attracted 300 participants and has mobilized an ongoing dialogue among members of the 9,000-person island community. (For a conference report, see worldwisdomproject.org.) In addition to a number of scholarly articles and several academic monographs, Feldman has published two books on wisdom: A World Treasury of Folk Wisdom(co-authored, Harper Collins, 1992) and Wisdom: Daily Reflections for a New Era (Saint Mary’s Press, 2000). |
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Tentative Conference Program
Monday, June 25, from 7 pm: (a) Introductory Events: The first evening, Tuesday, June 26: (b) Morning–Group Suggestions on How to Share Tuesday, June 26: (c) Afternoon [after lunch and free time/siesta Tuesday, June 26: (d) Free Evening for Participation in Jakarta Arts Wednesday, June 27: (e) Morning: Plenum Reports on Visions for a Human Wednesday, June 27: (f) Afternoon: Sharing Best Learning Experiences and Wednesday, June 27: (g) Evening Free, as Before. Thursday, June 28: (h) Morning: Sharing Team Plans for Educational Thursday, June 28: (i) Afternoon: Free for Shopping, Going to the Pool, Thursday, June 28: (j) Evening: Banquet, Culture Show, and Keroncong Friday, June 29: (k) Morning: Concluding Plenum Session. A PowerPoint Friday, June 29: (l) Afternoon: Field trip to Taman Mini Indonesia Indah |
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| Honolulu, April 12, 2001 Dear Student, Young Person or Young Teacher in Indonesia, On behalf of Blue Sky Associates, the World Wisdom Project, and the Jakarta Arts Festival 2001 (JakArts 2001), I am pleased to invite you to participate in the Varindra T. Vittachi International Youth Conference on “Educating for a Human Future.” This conference is intended to give youth from around the world as well as in Indonesia a chance to share their wisdom, experience, and recommendations for improving education so that the world in general as well as each person in it may have a better, more human future. The conference will take place at the Century Park Hotel Atlet in the Senayan District of Jakarta from the evening of Monday, June 25, 2001, until noon on Friday, June 29, 2001 (5 days). Our goal is to have as many as 100 – 150 high-school and university students, working young people up to 35 years old, and young teachers up to 40 years old participate. At least half will be from Indonesia, the rest from countries outside Indonesia. There will be a small team of distinguished international educators who will facilitate the meetings; however, the focus will be on the opinions and ideas of the youth present. Below are (1) a Conference Prospectus, which will give you more information about the conference itself, and (2) the Conference Application Sheet, specifically designed for Indonesian youth and young teachers in Greater Jakarta. I hope that after you have had a chance to read about this conference, you will feel moved to fill out the Application Form and e-mail it to the e-address indicated. Meantime, thank you for taking the time to look through these materials. Sincerely yours, Prof. Reynold Feldman, Ph.D.
APPLICATION FORM FOR INDONESIAN STUDENTS/YOUTH/TEACHERS IN INDONESIA [Pls. type or print in BLOCK letters.]
1. FAMILY NAME : ……………………………………..……………………………..
2. PERSONAL NAMES : ………………………………..…..…………………….. 3. NAME I PREFER BEING CALLED: ………………………………………………………….. 4. GENDER: Female ( ) Male ( ) 5. AGE (as of June 25, 2001): …………………………………………………………………………. 6. MAILING ADDRESS: ……………………………………………………………………………… 7. TELEPHONE NUMBER (with country and city codes first): ………………………………………. 8. FAX NUMBER (if available; country and city codes first): ………………………………………. 9. EMAIL ADDRESS: ……………………………………………………………………………….. 10. COUNTRY OF CITIZENSHIP: ……………………………………………………………………………….. 11. PROFESSION: Student ( ) Field/s of Study: …………………………………………………………………. Worker ( ) Your Title and Field of Work: …………………………………………………………… [Note: If you are studying AND working, kindly answer both questions, above.] 12. IF YOU ARE A STUDENT, NAME OF YOUR SCHOOL: …………………………………………………………………… Please respond briefly to this question: 13. IF I COULD CHANGE THREE (3) THINGS ABOUT FORMAL EDUCATION TODAY TO HELP IT LEAD TO A MORE HUMAN FUTURE FOR PEOPLE AND OUR PLANET, I WOULD . . . (1) ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… (2) ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… (3) ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 14. CAN YOU PAY THE US$50 (Rp. 500.000) CONFERENCE FEE, WHICH COVERS ALL MEALS AND CONFERENCE REGISTRATION? Yes ( ) No ( ) 15. IF NO, HOW MUCH OF THIS FEE COULD YOU PAY? US$/Rp. = ……………………………….. 17. IF NO, HOW MUCH OF THIS FEE COULD YOU PAY? All ( ) Or [Indicate amount in US$ or Rp.] _____________ 18. CAN YOU PROVIDE YOUR OWN TRANSPORTATION TO AND FROM THE “CENTURY PARK HOTEL ATLET,” SENAYAN, DURING EACH DAY OF THE CONFERENCE, JUNE 25 – 30, 2001? Yes ( ) No ( ) 19. OVER ALL, HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR ABILITY TO READ, WRITE, SPEAK AND UNDERSTAND ENGLISH? Poor ( ) Fair ( ) Good ( ) Excellent ( ) 20. WHAT IS YOUR HOME LANGUAGE? ……………………………………………………………………… 21. WHAT OTHER LANGUAGE(S) CAN YOU UNDERSTAND AND SPEAK REASONABLY WELL? ……………………………………………………………………………….. 22. IS THERE AT LEAST ONE OTHER STUDENT, YOUNG PERSON (NON- STUDENT 35 YEARS OLD OR YOUNGER), OR YOUNG TEACHER (40 OR UNDER) AT YOUR SCHOOL/UNIVERSITY OR IN YOUR AREA WILLING TO FORM A LOCAL TEAM WITH YOU AND ACCOMPANY YOU TO THIS CONFERENCE? Yes ( ) No ( ) 23. IF YES, PLEASE LIST HER/HIS/THEIR NAME/S & EMAIL ADDRESS/ES: —Name— ………………………………………. —Email Address— ………………………………………. 24. DOES YOUR SCHOOL / UNIVERSITY / JOB KNOW ABOUT THE CONFERENCE, AND ARE THEY WILLING TO LET YOU ATTEND? Yes ( ) No ( ) 25. WHAT COUNTRIES BESIDES INDONESIA HAVE YOU VISITED SINCE AGE 12? 26. PLEASE LIST ANY HOBBIES OR EXAMPLES OF COMMUNITY SERVICE OR VOLUNTEER ACTIVITY THAT YOU HAVE DONE IN YOUR COMMUNITY, AT HOME OR IN INDONESIA. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… ******************************************************************************** DEADLINES: If you wish to be considered for financial aid, please return your completed application by May 15, 2001. Otherwise, completed applications are due by May 30, 2001. Applications received June 1, 2001 or later will be considered on a space-available basis. Thank you. |
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