Jill Rees: Welcome Press

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.

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)

Posted by Constance at 2:14 PM 0 comments Links to this post

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)

Pleasant week. I’m staying in an appartment which, although cold and with wires hanging out everywhere, plus the electronic key doesn’t work for me of course, means I can cook.

I’m writing this in Starbucks of course. I went to the Buddhist centre yesterday again to chant for youth and the women’s leader of Austria thanked me for the expereince relating to Sensei - they must really have needed to hear that here! Is that why I came? I’ll really miss my Buddhist friends here.

I intend to walk down to Stephansplatz to see Michael clayton later, then to the opera tomorrow for Verdi, finally Thursday probably will see the Falco film in the suburbs. How apt.

I’m looking forward to going home but now Amar has invited me to Africa again!!!!! And it’s the Easter holiday so I couldn’t make any money in England. But how could I go? Oh god!!!!! Will have to chant about it!

Otherwise it’s sunny and warm in Vienna, no sign of the storms that are ravaging the north of europe.

Related posts

• We’ve still got time. (0)
• Vienna - it means nothing to me (0)
• The Return of Martin Guerre (0)
• Sustainable education - experience (0)
• ‘Scraped flat by rollers of wars, wars, wars’ * (0)

Welcome to this collection of poetry from 2007/2008.

I found myself walking round Victoria Station one day in London, battered by the dusty winds pushing through the tall-building banked streets, blowing newspaper round, stepping round the road works. Clearly this was a part of London that the reforms of Labour and my beloved Red Ken had missed so far. I wondered why, and who owned it.

In my youth Victoria Station was the place I always ended up at when I was leaving some doomed lover, drinking in the Royal Shakespeare and wishing I was a writer. That was before I realised that all you have to do is say ‘I am a writer’ and you are! I spent the most miserable, heart-broken hours here, and the most excited and optimistic, waiting for the night train to Paris, heading for new adventures, new lovers.

I started writing about windy streets while I was waiting for my coach. Then I got sent to Vienna, where I spent the next 7 weeks. I had never been there before, and was full of mixed feelings about the Lost Inhabitants, and the first thing to hit me was the hypocritical Imperialism of the buildings and the scowling faces. Seven weeks and many poems later, I left a city and a country I had fallen madly in love with, memories of the Falco movie, and several new close friends.

Later trips to Istanbul and other cities led to a collection of experiences and emoticons inspired by these cultural hotbeds, which comprise this collection.

Whether this work be good or bad I am unable to judge. Nevertheless, I dedicate it to those friends, to the memory of those who are no longer with us, whether in the Zentralfriedhof or in the gas chambers, to the Buddhist centre in Linzerstrasse, to the ever-hopeful Turkish and Kurdish people, to my family who put up with my poetic wonderings, and to my master in life, Daisaku Ikeda, without whom there would be no poetry.

I hope you find some poems among them that you like.

Jill Rees

Related posts

• Update (0)
• The Return of Martin Guerre (0)
• Sustainable Education Solutions (0)
• Education (0)
• The ghosts of Vienna (0)

 At breakfast I landed up chatting to an older EIA man who turned out to be a former Tiverton Grammar School pupil a bit before me. He was in the rugby team but had Lello as his head just before he left. We remembered the old teachers, who seemed to stay there forever. He lived on a farm in Cullompton and strangely worked all his life as a journalist covering farming topics, so was quite interested in my chemical article for Leadership which I’d just written! We get around, us TGS kids.

I couldn’t find the Buddhist Centre although I now realise where it is. Later, Sylvia texted me that it is closed for two weeks anyway, so that’s protection, as we say in SGI. I met up with Dylan again and we had a brief word about how little writing each of us had done this week before the rest of the gang arrived in Starbucks. I don’t know what the trip is here, they can’t decide if I’m cool. (No I’m not, by the way - get over it). I can’t be bothered with all that. I’m in two minds now, sad to leave Vienna just as I work out how to use the trams, but glad to be on to the mountains and out of this tiny hotel room, where you can’t even stretch your body out.

I tried to do some shopping on the Mariahilferstrasse, but honestly it’s no Oxford Street. All I bought was some packing material to send my extraneous stuff back to the UK. Even then I had trouble finding decent sellotape. The people in this city are so rude and push around, so I went down a side street just to get some elbow room. This led to a kind of dream world, with the Haus des Meeres boasting that it was ‘smashed to pieces in the still of the night’, which it clearly had been. The Police Station in a back street used to be the house where Copernicus wrote his treatise saying that he had observed that the earth orbited the sun, for which he was imprisoned. This seems significant and ironic, though I can’t quite put my finger on how, and it added to the surreal feelings I was having today. I felt inspired to take several photos of Viennese back streets, as I seemed to be suddenly able to see things in an artistic way. After walking for miles I went back to the Naschmarkt and ate kebab.  I’ll miss this ethnic food, and am not looking forward to relying on Austrian fare, which I find simply inedible. ‘The best thing about Vienna, is your immigrants’!

