Peace by Piece

Today, at UPEACE, we were all reminded of the impermanence of life.  It started out as a normal day.  Students came to school.  We fretted over due dates and worked on group projects.  While I was in a career development seminar, other students were in class.  A much-admired teacher was teaching about environmental issues. Professor Mahmoud was a passionate teacher.  He didn't feel well yet he came to class to not only teach, but passionately teach.  His students noticed he wasn't feeling well and asked him to at least teach sitting down.  He could not.  During class, Prof. Mahmoud collapsed and was taken to the clinic on campus where he passed on shortly after.  It was devastating for all. While I did not know Professor Mahmoud personally, I know he was a great man.  I know this by the sadness that overwhelmed school and faculty.  I know this from the countless stories that have been told today about the man that had not bee...

One of the principles of Peace Education is that you must model what you learn and live what you teach.  How beautiful.  This is so simple yet profound.  What if every teacher were able to model peace in the classroom?  This is what I am presenting on tomorrow.  It may not be possible to teach peace per say, but we could teach in a way that empowers students and gives them a worldly perspective.  We can teach in a way that involves students in the process and that gives voice to their ideas.  This may sound like a no-brainer but how often do teachers and society get hung up on transference of knowledge?  Why are we trying to base teacher performance on standardized tests?  Should learning be standardized?  In a diverse world with perspectives as numerous as people, how can we standardize education?  How can one viewpoint be correct?  The world is not flat after all.  Yes, we all need to learn how to add and subtract and sp...

My first presentation for University is done!  It was a great group effort by my group!  We consisted of students from Denmark, Costa Rica, Indonesia and Korea.  It was interesting working together.  Our group was decidedly European with dinner meetings and wine taking precedence over timeliness.  This was difficult for my Virgo self to cope with but in the end, I am a better person for it!  But how lovely it was getting to know my fellow students so much more intimately.  The sharing that I at first considered so unproductive was the glue that held us together.  In the end, we helped and supported each other through the process of researching and creating our presentation on conflict and conflict resolution. We chose to present on a current Costa Rican issue.  Costa Rica is quite which in gold deposits and there is a Canadian company trying to open an open pit gold mine.  The government was persuaded to life a ban on open pit gold mini...

This morning at breakfast my mom had these words of wisdom: "Your party was good.  Everyone was happy.  Parties are only fun when everyone is happy.  Tequila makes people happy."  Ahh...serendipity.

I have always enjoyed birthdays.  Whether it's my birthday or someone else's, they are fun to celebrate.  It's celebrating life and life, I love.  I had a difficult time sleeping the night before my birthday.  It occurred to me that I was turning 36!  Age has never bothered me, it's just a number after all.  But I find it difficult to say that I am 36 and posting it here is probably therapeutic for me.  Maybe it's that I am at the upper end of the age range of students here or more likely that I come from a town where seemingly nobody grows up and the men are given the moniker 'peter pan' for their eternal boyhood.  I feel like there are so many things I have yet to do in life and so much more experiences are waiting to be had.  Yes, I have plenty of time, but somehow I am not considered 'young' by societal standards even though I feel young and even naive at times.  I don't want to be excluded from this group; I still have so much to gi...

Today I met with a group of students from the university for a study session.  We wanted to rehash this weeks lectures and take another look at the new terminology.  It was a very productive meeting at a local coffee house.  Our group included myself and another student from the United States and one student each  from  Iran, Egypt, South Korea, Japan, and Thailand.  What a treat if was to talk about peace politics and how to define peace with such a diverse groups.  Students shared stories from personal experiences to exemplify different peace building strategies and conflict resolution models.  This is learning taken to a new level.  Not only did I better understand the concepts we learned in class, but I also learned about elections in Egypt, land issues in Japan and family settlement of disputes in Iran.  Upon coming to UPEACE I really only knew the geography of the western world but after just two weeks I can place counties in Asia ...

Being sick is difficult even in the comfort of your own country and home.  My instant reaction is denial and continuing life as normal.  I make the same demands on my body and am frustrated when it doesn't respond as I expect it to.  So happened here in Costa Rica. Monday came and as I struggled to get out of bed I gave into my body's desire for a calm morning and instead of putting on my running shoes, I rolled out my yoga mat.  Sometimes it's tough in the morning so I thought nothing of it.  Then, as the day went on, I began sneezing violently.  The number of 'bless you's' thrown in my direction was embarrassing.  Yet, as lunch ended, I found myself running around and playing a little volleyball.  When I retreated to the library to study I blamed my tiredness on the dense reading and went to the cafeteria for coffee and cake.  Then, when I moved to the computer lab, I cursed the fans as my sneezing picked up again.  I wandered outsid...