Jill Rees: Welcome Press

GO TO THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE FOR THE LATEST ENTRY OR COMMENT Hand of History SEIN Conference Bridgwater Welcome to the home page of the SEIN Conference, taking place this week in Bridgwater, a small rural town in Somerset in the South West of England. We already know that people have joined us from around the world, Welcome. If you wish to translate this page, click on your flag at the top right.

Today the conference has begun with a three hour meeting with Robert Samuels, General Director for SGI-UK Buddhist group at Taplow Court, Buddhist National Centre in Maidenhead near London. I wasn’t there and will receive the report tonight or tomorrow when they all get here to Bridgwater. This evening at about 7 everyone will be here to do gongyo and eat Bob, Bulgarian spicy bean soup I’ve been experiencing lately. I expect we’ll have an impromptu meeting before heading for Chedzoy, a village on the outskirts of Bridgwater, where some of the educators will be staying in a small B&B. The following are primary and informal discussions about the suggested future of SEiN and some ideas we are having. Everything is of course flexible and subject to change as required by all members of SEIN.This page will continue reports as we go through the conference and everyone is welcome to participate by leaving comments or questions, and to contact me if they would like to take part. Thanks everyone.

I can feel the hand of history upon us………

Today is not a day for soundbites, but I can feel the hand of history upon us. Today is the first day of the Soka Educators International Network week-long seminar in Bridgwater, Somerset, UK. It is fitting that Bridgwater is a post-modern industrial town and a total non-entity, since Soka, or value-creating, education is for the liberation and happiness of all people, however ordinary, however unacademic, wherever they live, whatever resources they have access to. This week will determine how the educators in SEIN, currently members of Soka Gakkai International Buddhist Organisation, proceed to find ways to support the world’s students and children by applying the ideas and beliefs of the founder of Soka Education, Tsunesaburo Makiguchi. Soka Education, or Value-creation in education, isn’t originally a Buddhist ideology. The connection is that the educator Makiguchi first founded Soka Kyoiku Gakkai (Society for Value-creating Education), in Japan in 1930, and later himself became a Nichiren Buddhist, realising that his humanistic ideas are in fact Buddhistic and are more powerful coming from the Buddhist faith. My personal desire, or mission, is to enable all educators to benefit from Soka ideas, whether or not they be Buddhists, so that these wonderful humanistic methods which enable children to be happy at schol and to develop as they should naturally, can be to the benefit of all children in the world. These ideas are based on absolute respect for each individual child, and are the human right of every child. Today some of the founder members of SEIN are getting together to discuss a variety of issues relating to SEIN activities, sustainable education and systemic analysis. They are: Stephanie Tansey, founder of humanistic schools in China and Turkmenistan, trainer in dialogue skills, author of the Handbook on Dialogue skills and founder of Dialogue workshops in Israel; Constance Haig, technical writer for an aerospace corporation; Jill Rees author here, consultant and trainer for sustainable education and acting teacher; Elissa Lewis, specialist in Systemic Family Therapy and the work of Gregory Bateson; Martin Rees, computer and webpage designer and trainer in Information Technology. Others may appear during the week. Some of our discussions wil be about, SEIN Forum 6 which is to start shortly and will be in Portuguese; Systemic Ideology and how it relates to education; implementation of Soka education in the wider educational sphere; as well as more Buddhist-linked topics. We are a Buddhist group, followers of Mr Makiguchi our mentor and founder of Soka Education, his disciple Josei Toda, educator, and his disciple and current President of SGI Daisaku Ikeda. These discussions are based on our Buddhist practise and are a faith activity. They will assuredly lead out into the secular world, enabling many more humanistic activities to proceed. This is my wish for this week’s discussions, and an espression of my desire to fulfil my vow to the Buddha to enable all beings to become absolutely fulfilled and happy in their own lives. I will report on these discussions on this site under Buddhist Education during the week. Anyone who is interested and the other SEIN members are asked to please contribute to the discussion. The current blog is on at the following site: http://sein2008.blogspot.com/ DAY ONE Tuesday 15th April 2008 We had our first two meetings today, the Planning for SEIN and Website discussions. After that we trucked off to Costa Coffee - yes Bridgwater is so endowed - for a relaxing cappuccino. My view was that Americans would appreciate proper coffee but they said it was more