For elucidation, of sorts, see the Leadership article

Related posts

• Update (0)
• Sustainable Education Solutions (0)
• Straight as an arrow to my mission (0)
• Education (0)
• Soka Education - Humanitarian education for the new century (0)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Saturday 2 February 2008

Related posts

• Sustainable Education Solutions (0)
• Education (0)
• Humanistic education for the world - Soka Education (0)
• We’ve still got time. (0)
• The Return of Martin Guerre (0)

After struggling with bureaucracy for many months I’ve finally got some supply work so off to sunny Worle tomorrow. In two weeks EIA send me to Austria. They seem to be a great company, very organised, but at the same time compassionate and taking my needs and wishes into account quite carefully. Same with my supply agency Day2Day teachers. It makes life so much nicer, and I find I can do my job better.

I’ve got my suitcases and my rough guide at the ready for my first week near Vienna (it means nothing to me). What shall I see first? No idea haven’t finished reading rough guide yet.  Any suggestions?

I’m still writing and thanks to everyone who has asked for commissions and so on.  There’s so much work doing articles that I’m struggling to find time for the longer peices! But that is good!

Related posts

• Sustainable Education Solutions (0)
• Straight as an arrow to my mission (0)
• (1)
• We’ve still got time. (0)
• Vienna - it means nothing to me (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

Related posts

• 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)
• Report from Abuja Nigeria (0)
• Education (0)
• Humanistic education for the world - Soka Education (0)

Wondering about my friends in Abuja and what the weather is like, as they all told me it would be cold. As they were shivering when it was 25 degrees however I wonder what cold is for them.

I hear I have a little following who love my articles in the Leadership newspaper where I write a Sunday column.   Most of the articles are on this site under ‘articles for Leadership’. I’m also still writing for UK publications on a variety of subjects.

Still plugging on with the Education Handbook. Basically it’s done except that I am unsure how to present it ie is it for a day course? A week? how much depth? What is aim etc? When I know the exact nature of a project or what to do with it, it can be easily adapted to a given thingy.

At the same time, I’m extending the idea into a book form, where it will be about systemic and humanitarian education and will be good for a teacher training or professional development course, also will enter the general affray about education today. I think it will be good. Not only that but I am the only person with this idea as an organised whole, because of my particular experiences which haven’t been restricted by being just in the classroom or just in the academic world, also being involved in Developing communities stuff, I’m able to put together the various ideas going around in a cohesive way, which should be useful and kind of healing. Our government and indeed worldwide education is surrounded by ideas of creative learning, multiple intelligences, sustainability, life-long learning and the ideas from the systemic theorists, but there is no development of what underlies all these ideas. That’s what I am doing, and making it a useable handbook for teachers, trainers, school leaders, government advisors and so on.

Meanwhile it looks as if I’ll be arranging my return later in the year to Abuja soon. At the moment I’m going off to Austria at the end of January with a teaching company. I’ve wanted to work for them since working with River in the summer. You go off and teach English in a team in an Austrian school. the week ends with a show the kids put on. It’s collaborative teaching and quite creative and I’m really looking forward to it.

My first assignment is for 7 weeks. You go to an airport and they give you a brown envelope with your tickets, resources and details of the week’s mission. At the end of the week they give you another envelope and you make your way to the next school. You can see it has enough of the James Bond element to satisfy my sense of adventure. And surely there’s not much I can get embroiled in in Austria - it’s in the EU! although my daughter has been mumbling about neo-Nazism, so you never know!

Christmas Eve, off to hospital to have two bottom wisdo teeth out. Won’t be able to eat over Christmas. Or drink. We adventurers have to get this sort of thing done when we can though.

Related posts

• Sustainable Education Solutions (0)
• Education (0)
• Straight as an arrow to my mission (0)
• Report from Abuja Nigeria (0)
• Humanistic education for the world - Soka Education (0)

‘Africans,’ said a colleague, ‘Are unable to think about the future, they just live in the present.

‘You can see this in the supermarket, where your favourite item will get lower and lower on the shelf. When will they re-order it? Not until it runs out completely will anyone notice.’

Nigerian time is famous for running at a different rate to European time. The appointment is ….. when? No need to be specific, because no-one will be able to keep to their plans anyway, just turn up when it’s convenient. If the person isn’t there, you’ll wait until they turn up, even if it’s five or six hours.

