The Drum Beat 327 - Sustaining Education: Communication's Contribution

***

On March 1 2005, UNESCO's Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura officially launched the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), a 10-year-long (2005-2014) global advocacy and communication-centred effort led by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO). This effort is based on the conviction that "Education enables us to understand ourselves and others and our links with the wider natural and social environment, and this understanding serves as a durable basis for building respect. Along with a sense of justice, responsibility, exploration and dialogue, ESD aims to move us to adopting behaviours and practices that enable all to live a full life without being deprived of basics." For more on this initiative, click here. For a related summary on ESD, click here. For a previous Drum Beat related to basic, primary, universal education click here.

Published on the cusp of a 10-year global focus on sustainable education, this issue of the Drum Beat highlights just a few of the ways in which communication is being used in communities around the world to stimulate and support teachers and students - both within and beyond the classroom.

***

CREATING AN ENGAGING EDUCATIONAL CLIMATE

1. Transforming School Culture Through the Arts
by J. Curtis Jones
"...Imagine artists of diverse races and ages leading a classroom of children in a tribal yell, or guiding the children in a human chain, as they weave through the room making music with ancient and handmade instruments. This is the everyday work of artists in the Tribal Rhythms® company, a program of the Cooperative Artists Institute (CAI)....The goal is for students to see themselves as creators of culture as they develop a shared sense of community through their tribal ceremonies (e.g., tribal yells, signs, and council circles). By placing human relationships at the center of the instructional strategy, learning tribes promote an environment where teachers can spend more time teaching and less time preparing students to learn. The Partnership integrates many of its programs' concepts into its evaluation. The evaluation recognizes the importance of using a participatory and team-based approach..."

2. Community Takes Charge of Education in Remote Kargil Village
by Rashme Sehgal
This article describes how determined, illiterate parents in Chuttumail Doks village in Kargil, India fought to ensure the continuation of a primary school in spite of many obstacles. The school, depicted as "simply falling apart", is located in a region faced with a war as well as a serious drought. When approached by the parents, the president of the 40-member Village Education Committee (VEC) organised training sessions for 2 schoolteachers and exposed them to informal teaching strategies for pre-primary-level children; in addition, he encouraged the participation of over 100 parents in volunteering to clean up the school building, add another classroom, help build a kitchen, and take turns cooking. According to the author, the project has increased the confidence of both parents and children in Kargil.

3. The Impact of Oral Tradition on Contemporary Children's Fiction in Nigeria
by Sunday Okoh
This paper examines how oral tradition - "verbal arts or oral literature, customs, belief and other institutions, arts including games, as well as musical instruments" - can be used to foster reading on the part of the African child. Research examined written prose, some of it in the Nigerian indigenous language (Yoruba), in an effort to explore linguistic and cultural differences of child authors (ages 7-15) based on the way they tell their stories. Findings suggest that African children can be stimulated to read if they are first told a story; storytelling should be encouraged, the author urges, especially in the primary and lower secondary schools.

4. Teen Mags and Soap Operas to Teach about Sex: Media to be Used to Raise Teaching Quality
by Lucy Ward
"Teachers wrestling unsuccessfully with a banana and a condom in front of a group of embarrassed pupils are being replaced in some schools by teen magazines and television dramas such as Footballers' Wives in a bid to demystify sex and relationships." This article highlights communication trends in sexual education in the UK. Youth interviewed as part of MediaRelate's research were "'generally very critical' of sex education lessons in school, but were also embarrassed to discuss such issues with their parents...' They preferred media such as teenage magazines and soap operas on the grounds that they were often more informative, less embarrassing to use and more attuned to their needs and concerns'." Based on these findings, organisers developed pilot courses.

5. Media and Learning Forum: A Discussion of How Student Media Production Can Transform Teaching - Discussion Between Dr. Milton Chen, Steve Goodman & Dr. Margaret Riel
According to Margaret Riel, good teaching and learning includes "a process of action, reaction, and reflection"; she explains that "project-based learning gets kids to connect with what they know and then uses that as a strong base for extending their knowledge to the areas they need to learn." Riel points out that "it really doesn't matter what the object is - it could be a newspaper article or a digital video - but the dialogue around decisions to include or not include information, or to put this shot in or not put that shot in, really helps students understand why they are doing things." Along these lines, Milton Chen notes that working to show why students are doing what they are doing is what turns out to be "most persuasive." Steve Goodman comments on the emotional side of learning: "Children who never felt valued in their schoolwork before, or never felt a sense of success, realize that they are able to create a video. They become more excited about learning and more competent when they realize there is a public audience."