like Italian stuff. Where is Starbucks when you need them? ey? ey? Below is a brief description of what went on in the meetings as I remember it and as applied to my notes. Please understand this may be amended and corrected, it is a first draft, but I feel it better to get it online asap. Planning for SEIN ALL DECISIONS AND IDEAS HERE ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE SO PLEASE FEEL FREE TO PARTICIPATE AND BE THE CHANGE YOU WANT TO SEE. SEIN is a volunteer organisation, supporting Soka Education rather than an integral part of Soka Education. The word volunteer is in our mission statement. The planning meeting is about out intent, which is to form a just, sustainable and dialogical community. The aim is to make a 7 year plan starting from where we are. Rather than describe ourselves as a car, or some kind of unsustainable object, we like to think of our structure as being that of a tree, with ourselves being the lower branches, and aiming to raise capable people to take SEIN into the future. We must be planning for the next 1,000 years or 2,000 years, as Josei Toda advised. Josei Toda told the youth division of the time to nurture capable leaders, who should be encouraged to feel happy to work in line with SGI. Our aim is to become better Soka educators, to care for the individual. There are two aspects to SEIN, the intellectual and the applied/practical Soka education. We influence the SEIN community and the SEIN community influences us in turn. This led to raising the question, does the SEIN community support the individuals who come onto the site. In line with guidance received from senior leaders, we must always remember that Soka education, like Buddhism itself, must always be in a one-to-one relationship. Other senior guidance was that SEIN might develop as a kind of virtual Gakkai, with virtual districts. We are wary of the pitfalls of the pyramidal structure, and ascertained that we are talking about two kinds of support, faith and practical support, such as how to log on to the site and so on. It is important not to confuse the two, and we determined to chant about this and talk about it on Friday. Training must be based on the examples of the SGI, the three presidents, the master/disciple relationship and the Human Revolution. It was suggested that the Human Revolution might be a good subject for a future forum. Appreciative enquiry means finding out what each person wants to do and encourage them in that, working out how to fit that into SEIN. Our areas are: the Newsletter, the AGM, the Forum, the Blog and the Committee projects. The SEIN year goes like this: January Committee meets February Newsletter prep March Blog April Committee May Forum Planning June Forum and newsletter July Committee August Rest September Newsletter October AGM November Forum planning, conference planning December Forum, Newsletter The provisional timetable for SEIN goes like this: 2007 Exhibition, website 2008 Exhibition, Primer 2009 Improve Primer and website, eshibition 2010 Add Soka Education teachers online Institute for Research and Development 2011 Brazil Conference 2012 Soka training workshops in league with local Soka Education Divisions 2013 Makiguchi In Acton project Professional Development Training Meeting II Website planning Our programme needs more streamlined organisation, which is more transparent and which does not involve everything going through one person. Projects are Dialogue,Translation,Exhibition and Website. These all are done by the Committee. We all agreed that we need a unified website with links to our various activities, with potential for limitless growth. Constance and Rees are on this project. The areas to be included are: Forums Blog Exhibition Dialogue Library Glossary Newsletter Wednesday 14th April Meeting III Cardiff The influence of systems theory on Soka Education Present are Elissa, Jill, Stephanie, Constance, Kirsty. We drove to Cardiff with Rees, Bob and David in the morning, parked on the beautiful docks and walked round. Cadawallers has changed and is now expensive and not so good. ‘It used to be all old ladies sipping tea and eating lovely Welsh cakes,’ I said to Constance. ‘The trick is to find out where all the old ladies have gone now,’ she replied. The American contingent were delighted to be visiting Wales, didn’t fall for the joke about needing their passports, and were happy to pay for the cost of crossing the bridge. The sun shone on the Cardiff water, and the boat called out for us to take a trip. But no! Soka Education calls! Stephanie introduced the concept of SEIN as a support for people involved in education to fulfil the mission of the founder of Soka Gakkai, the educator Makiguchi, and welcomed Elissa as a systemic family therapist. We mentionned the close links between psychology and the family, and education and the classroom, and how in systemic theories all of the child’s social and physical environment plays a part in their education. Our endeavours must be collaborative as systems theory requires collaboration, one ‘expert’ can’t tell other people their own solution, but may be able to lead them