I had an appointment with the doctor and another person. This latter had been in the UK for a long time getting his medical education, so he knew we’re funny about that sort of thing, and made sure he was on time. It nearly killed him. His driver had a malaria bout and he had to ply him with medicine to get him to drive. Then there was a heavy rainstorm that brought all the traffic to a halt. Luckily he’d made a plan: he had started out 4 hours early in case things went wrong. When we got to the hospital, the doctor wasn’t there. ‘He didn’t say where he was going’, said his PA, Would you like to wait?’ I was annoyed as there was no inclination how long he would be and no clue as to his whereabouts.

When I called him the next day to make a new appointment, he said why didn’t I wait? He wasn’t long. Would I like to come at three? ‘Is that three o’clock Nigeria time,’ I asked, ‘Or European time?’

Of course, time is a modern concept. It started in 1852 when Charles Shepherd of the Greenwich Observatory in London built his ‘master clock’ which would set the time for all clocks. It immediately became useful to set post office clocks by, which meant people could send telegrams to their families around the world. The new railways needed a common time too. Up to then it was a bit haphazard when your train would arrive. The great capitalists of the Age would travel up from London to Liverpool, only to arrive 2 or 3 hours outside their appointment time.

‘Dammit! I was told this train arrived at 11.30 but it’s one o’clock by my watch!’

‘Well it’s 11.30 here!‘

The British became obsessed with accurate timekeeping because their ships were sailing round the world, collecting treasures from other unrecognised cultures in the formation of the British Empire, a history which West Africa knows only too well. Their calculations were often slightly off, as clocks lost time during the long sea voyages and miscalculated the ships longitude (East/West) position. The ships kept wrecking in the rocky seas at the entrance to many a harbour, losing fortunes in cargo for the Empire, or completely sailing past tropical islands full of treasure.

It was incredibly difficult to find a clock which would be unfailingly accurate over long distances and for a long time without reference to the clock at Greenwich. It would have to be strong and durable, able to stand up to salty spray and the pitching movement of a stormy sea, yet delicate enough to read time with optimum precision. No-one had been able to do it, and the Kingdom offered an award of £20,000 for a clock which would succeed. Eventually a young Yorkshireman called John Harrison invented a durable clock held by springs which corrected the motion of the sea.

It worked like this: if you measure local time by the sun, then compare it to the time at Greenwich on your accurate clock, this tells you your longitude, because for every hour’s difference you are 15 degrees from Greenwich, which is 0 degrees. The UK government nevertheless managed to not pay Harrison for his invention, claiming that it was just luck and insisting on experiment after experiment. Eventually, in his late 70s, Harrison petitioned the King himself, who demanded that he be paid.

It was quickly realised that having a common time would benefit businesses in the ‘this busy country’. Fourteen years later, the electronic radio pulse system which set all the official clocks in the country was taken to the US, and benefitted business there too.

Now life in the UK and in the US is incredibly hectic, with every minute of the day accounted for. You can’t get by without a diary, and personal requirements, such as visits to the hairdresser, are squeezed in the half hour between business appointments. If you are ten minutes late, you will lose the contract. You’ll be told, ‘I’ll call you at six’, and that will mean six on the dot. Being even a few minutes late is considered very rude, and also incompetent on your part. Stress and stress-related illnesses are par for the course in the UK, and the consequences of feeling het up and snacking on junk food in between appointments is what leads you to an early death. Having conquered by vaccines the diseases which used to kill us, lifestyle is the greatest threat. But time, we now realise, is money.

My friend was outraged.

‘Africans do think about the future!’ he fumed, ‘We have hopes for ourselves and our families. We make plans. It’s just that we can’t do anything about it.’

There are some business people in Abuja who’ve decided to change this. Although recognising and appreciating the ‘African way of life’, they’ve decided that their vision of Nigeria as a world player is attainable. Using the current policy in the banks of ‘investing in Nigeria’ to back them up, they work on long term strategic planning to develop their businesses and establish themselves as players in the new global society they envisage. Employees and partners are encouraged to develop their own skills and take part in forming policy, in turn helping those under them to develop in preparation for expansion. These new style entrepreneurs, men and women, are beginning to have some reputation among investors as people who stick to agreements and pay their bills on time. Foreign companies can see them as people they can deal with.

You can tell who they are: they look you in the eye, talk straight, are happy to give you clear time frames and costing, and will give you everything in writing. They return your calls. They are frustrated by incompetence and angry at the old style of short-termism, which gives Nigerians a bad name.

Obviously these new entrepreneurs haven’t time to spend sitting around in cafes, but if they did, they would be cybercafés and they’d be online to clients and suppliers! These are the people expats are thinking of when we say: ‘Yes, Nigeria’s going to make it.’

Related posts

• The Return of Martin Guerre (0)
• How cold is Hammatan? (0)
• Vienna - it means nothing to me (0)
• Report from Abuja Nigeria (0)
• New Year (0)