“Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abysses nature leads, or you shall learn nothing. I have only begun to learn content and peace of mind since I have resolved at all risks to do this.”
What is education for if it is not for peace (of mind)?
I had noted down the meeting "P4P (Peace for People - Nepal) Teacher Hub" for Friday 30th January 2020 at 9:00 French time in my diary (15:45 in Nepal).
There were a number of people, among them, a couple of Nepalese teachers, who had joined a Facebook Messenger chat at the invitation of my friend Santosh Bidari, activist, for Peace for People Nepal.
“The fact that educators can now reach out to thousands also means that they need to slow down, to invite participants from different contexts for genuine participation, to listen and learn from others, to enrich their own understanding.” (Bali, Sharma, 2014)
We had talked together over the months, over the years about how to go about bringing change to our respective educational contexts.
Both of us have been working for over ten years with a guiding question:
"What can I, as an individual, do to work towards enabling a meaningful (life) education for myself and those around me?"
What is education for if it is not for peace (of mind)?
We have both been faced by obstacles, some insurmountable, set-backs more or less easy to laugh about.
I live in the Auvergne, a land of Volcanoes, which for the foreseeable future are at peace.
They indicate on building permits over here, perhaps laughably, that we live in a zone of seismic activity...
Santosh lives in Dhading Nepal, a zone of seismic activity, and experienced a catastrophic earthquake in 2015 measuring 7.9 on the Richter Scale.
Learning about Santosh's work and speaking with him, his friends and colleagues, teachers and kids, I feel a mixture of emotions: awe, privilege, inspiration, happiness.
[When I read the experiences of others who have met him, I am not alone in feeling those emotions.
Here's Kristine Tauch speaking of Santosh: The Change can start with me - Hero of the educational system]
While we have had very different life experiences, while we may come from very different cultural backgrounds, while we many have very different levels of practical difficulties to overcome in our everyday lives, while we may have very different levels of freedom of movement around this OUR world, we have so much to learn from each other, and so many stories in common.
We have shared our stories of being brought up in religious family backgrounds, of the difficulties of seeing the world differently and choosing different paths to those of our parents. The dulling experience of many of the years we spent in school, the brutal, physical and verbal violence of teachers who left indelible marks on our bodies and our self-esteem. The inadaptation of an educational system which is reduced to the following of text books, copying from the board, bored to our cores, our core being stress-tested constantly for no other reason than that is what counts to those who count, to those who count.
We have been brought closer thanks to my ex-student, colleague, friend Terry Guirado who went to Nepal to work with Santosh and his association, living with his family, working, playing, laughing with the kids at the schools.
On his return, I remember having lunch with a Terry transformed, but at the same time disorientated.
How could he now find peace of mind back in France?
He was in a state of culture shock.
Santosh, told me a story this morning of Terry's disorientation when faced with the reality of reliably unreliable electricity supply, lack of running water, the dawn rise rythms of the household, the time taken to get the water, to make the meal, to do the washing, to get to the next village, to reach the next town.
And I am suddenly thinking back to 1970's oil crisis, British power cuts, candles and our childlike excitement from being freed from the boredom of evening classes at boarding school.
God, I had forgotten how much power-cuts were a god-send.
THEN: NO ELECTRICITY! F***ING REJOICE!
NOW: NO ELECTRICITY! F***ING MORE EXPLETIVES!
And I am now thinking of how Terry is different now.
He was always different but now working on his thesis, his way of being, his peace of mind shines out like a beacon.
He appears relatively serene when faced with the pressures of his academic environment.
He has asked himself that question that we now share:
"What can I, as an individual, do to work towards enabling a meaningful (life) education for myself and those around me?"
One of his answers was to set up an association in France, a branch of Peace for People:
Peace for People France
Another of his answers was to come and share his experiences with perhaps 200 French students (modest estimate).
He has just messaged me with news of an event organised to collect funds for 8 students going to Nepal in March to walk and work with Peace for People and the kids that they help.
The event had attracted over 200 students who would run for kids in Nepal.
The excitement in his voice in the audio message left on Facebook Messenger speaks volumes.
Finding a common pupose, feeling togetherness, sharing effort, dreaming aloud, moves mountains.
No doubt he will share stories from the event on his website and we will find time to share this day's work.
Not that long ago, Terry was selling doughnuts and chocolates, to be able to go and help kids in Nepal.
Not that long ago, not one student that I spoke with of Peace for People had plucked up the courage to pack their bags and get to Nepal.
Now there's two hundred kids running around an athletics track for a small association in Dhading.
I feel mixed emotions: awe, privilege, inspiration, happiness.
The impact of Terry's story, Santosh's story, the stories of these, our weirdly connected learning communities is such that we are working together on a research project and a joint conference submission.
How can people from the "Global North" and the "Global South" work together to enable meaningful lives and educations for themselves and those around them?
How can we work towards peace of mind, peace and protection for this fragile world which we call home?
How can we work together with the ethically and ecologically dirty technological means at hand, the data limits, the battery limits, the linguistic limits, to learn what really counts?
We are there together with Santosh, and Ram myself, and his family.
We manage communicating in English, not just a means of dominion but a means of communion.
I remember reading a Paul Prinsloo share:
Africa's colonisation of the English language continues apace.
And I realise that I am already learning a new version of English, a Nepalese version, which includes "Namaste" "Sir" and "Miss" - yet another English to go with the Englishes that I am already more fluent in.
So here I am, sitting on a bench, choosing to write before I can eat to have some sort of peace of mind and I have 10 minutes before I meet with another close distant friend and colleague.
And we share that question:
"What can I, as an individual, do to work towards enabling a meaningful (life) education for myself and those around me?"
Because what else is there to do?
So there we are, Santosh and Simon and then Ram and his son and family meeting somewhere between life and death and IPs on a net, and others elsewhere asking ourselves the question:
"What can I do to work towards a meaningful education (life) for myself, my family and people around me?"
"Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself."
John Dewey.
I suggested using Zoom so that we could record the meeting.
We managed a session of 40 minutes before we had to retreat to Facebook Messenger.
And then the data plan ran out.
A few hours later, Aasha, another Nepalese teacher in this nascent "Teacher's hub", who couldn't make the meeting was able to witness our joy.
"You had such a good time with them@Simon sir. I enjoy watching this."
And I say to myself that I can be of use to others when I feel useless, that I can learn with others when I feel ignorant, that I can be present for others when I am absent.
And I say to myself that now I feel, for an instant at least, some peace of mind...