to find it for themselves. The therapist trusts that the person themself has the resources to solve their own problems and cannot pre-guess what dirction that will take. As in education and sustainable development projects, therapy may involve the use of stories, or narrative. The aim of these is to release a person from their previous fxed way of thinking and allow this person to be different, to explore ways to go forward. Kirsty said when she takes children on trips, they are able to do this becasue of the changed environment, and it can be very powerful. The other aspect of systemic therapy is that te therapist considers themself to be part of this unit, rather tan a sort of ‘mechanic’ or an expert who is ‘fixing’ the unit. This is similar to the buddhist concept of ‘dependent origination‘. Elissa suggested some books to further our understanding of systems theory, Francisco Varela ‘The View from Within’ Materana speaks of ‘autoparesis’ our conciousness in a structured self-concious. When this conciousness is detached from its fixedness it is like what Bateson called ‘perturbation. A change in the environment causes a change in our conciousness, and this is what learning is, as the Internal structure seeks to adapt. It receives ‘news of difference’, an alternative narrative, in line with the structured conciousness. This challenges the idea of instructive intervention, because the ‘news’ must be balanced with the lifestate of the individual, or the tendency will be to fix down more. Bateson also speaks of the need to feel love, emotion, human warmth. Etienne Wenger - Communities of Practise. We learn in our various communities of practise, so we should create communities of practise that optimise learning. This is the Buddhist idea of ‘en’, relation, creating a community, in your role, which is different in each of your communities. The individual has different levels of participation in each of his or her communities. A community has necessary elements, and the community persists. Finally we spoke of the master/disciple relationship in education. Wenger speaks of apprenticeship, not in the same way as Buddhists, but this shows that the basic idea of Master/Disciple is not obsolete in the Western tradition. Meeting IV - Soka Educators Division Meeting at Jill’s Present were Stephanie, Bob, Constance, Jill, Evelyn, Harriet What is the purpose of education? This is the regular 6-monthly meeting of the Soka Education Divison for the South West of England. Being so far dispersed is a problem for us with regard to attendance. We determined to address this. In this meeting, Harriet has taken part in the SEIN Forums and was pleased to meet with other members of the Forum. The meeting started with the idea that, while economic wealth and living standards have risen, human happiness has remained stagnant. This ma be becasue people are feeling increasingly disconnected with nature, with others, with life itself. The feeling of interconnectedness with nature needs to be taught now, whereas in the past it was perhaps more integral to daily life. We discussed human rituals such as heralding rain, chasing the winter away. Schools and communities can embed their own rituals. Before public education, education was by means of metaphor through story-telling, and seeing themselves ar=s part of nature.We gave some examples of the use of storytelling. You can make profound relationships with people by activities interacting with nature, such as gardening and caring for animals. Life itself is a story, expeerience of nature as a child is culture ecology transference. This is what led to the Earth Charter. It is important to enable children to connect in a personal way with nature. Friday 16th April Meeting V Following guidance from Sensei which we have not yet sourced, and for which we have to thank Michel in Brazil, Education should have the same influence in government as the fourth power, along with the executive, legislative and judicial powers. Education should not be subservient to political influences, therefor the bodies which deal wihth education must be transnational. This is the way to educate for global citizenship. SEIN is the first step towards an international educative body. In the past education was used to raise soldiers and factory workers. This was the reason education was made public in the 19th centruy. although individuals have always been idealistic, the basic organisation of educational institutions has alwasy been nationalistic. As soon as there is a global influence on educational institutions, the original nationalism is erased. In this way education can become the fourth power of an international earth charter. We made a basic plan for the next SEIN Forum, which will focus on the original translator of the Lotus Sutra Kumarajiva, and education as the fourth power which can be ‘translated’ to all people. We also wish to help make awareness of Soka University USA to students who may wish to find a global humanitarian ethos for their studies. THIS ENDS THE APRIL 2008 SEIN CONFERENCE IN BRIDGWATER AND CARDIFF UK Please continue to make comments etc. Thank you.

