Educating for Understanding and Peace
“How can there be peace without people understanding each other, and how can this be if they don't know each other?”
Lester Bowles Pearson, Nobel Prize 1957.
From Nobel Lecture The Four Faces of Peace, 1957.
In August 1985 I was sixteen going on seventeen. It was the end of summer vacation when I received one of the most important gifts in my life: After a hard selection process, in which more than 300 students between 16 and 19 years from all over the country had taken part, I had been awarded a full scholarship to attend the Lester B. Pearson College, where I was to spend the next two years studying under the International Baccalaureate Program and living together with 200 students from 60 different countries.
Coming from Trujillo, a small Venezuelan rural city in the outskirts of the Andes, which at the time had less than 25.000 inhabitants, going to Pearson College was not just a life changing experience, but an opportunity to learn another language, immerse in a different culture and become familiar with a concept that would from then on be part of my life: multiculturalism.
The college, located in Victoria Island, British Columbia, Canada, is part of the United World Colleges, an organization that today has 12 schools and colleges over the world and is represented in 150 countries. More than 50.000 students from 180 countries have studied at UWC schools and colleges since the opening of the first UWC College in 1962.
Thus, in September 1985, after a more than 12 hours journey –from Trujillo to Caracas and from there to Miami, Seattle and finally Victoria– I arrived at Victoria Airport where my two years adventure began.
In my first year I shared room with a British, a Canadian and a Finnish girl. During my second year, my roommates were from Scotland, Canada and Israel. Living together was not always easy, but we had to learn to share our views, to negotiate in order to get solutions, and, in short, to become more tolerant with each other to warrant peace in that little space that was our room.
I made friends with people from such distant places for me such as India, Nigeria, Turkey, Yugoslavia or Palestine. Also with other more close to my own culture, such as Mexicans, Argentinians, or Latin Americans in general. I started going out with an Indian-South African who was a vegetarian, which was a shock for my parents, used as they were to eat meat in almost every meal. I also learned to avoid prejudice, to open my mind to different points view other than my own, and to value people over ideas, religion or nationality.
Being exposed to a multicultural environment at that early age, made me understand how important it is to comprehend why people act the way they do, which are the cultural drives that lay behind their behavior and how one's own beliefs and acts may suppose a cultural shock for someone raised under different paradigms.
That knowledge helped me through life. Not only in my performance as a journalist, which I became in later years, but on a day to day basis. It gave me the tools to exercise empathy, to look for the underlying motives> that drive human actions and offered me the possibility to look from a different perspective every task to be undertaken.
A pending matter
Of course, other than that of UWC there are many initiatives to boost multiculturalism and promote cultural exchange among teenagers. Organizations such as Youth for Understanding, and other exchange movements provide a way to offer teenagers the possibility to study abroad and become part of a different culture over a limited period of time. That kind of experience has proven to be very positive in building tolerance and understanding, although is not any kind of panacea.
In some cases, it can even reinforce some stereotypes and make the individual more aware of his/her own culture and differences, but in any case it will make them become more knowledgeable, and knowledge leads to, if not to tolerance, at least to understanding and accepting the differences. That is the key to respecting the other’s view, even if we do not share it. And it is also crucial for building empathy in any field of work.
On the other hand, it is not indispensable to go abroad to be exposed to a multicultural environment. Many schools around the world today embrace the notion of teaching for tolerance and promote intercultural exchange in a global world where knowing each other, understanding the cultural differences and respecting them is essential to move forward.
Also there are many organizations and associations devoted to providing teachers around the world with resources that help children appreciate and respect differences, such as the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development or the National Association for Multicultural Education, just to name some.
But there is still much to be done. In her article Moving beyond tolerance an multicultural education, Sonia Nieto –faculty member with the Cultural Diversity and Curriculum Reform Program, School of Education, University of Massachusetts– affirms that “To tolerate differences means that they are endured, not necessarily embraced”, and states that there are four levels to be considered in multicultural education: “Tolerance, acceptance, respect, and finally affirmation, solidarity and critique”.
In the 21st Century, now that the world has become infinitely smaller, now that we are closer to each other by means of technology, educating not just for tolerance, but for accepting and respecting cultural differences and diversity is a must.
Views about tolerance
Colors interviewed readers that attended international studies in their youth, and asked about their views on tolerance and education.
Roseane- Brazil: I don’t see tolerance as a concrete thing related to coexistence. Tolerance is an exercise in accepting the differences, whether cultural or behavioral. When I attended a course in Italy, I had the opportunity of sharing with people from different cultures, honestly not so different to mine- and it only confirmed my position that what really matters is one’s conscience and attitude. Tolerance comes as result of the good will towards other people, accepting the differences, in the capacity of noticing the essence of each person with or without similar behavior.
Marcia – Argentina: Been born and having lived in a country that geographically is kind of far from the rest of the world exposed me since my childhood to different cultures. Argentina is a melting pot of races, although most of European origin, which has helped me to better understand human relationships.
After graduation, the experience of living in a college with people from different continents, races and cultures, has helped me to understand many more things. Exposure to multiculturalism develops a tolerance different to the one developed without that exposure as it allows you to have a peek into the world and look at it with a wider view. Personally, having formed a family whose ancestors live in different continents, has also provided my children with the opportunity to travel, live and learn that the true wealth of life is to understand and adapt to different cultures.
John - The Netherlands: The Netherlands brings day in-day out exposure to people from all walks of life. But nothing widened my view on life as attending college abroad. The school had courses of different duration and every so often a new bunch of people would arrive at school. People from India, Eastern and South Africa and from Latin America came by the waves to school. With their music, their loud cheery voices, their eating habits. What a cornucopia of habits, costumes, smells and colors. What was clean and nice for some, was boring and flavorless for others. Sharing our small spaces forced us to see beyond the colors, the habits, the smells, the noises. It allowed us to see the warm, genuine human being in each of our peers.
There cannot be peace without understanding
That was the premise under which Lester B. Pearson College construction began in 1973. In September 1974 it was the third college to open under UWC philosophy. The force behind it was Mr. Lester B. Pearson, Nobel Peace Laureate 1957 and former Prime Minister of Canada, whom after retiring became interested in the UWC movement.
In 1969 he visited the UWC College of the Atlantic in Wales, where he met with students and faculty. He was convinced of the need of establishing more colleges such as that around the world, especially in his own country. His vision was that:
“Students will be welcomed without regard to race, religion or politics and we intend to establish scholarships so that the students who attend the College will be from all levels of society and will be genuine representatives of their own peoples. This system (…) could become a revolutionary force in international education.”
And it has. Since its opening in 1974 more than 3,500 students have graduated from Pearson College, and are all over the world working in different areas of knowledge and sharing the determination to make a difference in their communities and build peace through tolerance.
By Francesca Cordido Rengifo
Francesca is a journalist and writer, specialist on Editorial Projects and Media Management. She has been managing editor for several Venezuelan magazines, and has developed her work mainly in the political, technological and business fields. Since 2005 she has developed different corporate communication projects as well as editorial projects for clients all over the world. More info
Pictures: Filmagen / Inner pics: Flickr - TN drum guy / Axle / Jamesjoel / SMB College
More Main Stories /
Do you wish to write for Colors?
