Introduction to the upcoming International Summer School on Education for Sustainable Peace

So as mentioned in the previous post, my primary responsibilities at the Georg Eckert Institute have involved preparations for the annual Georg Arnhold International Summer School on Education for Sustainable Peace, which goes from June 21st to the 27th.  Eighteen early career scholars and practitioners will join us in Braunschweig to present their research on a topic related to the theme of this year’s school, which is  “Transitional Justice and Education: Engaging Children and Youth in Justice and Peacebuilding Through Educational Media, Curricula, and Outreach.” The projects highlight the key approaches and challenges of incorporating justice and peace into educational materials and curricula in communities recovering from a history of mass violence and oppression. Also joining us for the summer school are eight mid-career professionals, all of whom have extensive backgrounds working with transitional justice education, to provide feedback to the researchers and host workshops designed to assist the participants in their continued research. The summer school is co-sponsored by the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) in New York city, with one participant and two of the mid-career professionals joining us from the renowned organization. Since my boss advised me to wait until the school starts and ask participants for permission, and because I have only read their abstracts and lit. reviews so far, I am going to hold off until the conclusion of the program to write about specific presentations and the key themes of the week. But I did want to elaborate on the general themes of the summer school and what I have been doing in preparation.

The topic of the summer school itself was a major reason (amongst many of course) that I chose this position for my summer internship placement. My interest in transitional justice goes back to my studies of Holocaust and Genocide studies as an undergrad, as I attempted to comprehend how individuals and communities can effectively move beyond the legacy of mass violence and oppression in a peaceful and productive manner. Communities express a desire to move forward in the aftermath of mass violence, but struggle with how to most effectively administer justice and accountability, reconcile tensions among groups, and address the trauma of human rights abuses in a healthy approach. In the past two decades, education has been recognized as an important tool for governments and NGO’s to help engage communities critically address a violent history, while also encouraging peaceful and sustainable dispute resolution techniques.

How the legacy of violence is handled in a post-conflict society will have generational impacts, which is why government officials, policy makers, and educators are faced with the difficult task of addressing past events of violence in a way that encourages reconciliation and peacebuilding without furthering tensions between groups. Education can exacerbate conflict if not handled properly, as the group tensions and trauma left over from past violence makes dialogue on such subjects an extremely sensitive issue. As a result, approaching justice and peacebuilding in the classroom is an incredibly delicate process. On one end, the society needs to address the root causes and actors of past violence, in hope that through this comprehension future generations can move beyond a violent shared history and become a more peaceful and tolerant society. But on the other end, this process relies on victims being able to critically approach their traumatic past, which may be too contentious for people whose victimization is too fresh. Also, the now ruling political regime may demand a one-sided narrative of past abuses that clears their name of any wrongdoing, or places the blame on rival groups.

Visiting scholars and participants in the annual summer school focus their research on topics related to how transitional justice principles are being administered through educational materials and curricula in post-conflict regions, and how these approaches can be more effective moving forward. This is a vital step in any region dealing with a traumatic past, as how such events are addressed in school will play a major role in forming a child’s overall conception of the violent history of their homeland. This becomes even more difficult in cases where the children experienced human rights abuses, or lost family members to the violence. In other cases such as in the former Yugoslavia, many current students students are the offspring of victims and perpetrators during the Ethnic cleansing campaigns during the mid-1990’s, and proper education is crucial to assist children in trying to make sense of their particular home country's recent and violent past. In such cases, ethnic tensions may continue to thrive long after the end of violence, and education can help facilitate better reconciliation and cooperation among rival groups. Transitional justice is a vital component of sustainable peace, and I would argue that education can be the most effective platform for instilling the ideals of justice and peace into a community that may have for years been tragically devoid of either, and help them move towards a more tolerant and nonviolent future.

I am incredibly excited to finally meet the participants and hear them elaborate on their topics, and who knows, maybe provide some constructive feedback to thes early career scholars. I will likely be the only participant without a PhD (or masters for that matter) but I do believe the CR program has provided me with the knowledge and skills to critically engage each research project, and participate in a cordial platform for dissecting ideas and best approaches for peace education in post-conflict regions. I look forward to sharing what I have learned, and more about the researchers themselves in the coming week.