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Seeking To Build A Community of Life Through Humanistic Education - SEIN Newsletter Volume VI, Issue 1 Sustainable Education Solutions by Jill Rees

In 2003, I was working as Head of Department at a school, in a depressing run-down town in the UK, which had just failed its inspection and was now in special measures. This was great for me, as it meant I could set up the department as I saw fit. The teachers were all new, and it was my responsibility to train them. Also, the government had just brought in two new initiatives which were fantastic, the National Framework and the Key Stage 3 Strategy. I had been teaching for 3 years, and was beginning to feel I knew what I was doing.

I had been to six-monthly sessions with the UK Soka Education Division at our national centre, Taplow Court, and had read the online Soka Education Newsletter. As I understood it, Soka education meant respecting each individual and adopting as the primary aim of education the happiness of each child. Of course, happiness is a difficult thing to define, and is different for each person, but it certainly involves following Sensei’s guidance about doing your best and determining to have victory in everything you set out to achieve. To transmit this attitude to the children in this under-performing school, most of whom were without ambition and often with little self-esteem, seemed difficult. Some of the children came from very poor and sometimes violent and abusive backgrounds. Their academic ambitions were slight, and their belief that they could make a happy and successful life for themselves non-existent. Unemployment in the area meant that opportunities for them were slim.

My department became the key to the whole school. I encouraged my teachers to work as a team by explaining about itai doshin and chanting for 2 hours each morning before work. Among other community based activities, I established an annual trip to France, to which over 80% of the year sevens subscribed, and a French exchange in liaison with the local partner school. My department led the next Government Inspection, in which the teachers were judged ‘excellent’, which is quite rare. The students showed great enthusiasm for learning languages, which is almost unheard of in British schools.

Late in 2003, I was offered the opportunity to take a Master’s degree as part of my school professional development, which would mean I didn’t have to pay! For the second part of this degree, I studied the systemic theory of education, which struck me as being essentially Buddhist. The principle of the systemic theory is that everything is interconnected, so if you change one part the whole changes, like a fisherman’s net. I felt I could attempt to establish Soka Education in my department by using some of the systemic ideas. I started using the systemic method with my classes, with good results.

When you teach systemically, your actions as a teacher are based on the idea that the class is a system, and other often unknown areas of the students’ lives are also affecting them; for example their home life, their other lessons, the ethos of the school, and their social experiences. If a child is under-performing, is demotivated, is misbehaving or is unhappy in the lesson, it is not seen as a fault in the child. Instead, a change within the holistic system is required. The child continues to be completely respected for themselves as they are, and the cause of problems seen as being systemic rather than the fault of the student. The teacher is always able to change, however, as is their own behaviour, and this will affect the whole class and each individual child. The teacher needs to work out the cause of the problem, and find a suitable solution. This isn’t always possible, as the teacher is lacking information, or hasn’t been able to perceive the true nature of the problem. However, any change in the teacher’s behaviour will then change the student’s behaviour. Either the problem will be solved, or it will change so that the teacher can get a better idea of what is going on. The teacher takes full responsibility for the problem and sets about changing the situation using the principles of Buddhist practice. By increasing one’s life-state, understanding and robustness to deal with the difficulties we face in teaching, the teacher can affect humanistic solutions.

I realized that these are Buddhist ideas, of cause and effect, of ichinen sanzen, and the interconnectivity of all phenomena. So, by creating systemic changes in the classroom, I was able to engage everyone and felt that each student was acting how they wanted to and taking control of their own way of learning. At first, however, I didn’t understand how this really worked. What was happening that enabled children with quite serious problems to become happy and to find confidence in their ability such that their assessment results improved so much? I felt this was beyond the scope of the systemic method I was using, that they had missed something.

The Soka Educators International Network (SEIN) forum is about humanistic and caring education. As I participated in such discussions with educators throughout the world, and chanted to find the deeper causes in what I was doing, I began to realize that something else was going on. By accepting each child as an essential part of the ’system’ - the class, as they are, and changing myself or the circumstances they were in rather than trying to change the child, I was actually deeply respecting and caring for each child’s life. I took full responsibility for their happiness and their learning in my class, and was willing immediately to do whatever I could to enable them to be more themselves. I had been able to discover in myself my fundamental respect for my students.

