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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Although many people consider themselves to be Soka Educators, there’s no qualification or obvious signifier which identifies an individual pedagogue as a Soka Educator. “Soka” means value creation, and the basic humanistic principle of Soka Education is that human beings always and necessarily have the potential to create value, and that fulfilling our potential to create value in our own way is what makes us happy. The difference in the Soka educator is that we believe in the intrinsic capacity of each child to be themselves better than anyone, and we respect them for who they are in themselves.

The idea of value-creating education was first formed by the Japanese educator Tsunesaburo Makiguchi (1871-1944) as a response to the trend in education at the time to train the children to be war-machines for the fatherland. Makiguchi had already written a (later) influential book “The Geography of Human Life”, showing the need for critical thinking and creativity to enable the individual to fully contribute to a free society. He had been strongly influenced by the American educator John Dewey whom he had seen speak in Tokyo, but the expansion of thought in Japan was seriously arrested by the increasing militarism which came to engulf all society and led to the terrible experience of war in China, and then the World War which culminated in the disaster of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. By this time Makiguchi had died in prison, where he had been taken for refusing to compromise on his pacifist beliefs, by now strengthened by his practice of Nichiren Buddhism.

His beliefs were continued by Josei Toda, also a teacher who had worked for many years alongside with Mr Makiguchi, had become a Buddhist with him, considered him to be his master in faith, and had gone to prison for also standing up against Japanese militarization of religion. Josie Toda went on after the war to reform the lay Buddhist organisation Soka Gakkai, extending its reach beyond only educational philosophy into all walks of life, and helping many people struggling to recover their lives in the devastation of post-war Japan. It was the current President of Soka Gakkai International, Daisaku ikeda, who has established the Soka Universities and encouraged the activities of educators within the Soka Gakkai.

So Soka education is broadly based on the Buddhist belief in the intrinsic value of and respect for all life and for each individual, and the Soka teacher bases his pedagogy on his Buddhist practice, challenging issues which arise by referring back to our Buddhist faith. There is no strict code of practise for the Soka educator, as the style of teaching will depend on the situation faced within the educational environment. The main thing is the unique importance of each individual child, and the refusal to make use of the child’s individuality for an external purpose, such as grades or the needs of employers. Each child is valuable in his or her own right.

Of course the Soka environment is notably happy and relaxed and the children have confidence and highly developed questioning and communication skills. The reputation of the highest achievers in the Soka Universities is beginning to serve as a testimonial to the success of this educational practice. However Soka educators are to be found all around the world, in the Makiguchi Project in Action in Sao Paulo, Brazil*, as well as in Malaysian kindergartens, applying effective solutions to areas with grave social and economic problems.

I first came across Makiguchi when I was training to be a teacher, and studied him in more depth as part of post-graduate research on classroom behaviour. The Soka method has comparisons in the systemic theory of education which is also having dramatic effects in problem classroom areas, and which is gaining respect in many circles at this time. Gregory Bateson (1904 -1980), who started the whole systemic theory, drew on the Buddhist ideas prevalent in Hawaii when he lived there. (G. Bateson “Steps to an Ecology of Mind” New York Chandler 1972; Molnar and Linquist, “Changing Problem Behaviour in Schools” Jossey Bass 1989). By applying his basic principles in the classroom, I was able to solve the problems of motivation, self-esteem and disruptive behaviour exhibited by my classes and lead them to begin to enjoy learning and start to think more as “global citizens”. but the reason I originally liked Makiguchi came when I read that when the poor children arrived from the frosty streets in the morning, Makiguchi had lit the stove and prepared hot soup for his pupils to eat as they dried their socks on the stove. The Soka Educator is first and foremost a caring human being and a fine example to his students.

Since 2005, Soka Educators worldwide have expressed their views and shared their findings on the international forum confernces which you can find through the link below or contact Stephanie at tansey@usa.net at the website http://www.soka.ed.jp/kyoiku/k0004.html or see the latest newsletter below.

