Sustainable Education Solutions - A Buddhist Experience
Friday, October 10th, 2008
While I was working as Head of Languages in a school in Somerset, in 2003, I started chanting for the happiness of every child in my class, then I added, ‘and in the school’. After a while I decided to include children at other schools in the town, then I included all the children in Somerset. Soon I started to chant about all the other children in the UK as well. As time progressed, I began to include children in Europe, then the world, and finally the parents too, and everyone in their communities. I was more or less chanting for the happiness of everyone in the world, which is the vow of the Buddha.
“At all times I think to myself:
How can I cause living beings
to gain entry into the unsurpassed way
and quickly acquire the body of a Buddha?”
[Lotus Sutra ch 16)
This is what has happened as a result of that daimoku!
At this school I had the opportunity to start a Masters degree in Education, and I developed my dissertation from behaviour management ideas to systemic theory in education.
Systems theory is based on the idea that everything in the world is interconnected. It developed from bio-chemistry, and has been used in fields as diverse as cybertronics and psychological therapy. It is clearly very consistent with the Buddhist concept of dependent origination, that everything is interconnected. One analogy is the fisherman’s net: if you tweak one part of the net, the whole of the net will move.
Some people will recognise its use in Family Therapy, where instead of blaming the family member who appears to be having problems, the whole family is treated together, as it is believed that one family member’s actions is a response to the whole family situation. In terms of the classroom, or the school, or any organisation, if you change one part, everything will change. One thing you can always change is yourself, and as Buddhists we have a way to do that easily in chanting to the Gohonzon.
In UK schools, the problem is often poor or aggressive behaviour. Instead of seeing the child as the problem, the whole class, school or ultimately society is seen as part of the cause, and the child’s actions as a response to the environment around him or her. In this way the child with problems is viewed with gratitude for bringing the negative situation within the system to our attention, so we can change it. The methodology is how to go about a process to be able to change the situation from the cause to the effect. It is very dynamic and powerful, also very respectful to each individual, and it is based on soft power.
One day I phoned a friend I had met doing activities at the Buddhist Centre. She introduced me to the work of Gregory Bateson, who had started the ideas behind systems theory. This was it! These were the thought processes I needed to develop a methodology for Education which would enable other teachers to teach in a Soka Education way, respecting the life of every individual.
The support from others in this field who I mysteriously bumped into from then on - Professors, a Soka school teacher in Japan, people involved in sustainable development projects around the world - are a result of the Buddhist principle as expressed in one of Nichiren’s letters:
‘When a caged bird sings, birds that are flying in the sky are thereby summoned and gather around,’ (MWND 872)
I took part in an international internet forum called Soka Educators International Network, where I was able to share my research into systems education with others. From them I found out about a Soka Education programme in the poor areas of Brazil, called the Makiguchi Project, which encouraged children to pull themselves out of illiteracy, and also invited the parents to learn to read and write.
The children in my class meanwhile were doing very well, the medium ones getting what were previously top set results in tests and the lower ability kids, including three autistic children, developing good communication and interactive skills. The method for value creation in education using systems theory was having great results, and I shared it with my colleagues.
One class told me, ‘You are the only teacher who respects us.’ This isn’t really true, as all the teachers were really good in this school, but it reflected the deep respect that was coming from my Buddhahood to them, which they were feeling, and the confidence that the systemic method was able to give them. This assured me I was doing the right thing, and that systemic education based on the fundamental principle in Buddhism of respect for every individual would be the way forward..
Because of a financial crisis, my school was becoming very nasty, with people being bullied, contracts not being renewed, older teachers replaced by temporary newly qualified teachers and so on. The Headteacher was a fundamentalist Christian, and put members of his own Church into management positions in the school. I decided I should leave this abusive environment, although not without having shakabuku’d the Head and his wife, using an article about an inspiring woman in the Art of Living magazine, and negotiating a profitable severance package which enabled me to travel to Africa.
I did lots of Buddhist activities. I volunteered to help at the Centre, I supported local members, I helped organise courses, I held an awareness event in my town, I helped organise the Seeds of Change exhibition and I took two study courses in Buddhism. I introduced several people to the practise, who went on to do wonderful things and become happy,
Someone in the town I worked in started to practise really strongly. It turned out he lived in the house I used to park my car outside to chant at lunch time! Soon, this town had a strong District, and I felt secure that children in the schools would have support now.
At home, my husband started to chant, and he has a really strong practise. This was something I had been chanting for fourteen years. He was promoted at work and his salary was increased to what mine had been, enabling us to carry on in the manner to which we had become accustomed.
Out of the blue, I was invited by the person who had originally introduced me to this practise, to drive a van in Africa. Eight of us drove the same number of vans down on a wonderful journey, through Spain, across the strait at Gibraltar, down the west coast of Morocco and across to Mali. Five of us were members of SGI, a sixth was a member of another Nichiren sect and one person started to practise along the way! We really rocked! The leader was African himself, and very knowledgeable and able to explain how people think there, so I could get a good understanding of African life and how African people tend to think.
Afterwards I was asked to lead a school in Nigeria, a British Curriculum School in the capital Abuja. By an amazing and mystic co-incidence, the founder of the Soka Educators International Forum had also just arrived in Abuja, as her husband, a diplomat, had been posted there. Together, we developed a Methodology for Sustainable Education which is based on Makiguchi’s Value Creating philosophy, or Soka Education.
Because I had just completed the second Study course in the UK, I was able to help introduce the SGI-UK study course to Nigeria, and they are now using it as their study in that country. When I left three months later, SGI Nigeria was made independent. This means people can receive Gohonzon in Nigeria.
The one thing I have always been too scared to chant for is my personal dream to be a successful writer. Through a contact, I was asked to write a Sunday column for a newspaper in Abuja, which I write every week. In this column I am able to encourage people who are trying to create positive change in a difficult emerging nation, based on Buddhist ideas of humanitarianism and respect for everyone. Stuff goes on my website too, and I feel this is beginning to develop. Of course, I also write articles about Sustainable Education, which are read by some of the people who are involved throughout the world. I helped start a project for sustainable development in northern Nigeria which enables poor families, especially girls, to attend school.
Since then I have been able to teach around Europe, in countries such as Austria, Bulgaria, Italy and Istanbul, for a company who send in a team of teachers to do one week of intensive English study in a school. The course is very creative, and we get to travel and visit celebrated European sights. I have been able to chant and support members around Europe.
As I watch my students enjoying their learning in Europe and Africa, I smile to remember how I had determined that every child in the world will have a joyful educational experience. I never imagined that my ridiculously big determination would enable my own life to expand so much.
1550 words
Jill Rees 2008
Tags: Article, behaviour in schools, jill, Makiguchi, Nigeria, northern nigeria, Soka education, sustainable development, Sustainable education
