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Educators For NonViolence (EFNV) – Michael Nagler

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Educators For NonViolence [EFNV.ORG] is a group of educators operating under the auspices of the Metta Center for Nonviolence Education. It was co-founded by The Dalai Lama Foundation a couple of years ago.

EFNV is holding its second summer teacher conference on Friday and Saturday, 20-21 July, 2007 on the University of California campus in Berkeley CA.

The coordinator of Metta Center’s volunteers as well as coordinator of the planning activities for the EFNV conference is Jordan Pearlstein at the Metta Center.

Michael Nagler is founder of the Peace Studies program at Berkeley, and leader of EFNV. I had a Skype conversation this morning with him where we discussed the conference and the organizations.

Play the interview:

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Links we promised during the interview:

Future Leaders for Peace – Jonathan Kathrein

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Jonathan KathreinI sat down in a coffee shop in Berkeley (CA USA) a week ago with Jonathan Kathrein, the founder of Future Leaders for Peace.

FLFP conducts workshops in schools – from grade-school thru college – their workshop lasts 90 minutes, including a video, to capture attention and inspire; it starts with interviews of people the kids can relate to, from sports figures to real people, and continues to Jonathan sharing his stories, including the shark attack he survived at Stinson Beach in 1998; proceeding to then get the kids to share their own stories in small groups of 8 or so – their challenges and conflicts and experiences. To paraphrase Jonathan – It’s amazing how similar their challenges are and yet each one thinks they’re unique – by sharing, they learn how to better approach and overcome adversity in their lives.

Audio player:

Don't Fear the Shark - a book

Jonathan has also written a children’s book Don’t Fear the Shark – a story of his shark attack, but one in which the shark is a bully mistreating humans because it has been mistreated itself – the story looks at how the cycle of violence arises and can be prevented. As he says, the story ends abruptly and the reader has to figure out how it would or could end.

Jonathan is also a hard-working member of the organizing committee for Educators For NonViolence.

[posted with ecto]

I’m a Turtle – What type of Nomad are you?

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Digital NomadsCouple of things to report regarding cyber-nomads – folks who work where they want to because they work online…

First, a site I ran into months ago, WebWorkerDaily, reports lots of interesting things about people who work online, and you might want to “check them out.” A recent article Web Work Continues Explosive Growth, for instance.

Second, they report on a study from World At Work, which among other things indicates almost 15 million Americans engage in teleworking full time. (You can pick up a PDF of the report by visiting their web site.) If I calculate correctly, that’s about 5% of the population.

And just this week, an article on WebWorker Daily entitled What Type of Web Worker are You? lists four types of nomadic “Web Workers.” I am a combination of Digital Bedouin and Telecommuter. Mostly I work from my home office, but with my phone (on GPRS) and a few visits to client sites, I really distribute my work quite a bit. And I’m completely capable of picking up and working from a remote location for days when I need to. So there goes the classification scheme right away!

I’m a Turtle – Un-Conferences incorporate the best “nomadic” concepts

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Jay CrossMy friend Jay Cross (Informal Learning) wrote an article Geek Gatherings, in which he (as is typical for Jay) progresses from thought to thought, starting by defining and refining the word geek, but ending up at BAR Camp. (Also see barcamp in wikipedia.) It’s a great post that you should just go read — especially if you’re sick and tired of regular conferences full of (PowerPoint) presentations and looking for a new way of doing things.

What I like most is that these un-conferences incorporate many of the same ideas from “nomadic working” which I was describing in my original “I’m a Turtle” post. (Calling myself a turtle refers to carrying my work around with me in the computer like the turtle carries his shell, not to the pace at which I work.)

Jay says “Geeks are dedicated learners. They go to great lengths to stay ahead of the curve. Not content to merely implement the ideas of others, geeks are driven to invent the future. The way they meet, share information, and conduct their meetings holds many ideas for corporate meetings, starting with the fact that the geeks love to go to meetings like the two I just returned from.” The two meetings he describes are FOO Camp and BAR Camp.

And one thing I like about BAR Camp is that people go to it and actually “camp out” – they bring a computer, and wi-fi is provided for them, and they interact and are encouraged to be online and F2F all at the same time. I made some comments a while ago about meetings being no good if people weren’t online the whole time checking out the references and looking for new ideas. And so Jay’s description really hit the spot for me.

Also for fun here’s Chris Messina’s blog trail on Barcamp.

Jay’s book Informal Learning can be purchased from Amazon.

And one more reference to un-conferences – Take Your PowerPoint And… in BusinessWeek. (Thanks to Chris for spotting this.)

Emmanuel Ande Ivorgba – Study Circles and Transformations

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2007-03-28-EmmanuelThis is a “cafeteria interview*” of Emmanuel Ande Ivorgba, conducted in New Delhi on Friday, the 30th of March, 2007 at the YWCA. Beginning in 2005, after encountering The Dalai Lama Foundation on the world wide web, Emmanuel began a study circle for adults. This expanded into 14 adult circles and 25 students circles, and centered around 8 schools in Jos, Nigeria.

Religion is a sensitive issue in Nigeria, as in many places, and Emmanuel has been able to help people learn about international peace and ethics based on the life of the XIV Dalai Lama in a non-religions atmosphere based on our common humanity.

2007-03-28-The-Nigerian-DelPrivate schools play an important part in education in Nigeria. Public schools cannot handle the entire load, and students frequently begin school at a late age, so private schools have stepped in to carry part of the load. Students are encouraged to stay in school until they graduate and sometimes do not graduate until as late as the age of 23. (The photo shows Faith, Emmanuel and Mercy at Chonor House in Dharamsala.)

“Very honestly … my contact with the Dalai Lama Foundation in the first place has transformed my life. Each person knows himself – I know my background, but since January 2005 it has transformed my life in a number of ways. I should give a few examples…”

Play the interview:

*I call these cafeteria interviews not because they offer a varied menu but because they’re sometimes conducted in a noisy or populated area, giving you the flavor of the locale, but also you’ve got to pay a little bit of attention in order to follow the interview.