______________________________________________________________________________

Carl Rogers on Humanistic education article

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Note 1. **Some background (Thank you to Kwabena Siaka from Earth Charter Communities Education Forum) I
‘The MIA effort in Brazil is widely supported by the communities they are involved in. Not because of any directed attempt by the members to spread the word, so to speak, but by the participants and administrators of the schools in which they have or are working with. Schools contact them to ask for the MIA project to come to their schools. This process happens almost exclusively through word of mouth. The MIA program was also helped by a timely government initiative to help develop a more humanistic mode of teaching. It was felt by the new government that the traditional way of teaching was too narrow and that teachers should be reoriented to teach to the whole child. Therefore the government has initiated a requirement for teacher professional development of 2 hours a month, with pay. Furthermore, parents, who were excluded from the process, to a large extent before ( by the educational system) were not seen as a part of the solution. The relationship between teachers and parents could be characterized as quite hostile. This is not the case in MIA schools, today. Parents in the MIA program are welcomed and in fact, are given the same treatment, when possible, as the teachers. Parents involvement is seen as crucial to the long term impact and sustainability of the program. Family involvement (an important community factor) is a key element in Makiguchi’s paradigm.‘Classroom methods and process
The MIA approach is very subtle and very respectful. And at the same time very direct. During an art class session, for example, teachers are given an art project to work on individually. In one of the classes I visited, the project was to make a drawing, which they had to cut afterwards into a shape. Three to four assistance circulated around the class, encouraging and praising the participants (teachers) at various stages in the process. Parents were also welcomed to join the activity. Throughout the session (treatment) the lead moderator would quote something from the Buddhist perspective on life or teaching. There was no big lecture on teaching or anything of that sort. In fact, I was wondering when that would come. Instead, from time to time, the lead moderator would say something like this, “Every person is precious, each of us has a mission that only we can fulfill.” The content of these messages and the philosophical influences came from a variety of thinking such as Friere, Dewey, Jung, Ikeda, Toda, and Nichiren. The materials that the participants had at their disposal were kept to a minimum to encourage cooperation. The notion of interdependence was introduced in this way and a simple quote or comment was made to reinforce this point. No pressure or dictates were applied or given to the participants.‘Community involvement of non members
The interaction with the schools and the community is essentially a dialogical process. What I mean by this is that a process of negotiations (dialogue) begins as soon as a school contacts the program. The MIA have found that it is better to have a liaison situated within the school context. This key person helps facilitate the introduction of the program into the school “community”. Which includes the family as well. This person can advise the program on local concerns and customs. That is not to say that there is no resistance to the change. One of the common questions is “are you trying to covert us to Buddhism.” This question is dealt with head on by introducing the organization of SGI and its principles, goals and activities through a short 15 minute video followed by a question and answer session with the school community. This kind of dialogue continues throughout the project, which is conducted in four phases over a two year period, each phase lasts six months.’

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Note 2

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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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On TV was the story of a remarkable man, a teacher of blind children in Baghdad who himself was born blind. He had gone to the same school before getting his degree in English and becoming a teacher, and said that to be back there gave him a feeling of happiness it is impossible to describe. The children loved him but ‘I love them more‘, he said, and his love gave them self-belief. This teacher and his students were doing remarkable things in the school; they learned English and inspired the community. Through TV of course, they were able to inspire the world.Around them the war, explosions sounded terrifying to their sensitive ears.

‘The war,’ said their remarkable teacher, ‘Makes more hardship for them, who already have the hardship of being blind’. To create such love and humanistic environment in such awful animalistic circumstances is an incredible feat, almost saintly. After the war, a new humanism and a drive to reactivate Iraqi society will no doubt come into being, as it always does. At this time, the blind teacher and his remarkable achievements will be a leading influence.

Progress tends to come from the innovations of the disadvantaged. In seventies Brixton, the south London area renowned for the Jamaican immigrant culture, the ‘Access’ programme was developed to enable young black people who had missed out by going to the local secondary school, whose attitude to black kids was shockingly discriminatory at the time, to return to mainstream higher education. Those who had left school without passing any GCSE exams could take a one or two year entry course into higher education, A levels or a training course, or even into University. This brilliant educational breakthrough enabled the rise of a black middle class in the UK, which in turn encourages integration, better understanding between black and white, and the support of black professionals for the poor and deprived areas, where people are still, unfortunately, discriminated against.

The Access programme went national when it proved to be invaluable to women, many whom had also missed out on formal education through being over burdened with caring for family members, or who became pregnant early in their teenage years. Girls often are not concentrating on exams at the right time, and can spend several years having babies or dealing with relationships. Part of discrimination is the inability of the victim to care for themselves in a beneficial way, and this self-destruction seems to particularly affect teenage girls in the UK. With the Access course, they are able to enter higher education or training when they are able to benefit from the opportunity. Thousands and thousands of women have been able to change their lives because of this, an entire generation of women, without realising that it began as a support for West Indian immigrants!