In trials in other schools, which I was studying as part of my degree, teachers and school managers had begun to apply systems theory, but had usually given up at a certain point. The view of the academics was that they hadn’t been able to take on board the philosophy behind systems theory, which is very profound and all-encompassing. However, I felt that it went further. The underlying principle of systems theory is Buddhism. The developers of systems theory had found truths which they were unable to access more profoundly because the Buddhist principles which understood the importance of enabling each individual to live an amazing life and develop his or her full potential were misunderstood. Before I went to work, I would chant to enable each child to be happy as if they were members of my district. The students were encouraged to think of themselves as the foundation of the society of the future. I would take time to explain that they would be the people who decide what the world will be like. They came to think of themselves as more connected to life outside school, and to think more positively about what they will do in the future. If they had difficult circumstances at home, I would encourage them to realize that they will one day be able to set up their own home, which could be a good one full of love. I began to introduce some of Sensei’s guidance for young people into my assemblies, and was amazed at how the naughtiest boys listened so carefully to guidance to work hard, do their homework and change society for the better. (They didn’t actually do their homework, thank goodness, or I might have died of shock!)

Many of the students changed their attitudes in other classes too, and teachers reported to me that such-and-such a child had stopped messing about and started working. The results were really miraculous. However there were other consequences. The children became used to speaking out, to being listened to, and to their questions being answered. Some teachers found this very challenging. At this point, the Soka teacher may face obstacles. These obstacles are proof that we are humanizing our part of education. They are the ‘persecutions of the votary’ which try to prevent humanism and enlightenment from spreading and which therefore impede Kosen Rufu.

As Nichiren wrote in The Opening of the Eyes: “But if I utter so much as a word concerning it, then parents, brothers, and teachers will surely censure me, and the ruler of the nation will take steps against me. On the other hand, I am fully aware that but if I do not speak out, I will be lacking in compassion, p.64….

I have considered which course to take in the light of the teachings of the Lotus and Nirvana sutras. If I remain silent, I may escape persecutions in this lifetime, but in my next life I will most certainly fall into the hell of incessant suffering. If I speak out, I am fully aware that I will have to contend with the three obstacles and four devils. But of these two courses, surely the latter is the one to choose.” Page 239 The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin.

The stark choice facing Soka educators today is whether to continue resolutely with faith, until the victory of humanistic schools is achieved, or to give up on Sensei’s vision in the educational aspect of Kosen Rufu. Time and time again I have heard Soka educators tell me how they found obstructions in their attempts to introduce humanism in their school, and how they fought to overcome them. Victory is our continued struggle - the actualization of Kosen Rufu in education may lie in the eventual actions of our students in the future, but for them, we must carry on. Every time we deal in a humanistic way with a child is a victory for kosen rufu and a cause for a more humanistic education in the future.

Before I left my last school, the children in my class decided that when they were adults, they would work in their children’s schools to recreate what they had experienced with me. Some of these will be leaders of education, and it is certain that schools will change when our students in turn make this sort of vow.

In systemic theory, it is advised that the whole school adopt the method. Authority over a class is based on soft power and may be mistaken for loss of control by traditional teachers. The child too may take time to change. Sometimes, children have lost confidence in teachers’ desire to genuinely have their interests to heart. It may be that a child doesn’t change in the way you hope, but you have to accept the decision the child makes as he or she becomes more self-aware. The children are beginning to create value, and where value is not the school’s aim, the value created may be to change certain aspects of the school. If the whole school was systemic, these ideas would be listened to, and a co-operative environment established. Because the class and the school is part of the wider community, I began to understand that a truly systemic education would involve more than just the school itself. Systemic education is often called sustainable education, and can be an essential part of our attempt to make life on earth more sustainable.

