The future can substantially change when we can inspire the youth and empower them with character, universal values, and moral and innovative leadership capacities. Global Peace Foundation’s new enterprise, Transforming Education in the Global South, incorporates holistic development and cultivation of character in educators and youth. The number of young people in the world is the most significant number it has ever been—over 1.2 billion, with almost 90% living in the global south. This presents a golden opportunity for families and educators to provide these young people with the principles, tools, and skills to develop the moral character crucial for their growth and development to lead the world toward peace.

Educating our youth is critical to their ability to establish a strong foundation of character to become moral and innovative leaders committed to a purposeful future of positively contributing to society. The Global Peace Foundation (GPF) recognizes the importance of this and, as such, has made transforming education one of its global core components. Transformative education expands the focus from conventional education and its rigid emphasis on academics, uniformity, and obedience to a more holistic model, underscoring the importance of character and creativity necessary to thrive in today’s rapidly changing technical world.

GPF’s new enterprise, Transforming Education in the Global South: Toward 2050 (TEGS:2050), embodies the principles of holistic development and cultivation of character first for educators and leaders as changemakers, followed by students. As noted in GPF’s TEGS: 2050 Launch Story, the number of young people in the world is the largest number it has ever been—over 1.2 billion, with almost 90% living in the global south and representing a significant portion of the population. This presents a rare opportunity for families and educators to provide these young people with the principles, tools, and skills to develop moral character and values crucial for their growth and development as future leaders under GPF’s vision of “One Family Under God.”

TEGS: 2050 utilizes a four-pronged strategy. In addition to holistically transforming educators, leaders, and students, the three additional focus areas are creating regional models in nations, creating great schools and universities, and building campaign awareness. The emphasis on developing regional models has seen the initiative grow from its initial inception in Region 3 of the Philippines in 2022 to its expansion to other areas, such as Kenya, Uganda, and India in the Global South in 2023. Further expansion is planned for 2024 and beyond.

Partnerships with schools, colleges, and universities have created an outline of core competencies for educators to champion change, embodying three areas: amazing culture, continuous innovation, and quality outreach extending beyond educational institutions to families, communities, and organizations.

For example, an Education Transformation Workshop (1 of 3 Series) for Senior Education Stakeholders was held at Makerere University Business School in Kampala, Uganda, on October 30 and 31, 2023. Dr. Tony Devine, GPF vice president of Education, was the workshop’s chief facilitator with a theme of Shaping a Purposeful Future Together through Transformative Education. The in-person event was attended by 81 people on October 30 and 95 people on October 31, with a supplemental audience of virtual attendees on both days and follow-up meetings and phone calls with several university and government officials shortly after the workshop concluded.

The workshop covered four topics delivered in three sessions: (1) Visualizing the Purpose and Future of Education—Towards 2050, (2) The Foundation of Character, and (3) The Holistic Development of Educators and Students and Moral and Innovative Leadership. Participants were enthusiastically engaged in each session. One attendee stated, “Technological changes are occurring today; hence, changes are inevitable, such as the use of smartphones. We should, therefore, find the best means of guiding our learners on responsible use of technology.” Another participant commented on the importance of building moral character: “Character is superior to knowledge. As a teacher, I should put more emphasis on character than content in my teaching to nurture more morally upright individuals.”

Building awareness of the TEGS:2050 campaign is ongoing. Efforts to align the initiative regionally and expand the vision across educational institutions were part of a targeted strategy during 2023. A key achievement was the Global Peace Leadership Conference in Region 3 of the Philippines, which began in December 2002, where over 300 education representatives gathered to learn about TEGS:2050 foundational concepts. The launch of TEGS:2050 was also highlighted at the Global Peace Convention in December 2023, where transformative education concepts were presented to an engaged audience of more than 300 educators and leaders.