Reflections on my first weeks at the Georg Eckert Institute

This post is a reflection on my first four weeks working at the Georg Eckert Institute, with a few pictures I've taken of Braunschweig sprinkled in between. It has been an upbeat, pleasant, and exciting place to work, and I am already grateful for both the work experience and the connections I have made with scholars, practitioners, and policy makers focused on education and peacebuilding. The Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research is a rather larger organization, with over 140 staff, researchers, visiting scholars,and interns. It's extensive collection of international textbooks and other educational materials (over 170,000 from 160 countries) is a primary reason researchers come to the institute. They take great care to make the institute a leading research infrastructure in the world for academics, policy makers, and practitioners focused on how education can be used to promote peace and justice, or in other cases, exploited to fuel further tensions and conflict by promoting prejudices and intolerant beliefs. Recognizing the issues within educational curricula and policy in conflict regions, and creating conflict-sensitive materials that address the core causes of past conflict and inequality, all while trying not to further exacerbate group divisions is a grand challenge. The causes and solutions to such substantial educational reform are quite broad, and require cooperation among government officials, educators, and the community in order to be accomplished in a sustainable way.

The researchers themselves focus on a wide range of topics related to educational materials, curricula, and conflict. Educational materials can play a vital role in shaping the worldview of a child from a very early age, helping shape their personal identity, as well as how they comprehend and interact with other groups. The institute itself was born from research after WW2 that recognized trends in educational materials in Germany and Japan to promote negative stereotypes of enemy groups, as governments utilized education as a means of indoctrination on their most impressionable citizens. Georg Eckert and other educational scholars believed there needed to be more research on the role of education as a tool of propaganda, and found that textbooks from countless other countries were also riddled with negative depictions of national, political, ethnic and other groups deemed to be enemies of the state, and in many cases, a one-sided historical narrative based upon the aims of the ruling political regime. As a result, the mission of the institute is to promote research on educational materials, media, and curricula in societies around the world through the belief that education can be just as effectively utilized to reconcile tensions between enemy groups and promote peace as it has been to encourage violence and intolerance.

Before my first day, I was slightly nervous about the adjustment process, as I knew no one at the office other than my new boss, and would be working at an institution where most correspondence and materials were in German. Thankfully, the polite nature of everyone at the office made for a very stress free and pleasant transition. I share a small but nice office with Martina, the only downside being that the keyboard for my computer is in
German. Though the German language uses primarily the same keyboard as English, the Y and Z letters switch places, and there are specific keys for the umlaut letters ö, ä, and ü. Getting used to the keyboard was frustrating at first, but I quickly got the hang of it, though I’ve noticed when I type on my laptop that I tend to mix up my Y’s and Z’s, which as I think of it, will be my new excuse for any future grammatical mistakes in my writing. If you notice anything spelled wrong, I simply wrote those words using the incredibly complicated German keyboard. Take my word for it.  

I began the internship only two days after arriving in Braunschweig. I was still jetlagged at the time, but in the same regard was quite excited to begin working. My soon to be boss Martina had given me a general idea of what to expect in the first couple weeks, and while there was much that needed to be done, it seemed to be enjoyable work and I was eager to make a good first impression. Despite having much to go from the very beginning, she made sure to ease me into the major tasks and responsibilities of the position, and made the extra effort to introduce me to nearly everyone in the office, including the Director and co-Director of the institute.

I knew after my conversation with the director that this would be a very enjoyable place to work, as we ended up sitting in her office and talking for about 20 minutes. For someone that spends her time meeting with diplomats and policy officials, and is in charge of a staff of nearly 150, that she would was happy to invite an unpaid intern she would never be working with to have a cordial conversation about everything from my academic interests, to her opinion of American beers (she, like many Germans, is vocal in her disdain for light beers) led me to quickly feel I was in a perfect internship placement. And if you, the reader, knows me on some personal level, it should be of little surprise that what was supposed to be a brief introduction turned into an unnecessarily long conversation.