As I was beginning to have these thoughts, the SEIN Forum returned, this time discussing the Earth Charter. At the same time, my Head Quarters put on the Earth Charter Exhibition and I took an active part in this. This enlarging of my understanding of the role I might play in the world led me to feel I had a global mission, just as Sensei says! I am in the process of designing a programme for teacher training which I hope will be used throughout both the developing world, where the method can help set up in new schools, and in the first world where changes are also needed for the new world of the future. Systemic, or sustainable education, is a way to implement Soka education principles and methods within current educational institutions. It can be an instruction manual for how to actualize the happiness of each child.

Buddhism in society through the medium of education, which is the one of the key remits of SGI. Sustainable education will be used as a humanistic method of education which creates collaborative learning for the modern world, and just as soft power has taken over from hard power practices, systems theory will become increasingly accepted in the mainstream. This type of method also can serve well in places where Soka schools are not yet an option, and can be introduced immediately by Buddhist educators wherever they may work. It has academic credence and is secular, although based on Buddhist principles. For the individual teacher, using the systemic method in the classroom transforms the attitude of the students and makes teaching a joy once more.

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The Hotel Terminus is near the centre of the city, in the Museumsquartier, and has a dozen English in Action teachers staying here, although they seem to have all gone out for Saturday night partying. My room is small but perfectly formed, and over-heated in the Austrian way against the frost-ridden nights. It is quite warm during the day, and everyone comments on how unusual the weather is here in the east of Austria this year. Only three days ago I sat with Catherine and Jenny in the Schlusspark in Eisenstadt, basking in the sunshine overlooking the lake and gardens of the great palace. I was teaching for the week in Neusidl am See, the world’s most boring town with its one long high street running down to the See and the nature reserve. This morning the other teachers and I awoke with glee to be leaving that dead place and coming to Vienna for a week.Martin, my senior teacher, was pleased to help me buy the train ticket from the machine in the station. It’s straightforward but we have to do it in German even though there’s an English translation, I think for showing off purposes. Just over half an hour later, we were back in the Sudbahnhof and taking the tram to the hotel.

Across the street looking out of my window, a girl in her apartment seems to be a student; she has been writing an essay for hours, here papers strewn around her. I have just eaten a huge repast of hummus, dolma, artichokes in chilli and dried papaya bought from the nearby Nachsmarkt, a delirium of Turks and Africans selling real food, finally, fruit and vegetables which the Austrians are strangely suspicious of, preferring pastries and potatoes with their ubiquitous Schweinfleisch (pig meat). The window ledge serves as a fridge. It is two windows with a cold space in between, a kind of artisanal double glazing, which I imagine they are obliged to have so as not to ruin the traditional facades of the buildings.

After a couple of hours sampling normal life here, chatting in Starbucks while everyone checked out their emails - you get 30 minutes free airtime with a cup of coffee, then round the corner to Kafka Cafe, the tiny vegetarian cafe and restaurant where Kafka used to go to write - I tramped out to walk around the glorious if imperialist streets of this old centre of European culture.

Apart from Kafka, luminaries like Mahler, Mozart, Freud, Klimt, Schonberg, Wittgenstein, Haydn - the list in endless - are honoured in street names even if they were not so in life. I walked down the Mariahilferstrasse, looking longingly in all the shop windows (shops!! After Neusidl!), past the Kunsthistorischemuseum through the Burggarten, the gardens of the Hofburg Palace and to Albertina Square, frowned on by the museum of modern art with it great modernistic iron wing arching over the steps to the side. I was proud of myself for having managed to come here first, largely by accident as I couldn’t find where I was on my map at all and felt embarrassed to get the Rough Guide out every two minutes. My intention back in Neusidl was to first come to the Monument against war and fascism here, to say Buddhist prayers for peace as my first action in Vienna. I thought this would be a good cause, as I seem to be walking over the bodies of the many dead from the Anschluss throughout this delicately balanced land. There are two statues with writhing bodies showing the various horrors of the twentieth century in Europe (and now Iraq), torture, dying children, bony concentration camp naked men; a heavy crunched down iron lump covered in barbed wire and chains, on which people have left bunches of roses, and a stele made of volcanic black stone on which is written Austria’s vow for peace in the future. Three giggling American girls came by arm in arm, fooling around, when one of them suddenly saw the statue and cried, laughing,

‘Oh look, there’s a woman giving birth to a baby!’ They began to be a little embarrassed as they looked more closely and realised the baby was crying with terror on its little face and the woman was being tortured. They didn’t know at all what the monument was for, and were quiet for a moment, looking at the various people in a kind of mourning pose in front of it, before recovering and heading on to the shops, giggling afresh. I wonder if, in the future, perhaps sometime one lonely night, the memory of the meaningless figure will come back to them, and they will have had enough sorrows to understand its significance. I don’t know whether to hope they remember it or hope they never have to think about death or terror. I don’t know if peace is bought with the awareness of the horror of war, or with the innocence of youth which has known only peace. They say we must never forget.