The journey continues in 2024 as the strategy to actualize the transformative vision of TEGS:2050 grows stronger with activities such as the upcoming phases 4, 5, and 6 of Transformative Education workshops and Moral and Innovative Leadership training in the Philippines. Enhanced collaboratives will also be initiated with educators, policymakers, and leaders in the Philippines, Uganda, and Kenya to further align curriculum and national models with the TEGS: 2050 initiative.

The future of peaceful coexistence relies on today’s development of tomorrow’s moral and innovative leaders. In other words, today’s young people are our hope for a better tomorrow. However, they depend on an education that prepares them with the knowledge, tools, and skills to build the character and creativity necessary to positively assess, adapt, and act in ways that positively impact their families, communities, and society. TEGS:2050 provides a path to do just that.

The original post appears on Global Peace Foundation. Global Peace Foundation is an international non-sectarian, non-partisan, nonprofit organization, which promotes an innovative, values-based approach to peacebuilding, guided by the vision of One Family under God.  GPF engages and organizes a global network of public and private-sector partners who develop community, national, and regional peacebuilding models as the foundation for ethical and cohesive societies. Dr. Hyun Jin Preston Moon is the founder and chairman of the Global Peace Foundation.

A gem cannot be polished without friction, nor a man perfected without trials. – Seneca

We grow through challenges. It is a fundamental principle. If we want to grow in any particular area, we have to be challenged. If we are not, we are not going to grow.

If someone wants to be physically fit, they could work out with weights. What in essence are they doing? They are stressing their muscle fibers. That stress causes the muscles to break down. Eventually, after rest and recovery, the stress and breakdown result in more muscle. The same process applies to someone who wants to be a mathematician. They need continuously challenge themselves to master higher and higher levels of math. It is the same with someone who wants to be the most knowledgeable historian. They need to constantly challenge themselves.

How does this apply to parenting? All parents want their children to be better than them. How can we raise our children to be better than us? We help them overcome whatever challenges they have. Because we are there, we can help mentor them through that process so they are victorious. They can come out on the other end with a victory. Not only do they gain greater confidence in themselves; it also means they are growing on every level.

If we can digest and overcome the challenges of life, those same challenges can make us stronger and better overall. That is why an important tradition and standard for our families is to not make excuses. No matter how difficult something may appear to be, do not make excuses. We have the strength to overcome. Overcome, learn and grow.

You will notice that people who are very accomplished and who have exceeded the standards of most other people tend to be people with a very difficult past.

God teaches us through challenges if only we have the strength to overcome them. God moves in mysterious ways, and it is the challenges that we face that push us more and more towards God.

If we want to be good parents, we need to prepare our children for the challenges they will inevitably face. There will always be challenges in our lives and we should hold the view that we do not grow without them.

In 2020, the global COVID-19 pandemic fast tracked “transformations” in education, something that Global Peace Foundation has been working on for nearly a decade.  As nations shut down schools, the Global Peace Foundation responded swiftly, moving online to address the dramatically shifting educational landscape. Ongoing forums were held throughout the year in Kenya, Uganda, Paraguay, and the Philippines, shifting the conversation from the fear of a “lost year” and a never-ending list of challenges, to seizing the opportunity of an accelerated process to a new perspective on education. The forums drew stakeholders from all sectors of each nation: ministries of education, administrators, educators, students, parents, international agencies, and private sector participants such as Oracle and Microsoft. 

Here are some of the critical perspectives gained during those 2020 forums:

1. A child’s first school is the family. A child’s first teachers are their parents. 

The educational institutions across the world were faced with unique challenges that served to emphasize this idea more than ever before. Teachers, school administrations, and ministries of education had to rely on parents to support their children’s emotional, physical, and social well-being, while trying to find new ways to deliver instruction.

Educational institutions had to consider and include a key partner in education: a child’s parents and family.

2. Education is about the whole child.

As schools closed down, opportunities for home and community learning opened up. The new circumstances posed the question, “What does it mean to educate?”

What is the educational value of a child building self-worth and confidence in the family? What is the educational value of a child learning to communicate and build consensus among their siblings? What is the educational value of a child joining their parents in the kitchen to cook for the family? What is the educational value of a child taking part in income-generation at home?

