Time to change

The Earth is sick. Although the benefits of biodiversity have been proven, species are disappearing at an alarming rate, but the most threaten specie of all is mankind.

In round numbers there are 7 billion people in the world, of which 925 million people worldwide suffer from chronic hunger. 13.1 percent, or almost 1 in 7 people are hungry. And even though the world produces enough food to feed everyone (world agriculture produces 17 percent more calories per person today than it did 30 years ago, despite a 70 percent population increase), we would rather throw food away than find a way to share it with the ones that can’t afford it. One third of the food produced in the world every year is lost or wasted, amounting to 1.3 billion metric tons.

Of all the things we are doing wrong as human beings, this is absolutely the worse of all.

Paradoxically, with an estimated 925 million hungry people in the world, 1,500 million people worldwide are overweight; we see people suffering from hunger and at the same time we see people in developed countries having too much food and suffering from diseases caused by obesity.

It breaks my heart to know that every five seconds a child dies from hunger and, moreover, the fact that knowing this, we let this happen, choosing to do nothing.

Isn’t it criminal? We let--and encourage--the existence of harmful economic systems that have led to extremely unequal income distribution in the world, causing poverty and famine.

Paradoxes take place everywhere. Take my country for example. Even though Mexico ranks fourth in the world’s biological diversity and Oaxaca is the state with the greatest biodiversity in the country, 150,000 infants of this state, of which 80% are indigenous, live in extreme poverty, similar to Africa or India. This meansd that 10% of all children in Oaxaca are found on the lowest rung of the Human Development Index (HDI) in the country.

I’m a full-time dreamer and I absolutely dream of a better world. What can we do to achieve this? How can we awaken to a new beginning? I still think that education is the answer: a better education, a different education.

Change is needed desperately. It’s time to change.

#Change11 #CMC11 #CCK12

Learning beyond content

I’m not a chef and I don’t consider myself a cook, but the truth is that I’ve been cooking every day for the last twenty years, maybe more. So, even though my cooking skills don’t appear on my resume, cooking is the only thing that I’ve been doing consistently for a long time. Now, listen to this: nobody taught me, at least not in a formal, systematic or structured way.

So, I didn’t go to cooking school and my mom –a working mom-- didn’t have the time to teach me. How did I learn? By doing it. There were, of course, a series of unfortunate mishaps: burnt food, oily eggs, undercooked meat, overly salty soups. You name it, I did it all. Never mind, the good news is I learned.

In this sense, learning how to cook was more an everyday exercise than a matter of inputting, absorbing or remembering recipes, measurement tables or whatever.

And the fact that I didn’t have a teacher doesn’t make me think that we don’t need teachers. We do, but we need the kind of teachers that teach beyond content. In fact, I have had wonderful teachers throughout my life, but what I learned from them had little to do with “content”. My favorite teachers taught me more than academic knowledge, they taught me –with their example-- to be passionate, to put things into perspective, and most importantly, to embrace knowledge to make life better, not just for me, but for everybody else.

Change11

Celebremos la diferencia

Para nadie es un secreto que la diversidad es una fuente para la indagación, la interacción y el aprendizaje. Sin embargo, aun cuando nuestra riqueza y conocimiento estriba en la diversidad de pueblos y culturas, insistimos en tomar posturas inflexibles y unilaterales a este respecto, defendiendo –e imponiendo- nuestro punto de vista como si éste fuera absoluto. En un mar de infinitas posibilidades, nos negamos la oportunidad de aprender –desde la diferencia- algo nuevo.

Erróneamente, tendemos a creer que la diversidad es algo lejano, distante, fuera de nosotros, cuando la realidad es que la diversidad está aquí, ahora, por doquier: en nuestro país, en nuestro barrio, incluso en nuestra familia y es ahí donde tenemos menos disposición para aceptarla. ¿Cuántas veces no le he escuchado decir -con pena- a un padre de familia sobre su hijo: "¡ay!, es tan diferente a mí"? Queriendo decir con esto que ese hijo, al ser tan diferente del padre (bueno, pero cómo se atreve), se ha hecho acreedor a ser la oveja negra de la familia.