Stories of people who failed to flourish at the ‘right’ time abound. Einstein, it is well known, didn’t talk until he was five years old, and didn’t shine at school until, at fourteen, he suddenly came up with the General Theory of Relativity. The great contemporary physicist Stephen Hawking was born so severely disabled that without a great deal of special education he would be unable to communicate anything, let alone his theory of black holes. Those who have thankfully combated poverty include Immanuel Kant, who revolutionised philosophical thinking, and Beethoven, who had to financially support his younger siblings following the death of his father at fourteen, yet managed to break into the musical society of the day. Good family circumstances, money or useful contacts are not what makes talented people flourish. What is necessary is access, access to education and to opportunity. Those with talent and intelligence are thankfully often able to dig out opportunity and aquire sponsors, although we don’t know how many talented and valuable individuals we have lost through failing to provide the support and encouragement they need in their youth.

The Soviet Union of course was fantastic at observing kids at school and giving special education to those who showed promise. They subsequently developed a worldwide reputation in sport, the arts and sciences for the excellence of its citizens. The UK used to provide free education at all levels and grants for poorer university students which enabled the boom in talent in the sixties and seventies that has enabled it to remain a world power after the break down of the British Empire, despite being just a small island. China, too, spared nothing in its attempt to develop youth, even funding its students to study in the best universities abroad, provided they return to work for at least five years after graduating. The United Arab Emirates sends large numbers of its young men to the UK to qualify as engineers, mechanics, chefs and in other careers so that it will develop in one generation into a top class provider of services. When education is seen as a national investment, it doesn’t seem such a steep price to pay.

All over Africa huge numbers of talented and motivated young people are wasted through the lack of educational provision and the unwillingness to fund bright individuals. Instead of programmes to encourage graduates to work in Africa, those who are able to qualify invariably go to live and work abroad. Large numbers of young people are Africa’s biggest asset, but not if they remain uneducated. African governments need to get over their fear that the rains may come and wash everything away, and plan ten, twenty, fifty years ahead, investing in its young people.

942 words

© Jill Rees

11 March 2008

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As planned, I went to Starbucks and started surfing. Dylan came in quite soon and set about working away. The way to spot a real artist is that they are always working, where sometimes people say they are writers and so on, but they treat it like a hobby in a way. Artists are pretty boring most of the time because they are passionate mainly about their work. Amanda came in and refused to sit on uncomfortable chairs. She likes to be comfortably ensconced in Vienna cafes relaxing over a hot coffee! It’s an ideal life for a writer to have time in isolation to work but also to meet other interesting people as EIA people are without any effort.After a bit of a chat, I tramped down to the Museum of Historic Art, only a couple of hundred metres down the Mariahilferstrasse. There are so many museums, all in the magnificent buildings of Imperial Vienna, that I had to check which one was the Art museum, as I didn’t want to end up surrounded by dinosaurs in the Naturhistorischemuseum. Before making my way to the Breughels, I went to look at the Titians, where I spent some time in front of a portrait of Benedetto Varchi, a celebrated humanist of his time, who Titian clearly liked. He has a wide open face with an exaggeratedly high forehead, a clear gaze and, most importantly, light before him in the direction he is looking. Contrast this with his portrait of the Pope, who is surrounded by blackness and dark, except for the light shining on himself. Just looking at this painting made me feel that I want to stand up proudly as a humanist. He has the nobility usually reserved for royalty in his features, the nobility of objective, scientific and humanistic dynamism.

Downstairs has a collection of Egyptian, Greek and Roman artefacts and sculptures, with, quite casually placed really ancient Greek figures at the entrance. They are Trojan, and pre-war, and are of the Greek gods. The only thing is, there is a clearly apparent resemblance to the gods of Hindu. This makes sense, as Stephanie was talking about the Trojans of the Iliad being still eastern, with the feminine gods and values still prevalent. Later the Greeks took over, and the Odyssey shows us that Western dualism was beginning to mix in, eventually, especially with later Judeo-Christian thought, overwhelming our philosophy forever. This is incredibly clear as you go inside, and see a relief wall sculpture from only 2 years after the Trojan war, still Hinduistic but taking on more familiar western forms, and a little later the same kind of relief, but in full perspective relief and clearly completely western.

