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.

Paramount to the success of future generations will be the ability of educators, leaders, and youth to not only formulate innovative solutions to current challenges but also have the prudence to look beyond the crisis to transform education for the betterment of society for many years to come.

Experts, educators, and partners with Global Peace Foundation are pioneering models of transformation and sharing them with others through online conferences like the Online Africa Regional Youth Summit to propel a forward-thinking paradigm for education, encouraging teachers, students, and administrators to look beyond the current pandemic to prepare for recovery and be optimistic about the opportunities for the future. Partners in peacebuilding are utilizing technology in lieu of face-to-face meetings to help educators keep the ball rolling on creative processes to inspire students, teachers, and parents.

Africa is in an excellent position to demonstrate these models, blessed with natural resources and vibrant spiritual and cultural heritages. However, the number one asset of any nation is its people and Africa is home to one of the largest youth populations in the world.

Several challenges and opportunities face these young people, including the threat of extremism brought on by religious and ethnic conflict. Therefore, a comprehensive vision and broad, long-term strategy are needed to engage multi-sectoral alliances in developing and carrying out grassroots applications to build peace and prosperity in localized regions.

Moral and innovative leadership skills are essential to sustainable development and peacebuilding. Naturally creative, youth guided by universal principles and values found at the heart of every spiritual tradition will be at the forefront of advancing technology and discovering solutions to propel humanity forward. Educators will play an imperative role in guiding young people to develop these values, skills, and knowledge.

The Character and Creativity Initiative launched in 2010 is helping teachers and students around the world, from Kenya to the Philippines, Paraguay, Malaysia, and Uganda work towards making education relevant to the 21st century. The program equips students with a moral and innovative mindset, better preparing them to be good citizens and good neighbors.  It also seeks to develop initiative and flexibility of thought with an emphasis on personal responsibility and the creation of new opportunities.

Other programs mentioned in the webinar include Leap Hubs, a leadership, and entrepreneurship program piloted in Kenya in 2015, that provides guidance and space in secondary schools for highly motivated students to explore their ideas and learn what it takes to become business and social entrepreneurs. This combination of values and practical, innovative skills development emphasizes the equal importance of both human values and intelligence. Because technology itself is value-neutral, it must be guided by people of character to be useful for the greater good.

Youth have a high capacity to build peace. Not only are they the targeted demographic by extremist groups because of their passion and energy, but they are also the potential leaders in any society to promote counter-narratives against hate and radical ideologies. Youth are pioneers, inventors, and leaders.

Transforming education for our world’s youth will transform our world with leaders more capable of building sustainable peace. The online event was the first in a series that will be rolled out to building capacity in teachers, school principals, school systems, students, and parents during this unique time, as well as preparing learners for the recovery and the future.

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.

Select schools in Uganda have been chosen to implement a curriculum which, in a complement to promoting academic excellence, helps to cultivate peace and community building skills. The Global Peace Foundation Uganda has been implementing the Character and Creativity Initiatives (CCI) towards this end.

These schools have begun to demonstrate a high level of innovation, entrepreneurship, and teamwork as well as a culture of peace in the school and wider community. Parents and community members have been key contributors to this school-wide transformation, pointing to the importance of the school-home-community connection in raising the whole child.

Teachers participate in CCI training programs

Participants including administration, staff, teachers, students and parents CCI schools have reported positive outcomes related to this inclusive, ethical framework and its corresponding CCI activities and programs.

A key practice of CCI actively involves parents as well as Muslim and Christian leaders to guide teachers on how to integrate the values of respect, dialogue, reconciliation, teamwork and unity beyond religious and cultural boundaries in the classroom and the school in general.

To reinforce these lessons, GPF actively engages students of different religious and cultural backgrounds to work and interact with one another in service to the community. This has helped to transform the culture not only in the schools but also in the students’ homes. When students of diverse backgrounds work together for projects such as community cleans-ups, tree planting, support work for orphans, they model desirable attitudes and behaviors for those they serve; they not only cultivate leadership skills but also naturally developing a culture of care and service among students, families and the community.

CCI demonstration schools have also embraced the idea of interfaith prayers, calling for unity in diversity, peace and academic excellence.  The schools also invite faith and cultural religious leaders to jointly work to nurture good character among students and the community at large.  This strengthens awareness of and commitment to the vision of One Family under God and motivates students to think of character and creativity as part of a “whole person education” even beyond the schoolyard.

Global Peace Foundation in Uganda

Parents of students are invited to participate and observe their children during School Visitation Days, which has helped to invite higher parent participation in schools. This, in turn, has shown to help to make more accurate assessments and evaluations to tailor learning and engagement in ways that improve discipline, academic performance and create effective solutions to a student’s unique challenges.

This practice takes on the idea that in educating for a world of One Family Under God, individual families must be engaged to become the basis for peace and development of every individual.  Parents and teachers jointly work together to educate the “whole person” through investing resources in CCI best practices.

These are just some of the best practices from the Uganda CCI schools. How might you bring character and creativity to your own community?

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.