Beside the monument were two men in bowler hats standing beside their carriages pulled by white Austrian horses, glowering at the tourists round the monuments as if to say:

‘And why aren’t you asking for a ride?’ I took a photo of one of the guys and he glowered even more, even as he helped a family into the back. Mind you it must be a cold job; the horses were stamping their hooves and snorting misty breath.

Mapless, I made my way along the side of the Opera House to a wide shopping street which was pedestrianised. I was trying to follow the route W E Sebald describes in Vertigo, but I couldn’t remember it. Even more difficult, he hadn’t been able to remember it in the book, as he had wondered aimlessly and only retraced his footsteps later on his map in the hotel room. I let myself be comforted by this, thinking if he could find his way back I might be able to, despite not being able to remember where the hotel was, the name of the street, and not actually knowing what the buildings I had passed were called. An icy wind blew down the side of the Opera House, and I tried to keep track of its direction, so I could walk towards it home. Kärntner Strasse, I later found out this street was called. It had even more shops, designer stores, McDonalds of course, and a Starbucks which tempted me but no! Enough coffee!

Just before Stephansplatz I was stopped by a young man intriguingly dressed in 18^th century garb with Mozart wig and mask, asking if I had any intention of listening to classical music while I was here. He tried to sell me tickets from 39 Euros for a Strauss and other stuff gig at the local park where the Strauss family used to play regularly. I told him I would try to go during the week, but can’t buy a ticket right now, money being the other thing I’d left at the hotel, whose whereabouts I didn’t know. He hadn’t heard of the name either and looked worried when I said I couldn’t remember where it was and didn’t know the address, but I reassured him I’d manage somehow. Instead of going straight to the Cathedral, I slipped down a dark side street at the end of which was a green copper dome. It turned out to be St Peters Kirche, a beautiful church where people were coming in to Mass, and which had free organ concerts every day, so that is a must. Today they’re playing ……Strauss, but I’m hoping there might be some Messian or something more modern if I go in the afternoon in the week.

The Cathedral is being cleaned, and I was looking up somewhat critically at some samples of the cleaned parts next to the blackened ones when I caught the eye of a dark-haired young woman. We smiled at each other and I wondered if she was an EIA teacher who I should remember, or just a stranger who had grasped my thoughts on the brickwork and had similar reactions. I had to veer onto the road round the north side because the pavement was lined with more carriages with horses and steamed with the smell of horse shit where they had made themselves at home. I nipped into one of many shopping precincts, with coffee houses and lounge areas in reception rooms for people to rest from the cold streets. By now I’d had to fish round in my bag for my hat as well as wearing gloves. What put me on the right track home was the Opera House, and I did get the Rough Guide out on the way back so I would know which building was the Art museum for tomorrow.

Saturday 2 February 2008

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The architect Le Corbusier wanted to create a building which, while using less space, would be a great community place to live. Thanks to an invite from my friend Arnaud, I’ve just been able to stay in one of the apartments in the Cite Radieuse in Nantes, France.From the road the building looks side on like any other high rise apartment block, except the signs have been sending you to “Cite Radieuse” for some time. As you turn into the car park, the great block rises up among woodland. You look, and a shiver of pleasure as you realise that the facade isn’t at all uniform. Each window is built back, and in differing patterns over the building, and painted in the primary colours which are a feature of the Corbu experience. It’s more reminiscent of kids building blocks than a city high rise.