There is a place for language and math literacy. But we found a need to teach character and emphasize values like resilience, resourcefulness, emotional intelligence, optimism and communication.

3. Education is a joint endeavor between the parents, family, community and school.

Even as we move into 2021, it is apparent that parents and teachers must work together to educate students.  Furthermore, supporting institutions, extended family, faith communities, counselors and psychologists, health care professionals, all play a critical role in the well-being and development of a child.

The Global Peace Foundation education forum series have given hope and support to communities, educators, and administrators around the world. School principals expressed that by attending these webinars, they became more well-rounded as leaders. They were inspired to become designers of learning, engaging students and families within a new reality of learning.

Transforming Education Webinar panelists hosted in Philippines

The forums have become a platform for discovery and real-time problem solving. GPF has provided a platform to facilitate a new kind of learning that requires intense collaboration with all the members of the community: schools, parents, businesses, students, and other organizations. 

In 2021, the Transforming Education Webinar Series will continue to explore the future of education in a pandemic and post-pandemic world with the addition of online capacity-building workshops, courses on online safety, character & creativity, youth resiliency, teacher competencies, leadership development, and regional summits.

The original post appears on Global Peace Foundation. Global Peace Foundation is an international non-sectarian, non-partisan, nonprofit organization, which promotes an innovative, values-based approach to peacebuilding, guided by the vision of One Family under God.  GPF engages and organizes a global network of public and private-sector partners who develop community, national, and regional peace building models as the foundation for ethical and cohesive societies. Dr. Hyun Jin Preston Moon is founder and chairman of the Global Peace Foundation.

In nature, a butterfly struggles to emerge from a cocoon. It is difficult and painful. Yet, were the butterfly cut out of its cocoon, without the vigorous physical exercise required to get out of the cocoon, the butterfly’s wings remain weak, brittle and it is ultimately unable to fly. We might take note of this to take a bigger view of the bitter and difficult experiences our children will need to go through.

Though it is the natural desire of parents to protect their children and help them succeed, this kind of parenting takes away opportunities for children to grow and gain independence. In The Coddling of the American Mind, Jonathan Haidt and Luke Kianoff surmise that the cause of “hothouse children” is a result of “a consistent message from adults: life is dangerous, but adults will do everything in their power to protect you from harm, not just from strangers but from one another as well.”

The dangers of this kind of parenting may not be immediately obvious, but underlying this idea is that children are fragile, weak, and unable to make his or her own choices.

The former editor-in-chief and editor-at-large of Psychology Today, Hara Estroff Marano, writes:

“Having had—or been allowed to have—few disappointments in their overparented, overtrophied lives, many have not learned to handle difficulty. In the absence of skills to dispel disappointment, difficulty becomes catastrophe.”

These hothouse children often come to expect or demand protection in exchange for essential qualities for a fulfilling life: agency, independence, and responsibility. A fuller view of life requires us to understand that the “hard things” are essential to realizing our innate potential.

This realization leads to a revision in the perspective of education.

A principal of a small kindergarten in the western edge of Tokyo explained, “Every child is strong; strength comes from within. So we have to step back and question if what we’re doing is for the good of the child or the convenience of the parent.”

The principal encourages parents to set clear limits and then to step back to let children learn and grow. The “education for the future” program in his school is designed with the idea that education needs to consider the long-term needs of the children. Within clearly defined boundaries, children are encouraged to play and to find answers for themselves.

“I want to consider what kind of adult the child will become… that the education each child receives here will help them to know that they are strong and help them to become responsible citizens.”

Parenting and education need to be for the sake of the child as well as for the good of society. Families can directly contribute to the health of a nation by raising strong, virtuous, and interdependent adults capable of making good choices and motivated to serve the greater good.

Schools can support this kind of education but as the primary locus of learning and self-understanding, the family can take a greater role in leading us back to education that prepares children for the future.