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.

Tags: Art, Book, Bridgwater, Buddhist, buddhist group, Conference, Design, Family, home, Humanist, jill, jill, Network, Rain, SEIN, SGI, SGI-UK, Soka, Story, Sun, Theory, Travel, Truck, Work

Related posts

• Sustainable Education Solutions (0)
• Education (0)
• Seeking To Build A Community of Life Through Humanistic Education - SEIN Newsletter Volume VI, Issue 1 Sustainable Education Solutions by Jill Rees (0)
• Humanistic education for the world - Soka Education (0)
• Sustainable education - experience (0)

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 Kyochi Gakkai, the society for value creation in 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 varieyt 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 NASA ; 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/

Tags: access, Bridgwater, Buddhism, Buddhism, Buddhist, buddhist faith, buddhist organisation, Buddhistic, Buddhists, dialogue workshops, disciple, faith, Gregory Bateson, history, Humanism, humanistic education, humanistic methods, jill, liberation, mission, nasa, Organisation, respect, SEIN, SGI, Soka, Soka Educators International Network, Soka Gakkai International, Tsunesaburo, Turkmenistan, Value-creation

Related posts

• April 2008 SEIN Conference Bridgwater - Hand of History (0)
• Sustainable Education Solutions (0)
• Seeking To Build A Community of Life Through Humanistic Education - SEIN Newsletter Volume VI, Issue 1 Sustainable Education Solutions by Jill Rees (0)
• Humanistic education for the world - Soka Education (0)
• Education (0)

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

---

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.’

---

Note 2

Tags: Art, Article, Book, Buddhism, Classroom, Evil, Family, Host, Humanist, jill, Mail, News, Philosophy, Practice, Rain, Sea, SGI, Soka, Sun, Theory, War, Work, Written

Related posts

• Education (0)
• Sustainable Education Solutions (0)
• Humanistic education for the world - Soka Education (0)
• Seeking To Build A Community of Life Through Humanistic Education - SEIN Newsletter Volume VI, Issue 1 Sustainable Education Solutions by Jill Rees (0)
• Report from Abuja Nigeria (0)

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.

Tags: Art, Buddhism, Classroom, Design, Evil, Exchange, Fantastic, France, home, Humanism, Humanist, jill, jill, Leader, Network, News, Philosophy, Practice, Rain, Reading, SGI, Soka, Sun, Theory, Truck, War, Work, Writing

Related posts

• Sustainable Education Solutions (0)
• Education (0)
• Sustainable education - experience (0)
• Humanistic education for the world - Soka Education (0)
• Soka Education - Humanitarian education for the new century (0)

Tags: Art, Article, Book, Buddhism, Classroom, Creative Writing, Design, Evil, Exchange, Family, Fantastic, France, home, Humanism, Humanist, jill, jill, Kosen Rufu, Leader, Mail, Network, News, Philosophy, Practice, Publish, Rain, Reading, Sea, SGI, SGI Buddhism, Soka, Sun, Theory, Truck, War, Work, Writing

Related posts

• Seeking To Build A Community of Life Through Humanistic Education - SEIN Newsletter Volume VI, Issue 1 Sustainable Education Solutions by Jill Rees (0)
• Education (0)
• Humanistic education for the world - Soka Education (0)
• Soka Education - Humanitarian education for the new century (0)
• Sustainable education - experience (0)

Last week was no fun at all, every moment seemed difficult. I gave the experience at the Buddhist meeting last night. I have prayed to do Kosen Rufu in Austria, though I don’t know how I can do this, travelling around staying in hotels. However I gave an experience at the women’s education meeting at the Centre a month ago about linking up with Sensei, and since then several women have come up to me and said this experience helped them break through deadlock, including Buddhists from Linz as well as Vienna. The people here, especially the women, feel heavy and somewhat defeated. Kosen Rufu is hard here, they say, Austria is a country laden with heavy karma, which people don’t want to face yet. I chanted about this and decided that what was needed was a connection with Sensei, and to understand that the daimoku is all-powerful.

This is what I’ve been speaking about to people, gratitude, vision of our mission and to connect with Sensei.

Yesterday I listened to the experiences at the meeting in German, turning down the offer to translate. It conceals understanding people’s feelings when there is a translator, even though you miss some of the meaning. I understood most of it. Gabby spoke of the great joy, a young man of his struggle with cancer. At the end Evelyn asked me to speak, sensing (bless her) that I wanted to say something, but I didn’t know if I ought.