You can’t look up as you go round towards the entrance, because your attention is taken by, of all things, a water feature, a little duck pond where the concrete pillars stand on the ground. Grass banks with ducks waddling on them and waterlilies covering the lake and you’re won over. My friend warns me to keep an eye for little ducklings running across the path. A Japaneses bridge crosses into a garden where people can walk their dogs. Carrying on you walk under a concrete shape which I decided looked like a giraffe and my host informed me is in fact called the giraffe and is the fire escape, shaped like a giraffe so you don’t feel scared.

A couple of teenagers talk quietly in the entrance hall as we cross to the lifts. This is the bit that’s grotty, enclosed metal lift with the ubiquitous smell of panicked dog wee. Arnaud pushed the button for the first floor and we went up two floors. That’s because the apartments are set in an irregular fashion, each one taking up two floors. The corridors are called streets, and are lit at each person’s doorway with different coloured lights, the whole street having panels in the primary colours. people greet each other and are all calm and quiet.

In Arnaud’s apartment, you go into the entrance and kitchen, then the sitting room. Stairs lead down to the living room and three bedrooms. The loo and bathroom have porthole doors like a boat. You notice that they’re quite small only when you bump your elbow, visually it still feels like an adventure, like when you went to France on the ferry for your summer holidays. You feel really relaxed and safe in the Corbu, with its surrounding views of trees and parks, the light moving round as the day passes to set in glorious colour from the sitting room window. Being set back, the bedrooms have terraces and are sheltered from full sunlight by a concrete shade. they are insulated from noise by the thick walls and the being set back, and also by their unique positioning. Above the bedrooms are Arnaud’s and the person in the apartment opposite’s sitting rooms and kitchen, and the person opposite’s bedrooms are above Arnaud’s kitchen. When you’re asleep at night you can’t hear anything of neighbours, and in the day you can’t hear anything from their living space either.

The kitchen and dining area are open in the modern style we’re quite used to now but was new at the time, the proportions make it really easy to cook - you don’t bump into anything, and there’s a delivery hatch in case you feel the urge to order groceries by email. How did Le Corbusier plan that?

Sleeping in the Corbu is like being in another womb, such is the feeling of quiet and peace and safety. Everything is human sized and built for living in in peace. The apartments face West/East, apart from a few South facing ones at the end, and the sun rushes in through the bedroom window in the morning to wake you up, and in to the lounge in the evening to light up your evenings, or into the other side for the neighbour. Like a church, the morning light streams through the apartment and when the windows are open the breezed refreshes everything. On one side the two bedrooms are separated by a sliding partition which can make one or two rooms depending on your needs, if you have a small child or later need a larger space. The sliding door makes a blackboard for the child to play on.

The children playing outside play quietly and there’s no fighting. At the top of the entire building is the Nursery School, which seems made for this place with its primary coloured return to infancy. The dogs are friendly even if they don’t like the lift. The inhabitants speak calmly and move slowly. there are people from all walks of life, and these apartments are at low rents, they are genuinely for the people.

The people who live here really like it and wouldn’t move for the world. some have bought their apartments. I myself left feeling incredibly relaxed and with a vision of the sort of environment I would like to live in.

It seems still misunderstood how people can live together in harmony in small spaces if the architecture is thought out and built with people lives and needs in mind. What a shame Le Corbusier isn’t really taken seriously to this day, so that designers of social housing and city housing aren’t constructing lovely friendly community areas for us to live in.

You can arrange to visit the Cite Radieuse and look in some apartments for yourself. Click on the website Cite Radieuse to visit virtually or pop along to the town hall in Reze, Nantes for a guided tour.

copyright Jill Rees 2007

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Systems Theory

Schumacher Society

Dr Stephen Sterling

Etienne Wenger, Communities of Practise

Buddhism

SGI-UK home page

SGI-USA home page

http://www.soka.ac.jp/en/index.html
http://www.earthchartercommunities.org/soka

/http://groups.yahoo.com/group/designforlife/

http://www.iop.or.jp/0010s/sptext2.pdf

http://archive.lib.msu.edu/DMC/African%20Journals/pdfs/Institue%20of%20African%20Studies%20Research%20Review/1995v11n1&2/asrv011001&2003.pdf

http://www.myspace.com/michelmaquaire

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2006/796/index.htm

www.crawlingchaos.co.uk

bloke called Strangely

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