Round to the Egyptians, a power-statue of Horus with one of the pharaohs began the decline to the ridiculous, a mummified alligator, its snout peeping out from the swathes of grimy cloth, among the various animals surrounding one of the Egyptian dead dudes. They really were weird.

Talking with the school contact teacher for tomorrow, we got to talking about our kids and her husband was interested to hear about Ev as he is a professional anthropologist, specialising in Nepal and the Far East. He works for the anthro

pology Museum in Vienna, which has been closed down for two years for complete refurbishment and is due to re-open in the Autumn. He has offered to show Ev round if she comes to see the exhibits sometime. He was delighted to hear of someone who likes anthropology, as I think people tend to take the piss out of him normally (Ross syndrome!)

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For the last few years my attempts to teach using humanistic principles has led me to develop a methodology for teaching using the systemic theory in education. Using the systems theory has led me to develop a holistic way of teaching and of managing schools which is powerful without being authoritarian, and which will be increasingly helpful in education for sustainable communities. Indeed, many successful projects, such as the Makiguchi in Action project, instinctively use the systemic method.Systems Theory itself began with bio-chemistry, and the finding that, on a cellular level, everything interacts.  Considered the grandfather of systems theory, Gregory Bateson had inherited a knowledge of biochemistry from his father William Bateson, who discovered the genome. Gregory Bateson worked in the fields of mental health, doing pioneering work on the treatment of schizophrenia based on systems theory, and later developing ways to communicate in the foundling science of cybernetics, which is making robots. Bateson covered a wide field in his research, systemics, he found, could be applied over a wide range of sciences. In fact this universality is bound to systems theory, as the theory itself says as its first premise that everything in the universe is interconnected.  The ideas of systems theory have been useful in connection with environmental projects inspired by the Earth Charter, and a growing body of academics and activists are finding connections between their areas of expertise and others, as Bateson himself found.

Bateson, it seems to me, had an instinctive understanding of the phenomenon of the interconnectedness of all things, a principle of Buddhism which he may have picked up in Hawaii where he worked. The principle of interconnectedness seemed obvious and self-evident, and solved the long-standing philosophical problems in the west of Cartesian dualism, which was impeding further expansion in our understanding of the world. Systemic theory has subsequently been used extensively in family therapy, in the treatment of mental illness, in cybernetics, in ecology and in management. It is quite new in education, and has been mainly used for behaviour management in classrooms, which is how I discovered it on a behaviour management course. I believe systems theory should be developed as the basis for school management, for developing communities, in teacher training and for national education programmes.

The use of systems theory in education is often referred to as sustainable education. Each action you take in sustainable education leads to a further positive outcome. Because it takes into consideration the whole environment, negative consequences are ideally avoided. In behaviour management, if we use authoritative ways to punish a naughty child, the child’s behaviour may subside or change, but we create an underlying resentment and attitudes, for example the feeling that society is against him or her. This leads on to a potentially unsatisfying school life for the child, and may impact on his or her life. Educators want their students to acquire the skills and outlook they need to have a happy and successful life, so they need to make causes which will enable this to happen. In the systemic method, authority is not necessarily used. The whole environment or situation the child is in will be taken into account. Where the teacher has gaps in their knowledge of the child’s circumstances, which is inevitable, they are nevertheless assumed to be there in the child’s life. For example, we may not know what the child’s home life or social life is like, but we can factor in the idea that these parts of his or her environment will be affecting his or her behaviour now. Buddhists will recognise the ideas of cause and effect here: although this is not currently stated overtly in systems theory, it is clearly present. In the classroom, the teacher will deal with poor behaviour in a holistic and non-authoritative way (most of the time!)

Systemic theory says that everything is interconnected. This means that when a child misbehaves, the entire environment he or she finds himself in is the cause of this misbehaviour. Further, we can’t really define it as misbehaviour, but as simply a manifested behaviour, as systemic thought does not judge ‘from the outside’. To alter the behaviour the teacher finds inappropriate, the teacher has to change something. It may be something directly to do with the child, such as moving him or her, giving additional support, changing the activity and so on. Sometimes the teacher can change something seemingly unconnected.