I spoke of last week, when I felt as if my presence was pointless. I chanted and realised that, whatever was going on, I am always with Sensei and always doing Kosen Rufu, even though I may not feel as if I am. I vowed each day to reveal my Buddhahood and do my best. At the end of this time, I got the email about the meeting and was able to come a day early to Vienna, plus I got a great room at the Terminus. This is my benefit, and then I realised that although the week wasn’t good, I hadn’t really suffered, and I had the certainty of my oneness with Sensei and my mission, and this is peace and happiness in this life. Although you don’t feel enraptured and flooded with the joy of Buddhahood all the time, you are actually enlightened. Buddhahood is in fact to continue and never give up. I think this helped those who were suffering to have some faith. The Kansai slogan ‘Never give up’ is the key to Buddhahood in this lifetime.

At this point I thought why am I in Vienna? It must be to give encouragement to these women, because we have such a strong faith in the UK which I can pass on for Robert Samuels. It is very mystic.

And now since Evelyn said to me ‘No you are doing Kosen Rufu anyway, you don’t have to travel because you are doing it wherever you are’, I have wondered if I should be travelling and causing difficulty for my family. But I have made causes, such as teaching EFL and in international schools, which is bound to bear fruit. It is just a question of faith to continue, and never give up, and trust the causes I made through my daimoku.

Looking at my determinations, they are really, to be a cause for Soka Education in the world, to write, and to secure Kosen Rufu worldwide.

Tags: Austria, Family, jill, Kosen Rufu, Mail, Peace, Soka, Travel, Vienna

Related posts

• Humanistic education for the world - Soka Education (0)
• Education (0)
• Sustainable Education Solutions (0)
• ‘Scraped flat by rollers of wars, wars, wars’ * (0)
• Vienna - it means nothing to me (0)

Today I found my sister here in Vienna at a Soka Gakkai Buddhist meeting. I got the phone number of the centre from the Internet and sent an email. The Women’s leader contacted me at once and when we spoke, she told me about a meeting in my district Vienna 4. Unfortunately in my arrogance I thought I could find the street easily, and left it much too late before I realised I couldn’t find it. Luckily the hotel chap had an A-Z and helped. It isn’t very far, although I had to walk across the Naschmarkt and over Karlsplatz, the park that the kids at school told me was the place to buy hard drugs. I didn’t see any dealers, although there were a lot of bobbies about, swinging their truncheons and chatting as they walked around in male/female pairs, quite like the UK and nothing like Germany! The SGI Director General for all of Austria was present at the meeting, as well as a Japanese lady who had been practising for nearly 50 years! The DG translated for her into Japanese and a local woman did the same for me into English, so it had a very international feel. There was a study of a Gosho Letter to Sairon-Bo which followed on from their Study lecture, to kick off the meeting. It turned out that Sylvia, my translator, started practising on exactly the same day as me! Same year! The Japanese lady agreed we must be sisters. After the meeting they brought out a huge platter of food, sushi made by the Japanese lady, tuna and pasta salad, Austrian brown breads and juice. We all exchanged emails and SMS, and Sylvia invited me to the centre tomorrow to do some chanting.

They were talking about the desolation of youth, which is practically the only experience I’ve had in Vienna after teaching for a week. Two of the women were teachers of English! And one was saying her class expected another war to start. She spoke to them about hope. And tried to make them understand that these things aren’t foregone conclusions, the people aren’t powerless in these matters. Wars are the extremes of the devilish functions of greed, foolishness and anger. Those warmongers feed off these negative feelings in all of us. If we don’t feel them, but instead feel hope and courage, and determine to take actions continually to make friendships and links between ourselves and other people, we can block the negativity and make the world how we want it. This is the Buddhist ideal of Kosen Rufu, of creating world peace through one-to-one communication between people.

Another first today was my first cake and coffee in a Vienna coffee house with Martin after classes. The decor was Imperial, carvings on the beautiful old wooden panels and velour wall coverings. We’re still getting on although I lost him in the toilets at the Naschmarkt (long story), which is just as well as we’re together for four weeks.

Tags: Art, Evil, Exchange, Friend, Friendship, jill, Leader, Mail, Peace, SGI, Soka, Story, War

Related posts

• Education (0)
• Sustainable Education Solutions (0)
• Humanistic education for the world - Soka Education (0)
• Seeking To Build A Community of Life Through Humanistic Education - SEIN Newsletter Volume VI, Issue 1 Sustainable Education Solutions by Jill Rees (0)
• Report from Abuja Nigeria (0)

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 started to participate in the Soka Educators International online Forum.            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 underperforming 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. The teachers worked as a team, and we had invited the local Education Authority advisors to come in and work with us on the Key Stage 3 strategy, which also raised money for the school. 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 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.

Later, the school tried to save money by getting rid of us expensive staff so they could hire cheap ones. I explained the theory of itai doshin, and by working together and refusing to be divided we saved all our jobs.