***

Please participate in our PULSE POLL

The main difference between health communication and health education or social marketing is that health communication is transdisciplinary in nature.

[For context, please see The Drum Beat 324]

***

SUPPORTING STUDENTS: IN AND OUT OF THE CLASSROOM

6. Mobile Education by Boat - Dhaka, Bangladesh
Shidhulai Swanirvar Sangstha (SSS), a Bangladesh-based voluntary organisation, has developed mobile educational units to reach out to 2 different communities in rural Bangladesh. First, the Mobile Internet-Educational Unit on Boats (MIEUB) initiative uses boats that are equipped with computer equipment to reach out to landless and marginalised farmers via water-ways. Anchoring at riverside courtyards and public places, MIEUB arranges evening educational programmes on large screens, designed to enable farmers of different age groups to learn about environmentally sound agricultural practices from their own courtyards. Second, SSS is using technology-equipped boats to provide mobile education for underprivileged girls and women in remote areas; locally developed educational materials are part of this effort to encourage girls to pursue higher education by creating an information base for women's groups.
Contact shidhulai@yahoo.com

7. European School Charter - Europe
The Council of Europe (CoE) is working to involve secondary students as full participants in the process of developing a European Charter for a Democratic School without Violence. Drawing on face-to-face and online exchanges, this project is an effort to gather experiences and achievements of pilot initiatives across Europe into a document which is designed to inspire schools to involve students and educators in decision-making on matters concerning them. In July 2004, more than 50 student delegates gathered to draft and adopt the Charter; an electronic referendum was then held to enable schoolchildren to vote for the final version of the Charter. Young participants translated the Charter into their native languages - 19 in total. The project is motivated by the notion that school democracy is not only a powerful tool for bringing up active citizens; it can also be a positive factor in creating a climate of trust and responsibility for preventing and combating school violence.
Contact democracy@coe.int

8. Graduation Pledge of Social and Environmental Responsibility - Global
This global effort involves inviting graduating students to pledge: "to explore and take into account the social and environmental consequences of any job I consider and will try to improve these aspects of any organizations for which I work." (The wording may be modified to suit particular schools' needs and cultures). Those who have voluntarily signed the pledge have turned down jobs they did not feel morally comfortable with and have worked to make changes while on the job. For example, they have promoted recycling at their organisation, removed racist language from a training manual, worked for gender parity in high school athletics, and helped convince an employer to refuse a chemical weapons-related contract. In this sense, the strategy involves stimulating students to think beyond themselves and to take action to support the "greater good".
Contact Neil J. Wollman NJWollman@Manchester.edu

9. Project Moving Target - Canada
Sponsored by an education grant from the City of North Vancouver, this programme enables high school students to review tobacco documents - which "reveal the tobacco industry's agenda for 'replacement smokers', nine out of ten of whom are under the age of 19." High school students are provided with copies of what are intended to be easy-to-read industry documents used in tobacco trials in an effort to expose what the industry knew about the health implications of tobacco use - and to raise questions among students about the industry's marketing practices. They then complete lesson plans (worksheets) as part of a training process in which they become Tobacco Awareness Peer Mentors who liaise with younger pupils in the 4th and 5th grades. A free, private online forum provides ongoing support and updates for participating mentors, facilitators, and teachers.
Contact Chris Lovelidge chryancomm@dccnet.com

10. Civic Education Programme for Gender Equality - Romania
In 2004, the Partnership for Equality Center (PEC) launched a project to encourage high school students in Romania to "Be European: Get involved in community problems!" The 8-month civic education programme aimed to develop pupils' and teachers' capacities for promoting and participating in civic activities to increase equality between men and women. It was implemented in 10 Romanian high schools in which there already exist or will be created European Information Points (places where people can seek information about the European Union, social involvement, and equal treatment for men and women). Through this programme, PEC hoped to reach out to 45 teachers, 1,050 pupils, 40 message carriers (textbook authors, school journal and radio station coordinators, editors of textbooks, and decision makers in the domain of education), and 42 departmental representatives and teachers.
Contact Diana Calenic dcalenic@gender.ro