I once had a seriously misbehaving boy who seemed completely directionless and was a nuisance to the others in class, but everything I could think of had failed to improve things. I had another think, what systems theory calls analysis, and realised that I had noticed that this boy stood around in the playground alone all through break and lunch. I took him to the Lego club activity one lunchtime and asked him to see if he liked it. He made a couple of friends at Lego club, one of whom asked him to come to football practise, and within a couple of weeks this child was integrated in a friendship group and started to participate more confidently in class. There will have been many causes for his isolation, but I didn’t need to know them in detail to change something. In systemic education, you change something, and it doesn’t matter all that much what. Because everything is interconnected, every action you take will alter every other aspect of the environment. If the subsequent change isn’t helpful, you simply change something else until you perceive what is really the problem, and can make more adept changes.

Sometimes, a teacher can choose to use authority in the traditional fashion, but knowing that this will make a systemic change. I have had situations where I have slammed into a child or a class and given them some vile punishment such as detentions or loss of privileges. In most schools, the system is such that the children have to behave in a certain way, to do certain courses and pass exams. That being the case, the reminder that in this world people do have authority over you is not a bad thing. Systemic education is not particularly liberal, it doesn’t mean there is no discipline or that the child is accorded with adult status. It is, however, positive and pragmatic. It allows control on the part of every student and every teacher. Because each person is capable of changing the entire situation, they feel empowered, and this in turn reassures nervous children and children who fear failure, as well as making the classroom a safe place for children whose personalities are not respected in their family situations.

As I develop a class in sustainable educative methods, sometimes openly describing what I am doing, the children progress in a quite extraordinary way. A group of children in my class said to me: ‘You’re the only teacher who respects us and who likes us’. When I pointed out that this wasn’t true, all the teachers in that small school were really compassionate and knew the children well as individuals, they acknowledged this and replied, ‘Well somehow the way you do things seems different.’ I believe what they had realised is that the foundation of my class is respect for each individual in a Buddhistic way: each person is valued for what they are, and not depending on what they achieve or how they perform. The children became able to develop study skills on a par with much older students, and become very self-confident.  They enjoyed lessons because they felt they had some influence over how they were learning. They became able to express their feelings in non-aggressive ways, because they were taken into account. The results in assessments and exams were substantially higher than other control group classes, and classes which were not using systemic ideas. They were aware that something different was being done, and that it involved empowerment and respect. Most importantly, they were happier, and absenteeism almost disappeared.

Sustainable education works best when it is instigated as a whole school programme, since if just one teacher is applying it the results impact on the rest of the school anyway, (the whole environment is affected remember!). Students may start acting in a more confident and independent way generally and other teachers may not find this easy to deal with. Expressing their opinions can be interpreted as cheek, and drive a wedge between the child’s appreciation of the two teachers. Improved performance may not be noticed or acknowledged, and children can become frustrated. It is noticeable however that where a child suddenly stops misbehaving and becomes happier and more sociable, like my Lego club boy, the other teachers are appreciative!  As a way of training staff quickly, of forming whole school policy, integrated curricular, improved assessment results, behaviour management, community education and parental co-operation, systemics is ideal. I am currently developing a methodology which will apply sustainable education principles in small community schools in developing nations, where education projects may be just beginning or be in the process of upgrading, especially as regards the training of teachers. Because the basic principle of systemic is that everything is interconnected, the families, economic situation, traditions and living situations of the community are directly influencing the educational provision in a community. My method takes the existing community traditions and beliefs as its base, and enables the free development of facilities and resources, grouping of classes, involvement of parents and the local community and so on. For example, where children are needed at home to communicate on behalf of the mother, as happens in purdah, female literacy classes can bring the community back together, enable the mother to become involved in the community once more, and facilitate the daughter’s education where she would not previously have been allowed to go to school.

In communities where education is well established and universally provided, problems such as student aggression, lack of motivation, absenteeism, bullying, stress and depression among students and teachers, inappropriate skills learning according to employers, teacher dropout rates and so on, may be regarded as a similar case in many ways to communities where provision is sparse. These schools and national systems for education need revising. The trick is to devise a large scale programme for change without disrupting schools or destroying what is already working well. The systemic method is perfect for this type of endemic change. I am developing a programme for teacher training in schools in developed countries which will make the kind of changes I have been looking at and which will begin the process of systemic management, allowing the practitioners themselves to voice the experiences and ideas they are having and begin to introduce whole-school changes as they see fit. Sustainable education, like all sustainable projects, begins on a small holistic scale. That which works well can be expanded, that which doesn’t work will not be on a scale which is destructive and costly.