Late in 2003, I was offered the opportunity to take a Masters 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. As part of my MA, I had a control group which I ran in the traditional way as I had been taught at teacher training college, and another group that I introduced to the systemic method. After a couple of months, the control group were experiencing the usual problems of English schools, with disaffected and misbehaving children who ‘hated French’. The systemic group were firing ahead enthusiastically and their assessment results had gone up two points. I felt sorry for the other group, and started using the systemic method with them too, 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 underperforming, is demotivated, is misbehaving or is unhappy in the lesson, it is not seen as a fault in the child, but in the system. Anything which changes will affect the class and the individual student. Sometimes, it is possible to change what the child is doing, by speaking to them or giving them extra attention and so on, but usually the children have got all that worked out and can beat you at it. What the teacher is always able to change, however, is their own behaviour, and this too 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. This isn’t important, as 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. I realised that these are Buddhist ideas, of cause and effect and of ichinen sanzen, the interconnectivity of all phenomena.

For example, one boy who was highly intelligent and a champion athlete, was determined not to do the lessons, but called out incessantly, twitched about and kept visiting his friends on the other side of the room to chat. I had tried everything I could think of for a year and a half, but he got worse and worse as puberty and winning national championships at athletics inflated his ego. Eventually I thought, he is very fit, and probably finds it difficult to sit still for an hour. I discussed with him that I would give him permission to leave the class when he felt the need to move, and go and run around the field. He negotiated that he could sit with his friend, which I agreed to as long as he didn’t talk while I was teaching a point. The rest of the class were informed about this agreement, and told it didn’t apply to everyone, but was meant to help him. During the first lesson, he sat still and quietly, as he didn’t believe he would get away with what we had decided. I reminded him of our agreement. The second lesson, he ran around outside, chatted with his friend, and tested out our agreement. I reassured him, saying yes that’s what we agreed. Subsequently, he sat through every lesson without any problems, and rarely felt the need to chat. Gradually, he began to get involved with the lesson and started to learn. I realised throughout this that in fact he lacked self-esteem, despite being a school hero, and was able to give him encouragement about his ability.

The opposite problem beset a silent girl in a lower ability set, who never made any noise at all, answered any questions monosyllabically, and presented as very shy. However when she was made to answer, she was always right, but she never offered to answer a question. The boys in the class teased her whenever she spoke out, even when it was me asking her to. Again, it took some time before I could think of a systemic way to deal with this. I set up a group activity which was single-sex. Normally we are advised to mix male and female students when we do group work, but when I had tried this, she just remained silent in her group. She worked happily with the girls I put her with, although it took several more weeks before she started to report back to the whole class. By the end of the term, she became very confident and I had to tell her off for calling out, which delighted me.

So, by doing these systemic changes, 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. But 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 out.

The SEIN forum came up at this point, and was about Bodhisattva Never Disparaging. As I participated in this discussion with educators throughout the world, and chanted to find the deeper causes in what I was doing, I began to realise 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 their 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. Every child is necessarily part of that particular class, in this school, in this town, and so on. Before I went to work, I would chant to enable each child to be happy as if they were members of my district - that was how I saw it.

The students were encouraged to think of themselves as the foundation of the society of the future. When they would ask, in a trouble-making kind of way, ‘Why do we have to learn French, Miss?’, I would take time to explain that they would be the people who decide what the world will be like, and they would need to talk with people from around the world, many of whom spoke French. I spoke about the African nations, who had French as their official language, which they thought was cool. 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 realise that they will one day be able to set up their own home, which could be a good one full of love. If they were upset about animals becoming extinct, I would talk about WWF. 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. In systemic theory, it is advised that the whole school adopt this method, because these imbalances have been found to occur. The apparent loss of authority over a class is something that is easily misunderstood, and that some teachers find difficult to accept. Understanding the theory, as we have seen, is essential to have the faith in each change you make even when the problem is not immediately solved. Changes for the child may take time, as some children have lost confidence in teacher’s desire to genuinely have their interests to heart. Some responses are difficult to bear, it may be that a child doesn’t change in the way you hope, 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 HQ 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 left the school, and the town the school is in suddenly went from having one strong member of SGI to becoming a district with 12 members. The local council decided to upgrade the town by bringing the rail service back and introducing a ferry to Cardiff, the capital city of Wales. The children who determined to create value for their future, will now have a future.

Since then I helped start a school in Abuja Nigeria, and am working on an educational project for a sustainable community in northern Nigeria, part of which entails the local school being part of a variety of sustainable projects in the town. My hope is that this project will form a sort of blueprint for how schools can be the basis of new, positive, value creating sustainable communities in developing areas. I am writing a handbook for this and other projects, and I hope to use this to help community school development in terms of teacher training in the UK, based on systems methodology.

I sometimes get confused with the ideas of systems theory and value creating education theory, but trying to put these into action has enabled me to see how it fits in. Systemic, or sustainable education, is the instruction manual for how to actualise Buddhism in society through the medium of education, which is the one of the key remits of SGI.

2412 words

© Jill Rees

13 January 2008

Tags: Art, Book, Buddhism, Exchange, Fantastic, France, Friend, home, jill, jill, money,