11. JUCONI-Puebla Foundation - Mexico
Based in the city of Puebla, the civil society organisation JUCONI (or Junto Con Los Niños - Together with the Children) addresses the educational and other needs of street girls and boys and high-risk youngsters and their families. JUCONI offers scholarships each year that support 3 months of specialised training for young educators in Latin America who are already working with streetchildren. Some recipients participate in a course at a university in Latin America or abroad focusing on such subjects as drug abuse, health and hygiene, Montessorri educational methods, or child psychology and speech therapy. Others select a course in drama, mime, or corporeal drama - all of which, according to JUCONI, have been shown to be effective educational tools for street children. Finally, distance learning may be appropriate for others who receive the scholarship.
Contact info@juconi.org.mx

SUPPORTING EDUCATORS: TECHNOLOGY

12. Initiative for Namibian Education Technology (iNET) - Namibia
iNET worked to support and strengthen the skills of education officials in using computer technology for improved professional performance. Interactive, face-to-face exchanges were used to support dialogue and capacity building among educators and government officials in the area of information and communication technologies (ICTs). iNET also facilitated participants' enrollment in the Harvard Graduate School of Education online course "Teaching to Standards with New Technology". As part of that experience, Ministry colleagues began serving as "coaches in training", which will eventually allow them to act as coaches on future Harvard courses. iNET also worked to support the development of a new national technology in education policy for Namibia, as well as a strategy implementation plan.
Contact William Wright wwright@edc.org OR Nadya Karim-Shaw nkshaw@edc.org

13. Yemen Online - Yemen
With USAID support, Education Development Center, Inc. (EDC) is wiring selected Yemeni high schools to the internet. Two-thirds of these schools are girls' schools; literacy rates for Yemen's girls and women run as low as 30%. One strategy is student-centred teaching, which organisers describe as "a significant development in a culture where schooling is traditional, top-down, and teacher-centered". The project director explains that "Using the Internet is more glamorous than just going in there with a typical teacher training on student-centered methods. It creates more interest and enthusiasm among the staff and the students because there is great curiosity about other parts of the world." EDC and its partners iEARN and World Links are training teachers to use the new technology skillfully as an instructional tool, and conducting research on the impact of the initiative, notably on the experience of girls.
Contact Stephanie Foerster Sfoerster@edc.org

14. Global Development Learning Network - Latin America & Caribbean
Launched in 2000, the Global Development Learning Network (GDLN) is an alliance of public, private, and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that supports the exchange of knowledge. In the Latin America and the Caribbean Region, this interactive community consists in a group of Distance Learning Centers (DLCs) established in a variety of organisations, primarily universities, that have telecommunications infrastructure and experience in the distance training area.
Contact David Gray dgray1@worldbank.org

15. Educator's Reference Desk - Global
This internet-based service provides education information to teachers, librarians, counselors, administrators, parents, and anyone interested in education worldwide. Provided by the Information Institute of Syracuse, the Educator's Reference Desk consists of a collection of resources, a question archive, lesson plans, and a search interface to an education database called ERIC.
Contact Jennifer Barth eduref@iis.syr.edu

16. Education for Rural People (ERP) Tool Kit
This toolkit is structured as a website providing a wide range of educational materials and other resources designed for use by "rural teachers, instructors, trainers, parents, researchers, extensionists and others involved in formal and non formal education for rural people". Most of these resources are available online and are produced by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

17. Integrating ICTs into the Curriculum: Analytical Catalogue of Key Publications
This catalogue contains a range of resources in the form of books, CD-ROMs, online publications, websites and articles from e-journals that aim to provide teachers, senior school managers, curriculum developers and administrators with guidelines and strategies for integrating information and communication technologies (ICTs) into teaching and learning.

***

This issue was written by Kier Olsen DeVries.

***

The Drum Beat seeks to cover the full range of communication for development activities. Inclusion of an item does not imply endorsement or support by The Partners.

Please send material for The Drum Beat to the Editor - Deborah Heimann dheimann@comminit.com

To reproduce any portion of The Drum Beat, see our policy.

To subscribe, click here.