NAIS- Global Education Summit

This past Wednesday I attended NAIS- Global Education Summit in New York. Here are my notes that I took

International Perspective needs to be strengthened. Extending global perspectives in the wider educational scheme

Kwame Anthony Appish

Go beyond the minimizing of people. Defining a person by only one thing: women, Jews, Muslims, etc.
Fear of differences and how it changes our attitudes. Responsibility for EVERY human being. We need to shape our moral lives with this in mind.

Openness to people and cultures beyond the ones they were raised in.
Citizens of the World. How close is the kinship among men? Close in the kinship of spirit.
National identities, religion and racial are the conflicts of today,

Cosmopolitas- Citizen of the World

Diogenes- no world government. Members of a single political community/government. But we need to care about all citizens, fellow humans.
We can borrow good ideas from all over the world, not just our own traditions. The value of dialogs.

1. Don�t need one single government
2. We need to care about all human beings, even if there are not in our own group
3. Conversation from each other above our differences.

We can now realistically imagine communicating with other world citizens.

We can now know about each other. We will inevitably affect each other.
Cosmopolitan values �Culture does not matter itself, but culture matters to people.
We can affect and learn about other cultures. Challenge is to take minds and hearts that have lived for a long time in tribes and groups and transform to a global tribe. We have to start with the young.

Education- Learning of information

Aristotle: What is good for us humans. What is good to have and to be and do what it is.

Idea of community in which and for which we develop. Everyone plays a role in the community and the community shapes you. We live in many overlapping communities. We need to shape our citizens for a loyal and global community. How can a community be organize to prepare for a life in common.

Education: Intentional Transmission of culture from one generation to another.
Exposure to language- Children learn their first language with no theoretical appreciation how does it work-

Social Life in general- morality. We are natural imitators-

Nations are by definition communities segregated by borders- Encourage young people to go aboard to work and study with other people across the world. It is crucial to a cosmopolitan education. Practical not a theoretical explanation.

We need to pass on our cosmopolitan ideas

1. Celebrate a wide range of diversity. Reorganization of the fallibility of human knowledge.
2. Idea each individual has responsibility for their own lives. Self-management. Human beings live by standards that they choose. Leaving out your own mode. Live by ideas that you believe in. You can not tell someone else how to live, just because you believe that it is the wrong way. Not about whole sale conversion. Listen to their argument even if you believe that their mode is wrong and they believe is right

We need to learn about other ways of life
See at least one movie with subtitles a month!!!!

Enemies of cosmopolitanism- Deny legitimacy of universality and differences.

Some humans matter to us more than others- family, fellow citizens of your own country- religion- ethnicity, etc.

Cosmopolitan asks themselves- Am I doing my fare share to take care of my fellow humans.

Cosmopolitans: Our knowledge is imperfect and subject to revisions
Fundamentalists: One right way to live for all human being- Willst du nicht mein Bruder sein, dann schlag ich dir den Schaedel ein. If you don�t want to be my brother, I will smash your head.

Tolerance- Respect to the ones that see the world differently.

Cosmopolitan intuition. Sometimes it is not enough is it good for us, but also good for others.

Make things better in a respectful matter and do the right thing at a reasonable cost. Conversation- the character depends on the people who are in it. Reflect on the participants. Depends if you are having at a Baptist convention or a World Religion convention.

Kenneth Bacon

Policy Issues, preparations,

It is necessary to educate children of the horrors of genocide. With intend to destroy in whole or part of ethnic group or religion.

Three ways of looking at Genocides

1. Perspectives to the victims
2. Perspectives of the perpetrators
3. Perspective of the Bystanders

Will we be bystanders? Will we be passive, look away at the face of evil. Will we be bystanders???? Don�t stand by�stand up.

1. Support peace keepers in Sudan
2. US and allies need to be more aggressive in sanctions against the officials of the countries responsible for Genocides
3. US has to take a tougher stand with China, who is supporting with arms countries responsible for genocides.
4. Students are making a difference.
5. Urgency of doing� knowing is not enough
6. We have more access to information than ever before, what we have not learned yet is how to evaluate these different kinds of media.
7. Ability as a nation to engage in preventative diplomacy is pathetic
8. Ability to promote development has dropped � huge mismatch about resources (military and non military problem solving institutions)
9. Genocide/ethnic cleansing? In Guatemala/Kenya

What about the countries that did not stand up to Genocides? Unwillingness to help Jews confirmed the Nazis of the rightness of their doing. Resistance and pressure is needed by the rest of the world.