Like Buddhism, sustainable education is not prescriptive, and cannot be so, since it must be applied receptively to the environment in which it finds itself. When we are introducing systems theory to schools and to teachers, therefore, we need to explain the ideas behind the methods. Where this has been omitted because of lack of time for training, lack of continuity in the training, or lack of entusiam on the part of school leaders, the systemic method has been quietly dropped.  An element of faith is required when one thing after another that the teacher tries seems to fail. The faith comes in the understanding that every action you take is changing something, and that if you continue, the casue of the problem will become clear at some point. Meanwhile, just the fact that you are interacting with the problem child is vastly improving his or her ability to interact with society. In the normal authoritative order of things, problems are not always solved, but damage can be done to the child (and the teacher!). Using sustainable methods, the child will not be harmed, because he or she is being taken into account, and the teacher will feel more comfortable with what he or she is doing. Teachers who start using systemic methodology report the immediate effect that they begin to enjoy teaching again, have better rapports with the students, and feel less stress. Sustainable education, like sustainable environmental projects, improves your well-being and health.

Sustainable education is one aspect of an increasingly established methodology based on systems theory. Although quite well known in psychology and management, education is still very much in the pioneering stage. Understanding systems theory and its application in education can help us to form our individual powerful techniques in the classroom or in school and project management.  Below is a bibliography for anyone interested as a way of introduction to systems thought. Our input as educators in terms of respecting the individual, understanding the ideas of interconnectedness and  cause and effect, will enable sustainable education to help children, teachers, parents and communities everywhere to find education for sustainable communities in the 21st century.

© Jill Rees

13 January 2008

Suggested reading

Gregory Bateson          Steps to an Ecology of mind    University of Chicago Press 1972

Molnar and Lindquist Changing Problem Behaviour In Schools         Jossey Bass1989

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_for_Sustainable_Development

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Happy New year to everyone who reads this column. In the aftermath of the over-eating and over-drinking that characterises Christmas in the UK, this quiet time between Christmas Day and the New Year’s Eve revelling is a good time to nurse one’s hangover and reflect over our achievements and experiences of the Old Year, and make our determinations for the next twelve months.

So how did we do last year? Personally, 2007 was the year I discovered Africa. This time last year I hadn’t been to Africa nor particularly thought about what it is like. I had met Africans in Europe of course, and they impressed me as relaxed and friendly people. I had met Africans from wealthy families, who were well-educated, well-fed, and doing well in their chosen careers. And I had met students f rom Africa, mostly serious and studious young men intent on doing well. Like my friend Ade, they were often huge and muscley, obviously well-fed. So I never quite bought into the ‘Bob Geldof’ version of Africans, little swollen-bellied starving children, or farmers too ignorant to plant and tend their crops. Then in April I was invited to drive from France through Spain and Morocco, through Mauritania into Mali. As I arrived in Bamako I remembered the reaction of Mohammed Ali when he first visited Zaire for his ‘Rumble in the jungle’ in the early sixties.

Mohammed Ali expressed his surprise and his feelings of betrayal in having been led to think of African people, therefore his people, as being poor, unintelligent, uneducated and incompetent. While the Charities have to show poor people in war zones or famine zones to raise money, they are ‘raising awareness’ not of Africans, but of the results of war and corruption, which are the same whatever the continent. The shocking images of starving children with flies in their eyes is a gross misrepresentation of Africans. Mohammed Ali realised during his visit that a lot of the information he had taken as gospel, was racist in bias. This heightened awareness enabled him to refuse to fight in the Vietnam War, to be imprisoned and have his career ruined and his championship medal taken from him. He had no way of knowing at that time that he would one day make a comeback, regain his championship status back in Zaire in 1973, and be one of the three humanitarian leaders studied in schools worldwide, alongside his contemporary Martin Luther King and the Indian leader Gandhi.

An old, sick man, he later corrected journalists saying, ‘I’m not famous as a boxer, but as a Muslim.’ The vision and understanding of the world from the global perspective that his visit to Zaire and the Vietnam War gave him, enabled him to grow in spirit to become one of the world’s greatest heroes. A religious man, a pacifist, and a humanitarian, he makes a perfect hero for all peoples on the planet, admired and respected the world over ‘not for the colour of his skin, but for the con