Education Research Schools Partnership

21st June 2024 13.00 - 16.00

Speaking to schools, education organisations and University representatives about research in primary and secondary schools about the values that build positive responses to diversity. EDUCATION4DIVERSITY has much to offer in this area since we have organised meaningful research on human values with children in primary and secondary schools in the UK, Rwanda, India, Uganda and Japan.

Arts and climate change: helping refugee children in Uganda appreciate the wonders of natural diversity.

May 2024

We are working virtually to support African Visual Artists Associates (AVIAS) and children in a refugee settlement school in Rwamwanja, western Uganda. The young artists leading this project bring their expertise, art materials, time and gentle humanity to help refugee children address trauma by developing increased sensitivity to their natural environment. Using the arts to respond to diverse experiences and focussed attention, we can help children develop sensitivity to what is beautiful in their world. That sensitivity we believe, is the first step towards caring about and working towards more sustainable decisions in life. Linking this work in a refugee school with similar activities in UK schools, we underline the universal relevance of a curriculum to address climate change and sustainability.

A school curriculum for Ubuntu: research, filming and teaching at Burundi American International Academy, Bujumbura, Burundi.

16th - 23rd April 2023

EDUCATION4DIVERSITY worked at and with the Burundi American International Academy (BAIA) in Bujumbura, economic capital of Burundi.  Their attention has been drawn to the curriculum and pedagogy of the school which was seen by many to be unusual in Burundi and perhaps in the region.  This apparent uniqueness was partly a result of its well-trained staff and experienced director, but during early scoping interviews its focus on values and upon the aims of its founder appeared to be even more unusual.  The team decided to explore the school’s local role, its recent development and the values it claimed to represent. It was hoped by the founders and teachers that BAIA might provide a model of education that could be used to build peace and reconciliation in a region beset by poverty, insecurity and extreme violence for the last 60 years. 

BAIA’s founder, Professor Freddy Kaniki,  pharmacologist, philanthropist and advisor, lives and practises 30 miles north of the Arctic circle in Alaska.  He is also a refugee from the Republic of Congo (DRC).  He established the school in 2014 as a memorial to his father and three brothers who were brutally murdered by members of the militias that still terrorise and arbitrarily attack members of the Banyamulenge nomadic pastoralist community of Eastern DRC.  The school is sited on the northern shores of Lake Tanganyika, deliberately close where these and many other deaths occurred and near the place where the borders of the DRC, Rwanda and Burundi meet. It was founded as an act of reconciliation with the intention of developing a curriculum aimed at building peace, inclusion and community - a curriculum of Ubuntu in a country made the poorest in the world by inter-community conflict and continuing genocide.  Dr Kaniki reasoned that if this fee paying school could help produce a generation of political, economic, spiritual and social leaders, who had in their school days experienced and lived compassion, respect, personal and communal responsibility and understood the meaning of integrity – Burundi would be in a stronger place to rise out of the poverty and strife that has held it back.

We researched the impact of values on the life of BAIA. Our published research can be found here:

https://redfame.com/journal/index.php/jets/article/view/6424

We taught students, led staff development training and interviewed students, teachers, Director, governors and community leaders to monitor the successes of the school and think about its potential for positive influence in the region.

Responding to Refugees with Naples University postgraduates

Wednesday 5th April 2023

12.30 - 16.00

Alex and Jonathan presented an interactive workshop that involved a debate o the influence of personal values and an introduction to the global history of migration over the last 500 years. Students continued by being involved in background exercises on media, maps, migration, immigration and refugee numbers in a range of countries throughout the world. They then had an opportunity to hear and question Alex about his experience as a refugee. We the linked up via Zoom with six or seven young refugees who currently live in Kakuma Refugee camp in Northern Kenya. During the 40 minute link students heard directly from those who had been forced to migrate to a place of safety and hear about the problems of lack of work, lack of education and reduced career prospects. The group were very moved when one Sudanese refugee shared a song about his lifestyle in south Sudan. The session ended with discussion about what we as individuals - in our jobs, our daily lives and in our plans - could do to alleviate the suffering of those forced to flee their homes.

Humanising Diversity at Sir William Ramsey School, Hezelemere.

Monday 3rd January 2023

13.00 - 15.00

We focussed on how diversity is a fundamental aspect of being human. We shared guiding values that showed our commonalities and our personal values stories that demonstrated our diversity. After being reminded of the research that confirms the universal importance of emotions, positive experience, deep engagement and multiple definitions of intelligence, we worked on what the combination of respect for diversity and deep engagement in learning could look like across a curriculum designed to respond to the big issues of the day.

Humanising Diversity with the primary schools working with KMT Quality Teacher Training

Thursday 1st December 2022

We used examples from contexts outside western culture to show how others had worked with diversity across the primary curriculum. We worked with initial teacher trainees on using diversity as a powerful resource to motivate and develop deep learning in primary education

Diversity across the secondary curriculum at Simon Langton Boys Grammar School, Canterbury

Monday 7th February 2022

1300 - 15.00

We introduced current educational neuroscience and psychology research that underlined the importance of the variations in human minds and brains. These differences are largely caused by the infinite range of experiences and environments we may have and the wide range of emotional responses we may make. We discussed and illustrated the gift of diversity. Using our ever-growing set of education case studies from around the world, we saw how bringing diverse mindsets together to tackle problems or address issues adds to the creativity and depth of solutions. We invited staff to make links across their separate subjects to address the increasingly important themes of the UK’s super-diversity and global migrations.