It is an incredibly pleasant work environment, for people are very engaged in their work, but in the same regard are generally calm and relaxed. I think this is a testament to people that enjoy their work conditions, another reminder of the old adage that if you love what you do then you never work a day in your life. The institute is the Wonka Chocolate factory for researchers focused on educational media and curricula, providing them with an abundance of resources in a beautiful and quiet space. Plus there’s no chocolate lake to fall into or gum that turns you into a blueberry (as far as I know at least, there is a candy jar in the main office with some suspicious looking German licorice I’m not brave enough to try)

Perhaps the best part of the job so far has been working with my boss Martina. Since we share an office and are technically the only two people working directly on the Georg Arnhold Program, we are exposed to each quite consistently every day. Though such directly can lead people to quickly grow annoyed of each other, I can thankfully day that has been far from the case. She is simply a wonderful person to be around, and everyone in the office seems to share in my admiration, as on countless occasions I’ve had fellow employees express jealousy that I get to work with Martina. Despite having so much to do the past two weeks, the days are always filled with funny stories, political conversations, or her personal favorite topic, international soccer. She has gone above and beyond to make sure I get the most out of my experience, encouraging me to take advantage of all the resources the institute has to offer, and taking the extra step to reach out to colleagues with similar interests of my own for me to network with. For two colleagues that focus on America, I have become their go to person to vent about American politics to, and to no surprise I am more than willing to chime in. I also greatly appreciate that she has insisted from the very beginning that I not only help prepare for the summer school, but that I get to participate as well. She could have simply had me continue with my intern duties, but instead I will be involved in all of the panel discussions, seminars, workshops, and the fun extracurricular activities such as the day trip to Berlin during the middle of the summer school. While I will still have numerous responsibilities throughout the week, I am nonetheless excited to take part in this impressive gathering of scholars and practitioners. This has all made for a pleasant internship experience so far, and I am grateful that I look forward to coming into work everyday.

My day to day tasks are quite varied, and for the most part I’ve enjoyed every task assigned to me so far. My first big responsibility was to edit the abstracts and lit. reviews for each presenter at our upcoming international summer school, and conduct interviews which each participant to be put together into a booklet for the advisory board. Our participants and experts come from every continent in the world. As a result, though each project is excellent, some need extra editing as they were written by scholars who speak little English. I can only imagine how difficult it must be to present research you have been conducting for months in a language you barely speak or write in, and I am glad to help them better articulate their research proposals and key findings. I also wrote profiles of each expert, and in some cases, gone through the massive Institute directory to find them sources for future research upon their arrival at the Institute. As mentioned earlier, the Institute has a substantial collection, making every attempt to sort through the catalogs a small adventure in itself. The collection has become so extensive that they have actually began construction on a larger facility, set to be complete in two years. I might even still be here at the original Institute by the time the new one opens, if only because my big body got stuck trying to find a book in one of the more compact nooks of the library.

Perhaps the most challenging task so far has been to draft a statistical report of summer school applicants, which will also be presented to board members. The report broke down the geographical locations of the over 234 applications for the summer school, as well as gender, university or professional affiliation, and through what web or print sources/advertisements were they informed of the Summer School call for papers. As someone that hates math with a passion, and can happily say has not taken a math course since high school (my version of hell would be having to repeat Mr. Grant’s level 1 algebra class for eternity), I was initially worried that my avoidance of that cursed subject had finally come back to haunt me. But after a quick overview from Martina, and realizing that basic statistics is not as daunting as I made it out to be, it turned out to be a very productive task, and I was quite satisfied with my final result. I'm grateful that Martina was as well, though I hope to avoid doing any more math for the remainder of the internship/ the rest of my life.

I also assist in drafting and editing proposals, call for papers, and other distributional materials. And since this is after all an internship, some of my responsibilities are more menial, but I do not mind having to do such tasks from time to time. Such tasks need to get done, and I have always resented people that reject the responsibilities of their position on the account of believing they are "below" them.  As the weeks have progressed, on Martina has entrusted me to edit and help draft more important proposals, and I appreciate that she has enough confidence in me to handle such delicate tasks. I feel that I owe it to both Martina for offering me this position and being so accommodating, as well as Georgetown for providing me with this opportunity, to the best job possible, and I hope that my work speaks for itself.

The next week is going to be incredibly busy, but also gratifying, as the summer school begins and quickly goes into high gear. I am excited to meet all of the participants and experts and learning more about their research projects. The topics are broad in both scope, methodology, and objectives, but they all highlight ways at which practitioners, government officials, and policy makers from around the world approach and analyze the delicate process of incorporating transitional justice and peacebuilding principles into educational curricula in post-conflict regions.