¿Cuántas veces no hemos oído decir: “somos tan diferentes”? con el trasfondo de “no hay forma de que podamos entendernos”. Las diferencias que nos caracterizan han sido por mucho tiempo la justificación para separaciones, enemistades y violencia (cruzadas, invasiones, guerras). ¿Es esto lo que queremos? ¿Estamos apostando por una sola forma de vida, por una misma concepción? O bien, ¿es nuestra intención propiciar diálogos auténticos entre los pueblos, entre las culturas, para vivir armoniosamente, en un ámbito de cooperación y respeto?

La diversidad no sólo es buena, es deseable (como en un MOOC). Sin embargo, ésta requiere de nosotros la aceptación, el interés, reconocimiento y validación del Otro. No hay culturas mejores ni peores, todas las culturas son igualmente dignas y merecedoras de respeto. No hay personas superiores ni inferiores: los migrantes, los grupos indígenas, los excluidos y los extranjeros, aportan nuevos conocimientos, ideas, experiencias y esperanza al lugar que llegan. El pluralismo es el trasfondo básico de nuestro tiempo. Asumámonos como somos seres multiculturales; entendamos que el mundo no es un bloque uniforme, homogéneo, totalizado, rígido, cerrado, sino un mosaico cultural, un mundo que alberga en sí muchos mundos.

La diversidad es también un elemento clave en el éxito o fracaso de una compañía: contratar a personas de la misma nacionalidad, sexo, religión, edad y formación es un error garrafal; en este sentido, Celia de Anca ha estado promoviendo la diversidad en el mundo corporativo, lo cual suena perfectamente lógico: cualquiera que difiere de mí, me enriquece.

Como educadores debemos celebrar la diferencia y promover una educación en y para la diferencia, esto es, una educación intercultural: el camino que permita que todos los individuos tengan acceso, desde sus diferencias, a una vida materialmente ética y digna; el camino para la inclusión, el respeto y el reconocimiento de todas las culturas, de todos y cada uno de los seres humanos.

Celebrate difference

Diversity is a source of exploration, interaction, and self-growth. However, even though we find richness and knowledge in diversity, we still fight it, instead of celebrating it; we still insist that our perspective is the only valid one as if it were absolute; we still want to prevail with our point of view. In a sea of possibilities, we deny ourselves the great opportunity to learn –from the difference- something new.

We tend to think that diversity is outside, far and away from us; the truth is that we find diversity everywhere: in our country, in our neighborhood, even in our family, and it’s there in our inner circle where we are least likely to accept difference. How many times have I heard a parent saying with sorrow about his son: “Oh! He is so different from me,” meaning that he, the son, is the black sheep of the family, because he is different from his dad (How dare he be different?).

How many times have we heard “we are so different” underlying “there’s no way we can get along”. Difference has been, for a long time, a plausible justification for separations, enmities, and violence like crusades, invasions, and wars. Is this what we want? Are we aiming for all people to live the same way, for the same philosophy of life? Or, are we favoring authentic dialogue in order to learn from each other and live in harmony, cooperation and respect?

Diversity is not only good, it is also desirable, like in a MOOC. However, it requires from us acceptance, true interest, recognition, and validation. There are no better or worse cultures; there are no superior or inferior human beings: migrants, indigenous people, exiles, and foreigners bring new ideas, experiences, knowledge, and hope to the places they arrived. Pluralism is the undertone of our times. We are multicultural beings. The world is not a closed, homogenized, totalized, rigid, and uniform block; rather, it is a cultural mosaic, a world that shelters many worlds inside.Diversity is also key in the success or failure of a company: hiring people from the same nationality, gender, religion, age, or background is a huge mistake. In this sense, Celia de Anca has been promoting diversity management and its impact on modern business. It’s perfectly logical: anyone who differs from me, enriches me, and enriches my company.

As educators, we must celebrate difference, we must promote an education for and from the difference, that is, the inclusion, respect, and acknowledgement of every single culture, of each and every human being.