What do you tell the children? To bomb or not to bomb Syria.

I have two boys, we live in the world, currently residing in Kathmandu but in the short 8years since having children we have lived in Malaysia, Lebanon, Ecuador and now Nepal. The media is all over the question  to bomb or not to bomb Syria. We don't have TV, don't get the newspapers and definitely don't subscribe to anything but independent media on the internet, so the kids are pretty sheltered from the current media feeding frenzy. That said they are not stupid nor impervious to overheard adult conversations or talk in the school-yard, the odd BBC Radio news update in the car and since the duty station we were in was Beirut...they are pretty attuned to what is going on.

So what to tell them currently and how to rationalise what is going on. I have just written and slightly re-edited the letter below to a friend that outlines my thoughts on the matter at this time, and I don't know really to translate all this into a language that my 6 and 8 year old will understand. That is another matter. What I do know is that if the decision is taken for a military intervention in Syria then the opportunity for learning about the dismal state of affairs in the world will sky-rocket and a moment in time to reinforce their roles (all of our roles) as change-agents optimized, is that homeschooling or just good parenting? Whether we are departing from the Kali Yurga, shifting from a world that has been masculine dominated to one that is feminine-led, it is clear that we cannot continue to treat each other and Mother Earth the way we have been, particularly these past 100years.

I realise as I write that I have the children first and foremost in my mind. Your children, my children...Syrian children. No one, not Assad, not any opposition group, not the Presidents or Prime Ministers of the USA, Iran, Israel or Russia have any right to trample on the hopes and aspirations or the futures (not to mention the Rights) of Syrian children. Many Syrian kids have now been out of school for 2years...with no end in sight, I wonder what their parents are telling them about all this. So-called Leaders need to rein in, take a deep breath and then step up in the name of the children and of humanity.

Hi K,

Yes, I am trying to extend my longevity by reducing pre-occupation with humanitarian emergencies and the resulting stress! Work as it has come to be known has been allowed to overtake life and the fulfillment of the human spirit and this is wrong. We all have choices to make. I digress. 

To your question...I am absolutely against anything as blatantly foolish and arrogant as military strikes on Syria. There is much written about it both in the mainstream press and supposed think tanks, but most miss the mark or are clearly biased. Any thoughts of 'punishing' are those of small minds or perhaps those only with hegemonic or economic interests...anyway usually these are the small minds, narrow minds at the very least, again, I digress.

First, NO intervention can occur without the full report from the UN assessment mission. Their report will reveal the type of chemical used and then we will know the source and therefore whodunit. This is underscored by the UNSG this week in his noon-day briefing.

Second, once the perpetrators are known, any intervention essentially needs to consider and respect the need for humanitarian access to Syrians and reinforce the principles behind the emerging 'responsibility to protect' doctrine, this might be a bit of a stretch for the USA given its global bully rather than global champion type attitude but still, we can only hope that broader thinking minds prevail. It is not the place of the USA to punish anyone outside of their own country.

If there is bombing there will be further displacement and fewer opportunities for aid to reach the millions displaced, resulting in the unnecessary deaths of vulnerable people (elderly, disabled, ill, children).

If there is bombing there will be a rise of anti-western sentiment jeopardizing aid workers who come in to deliver assistance for years to come, resulting in the unnecessary deaths of vulnerable people (elderly, disabled, ill, children).

If there is bombing (precision bombing is a myth and a farce) then innocent lives will be lost directly or indirectly as a consequence.

If there is bombing of course the potential disastrous consequences for an explosion of the mounting regional tensions goes through the roof and we could see a regional conflagration of immense proportions...some say this is what is needed in the region...the pimple, now a nasty inflamed boil, needs to be lanced and if this is the destiny of the region then sobeit. Pity the people.

If there is bombing there will be no gain whatsoever, if anyone thinks the perpetrators will blink...they are naive and delusional.

Third, a political intervention is different in many ways. Once whodunit is known, and if it is Assad, Obama (the USA taking a leading role should not be considered a no-brainer, why not Canada?...oh, right, because Harper is PM...I forgot.) will be required to kiss and make up with Putin (which understand is a step up with pride, not a pride swallowing exercise and this requires gumption). He needs to make nice overtures with the Iranians who are amenable under the new government, a great opportunity, this will require him to get teflon trouser cuffs to protect himself from the Israelis snapping at his heels. He needs broad consensus on condemning Assad or whoever it turns out used chemical weapons from the General Assembly so not only the permanent members of the SC but including those members of the non-aligned states. The ICC will in turn have to begin proceedings to bring war criminals to justice. What we need here is Global Statesmanship, and it is sorely lacking. With political overtures in Washington, Moscow and Tehran, SRSG Ibrahim Brahimi can finally make headway in seeking some kind of respite for the beleaguered Syrian population and hopefully mark a turnabout so that those poor millions displaced within Syrian and surrounding countries can have a glimmer of hope that they will return home sometime soon. The refugee crisis is pitiful, countries like Lebanon and Jordan are sinking under the burden that is not being well-supported internationally. There is only ONE durable solution for the masses displaced and that is for them to return home.

Not forgetting that under the UN Charter, to bomb a sovereign nation that is not attacking or even threatening to attack yours is itself a war crime. We know this has been done before (by the same country!) but that has to end as much as the use of chemical weapons has to end.

The UN report should be viewed not as an excuse for some kind of male egocentric, arrogant abrogation of all of what is decent in diplomacy and human morality but as an opportunity for a properly morally upright and human-based response. Frankly I am extremely unimpressed with Obama and how he has allowed himself to be pushed in such a hawkish direction. I thought he was better than that, I think he thinks he is better than that and if he does take aggressive action against the perpetrators of the chemical attacks, lets hope he a) gets the perps right and b) that he and the hawks that push him are prepared to be condemned by history for his actions and their consequences down to the last child who dies because aid could not reach him/her. The USA is in a tailspin and this may well be the last act it takes before plummeting into moral bankruptcy becoming itself an untrustworthy global pariah. Sadly it will take the global economy with it along with those of us with US dollars but if that is the way the world is to be re-ordered then there is not much can change that.

Thats my two bits. Feel free to pass it on. Look for the ICG Statement on Syria, the UNSG Tuesday Noon day briefing, bits in the Independent by Robert Fisk, UNHCR's portal on Syria, and the R2P website. If you want to do something (which kicks butt on nothing) sign the Avaaz petition, and give generously, and/or here, and/or here.

d

Travel is the best education: 'home'-schooling in Vilcabamba

In early September it was 'back-to-school' for many children at many schools around the world. Homeschool started for us too at the only 'home' we currently know, bit funny not having a proper place to call home. I mean, I have come to terms with it for myself having been on the road most of my adult life but now with two children 6 and 7 2/3 this concept of home looms anew. The boys have enough difficulty when asked where they are from.....born in Malaysia, carrying French (mother) and Canadian (father also British) passports and never having lived in any of those countries. They have lived their earliest years in Malaysia and then the last 3 in Lebanon. They identify with where exactly? Its challenging. Like a growing number of kids they are truly global in orientation, world's children...but I digress.

I had thought long and hard about school for the boys before we moved to our new reality here in the campo of southern Ecuador and the lower Andes. Their fledgling knowledge of Spanish language precluded sending them to a local school. I researched and had skype's and emails and discussions with qualified Montessori teachers, Ph.Ds' in education, practicing teachers (thanks Catherine, Garene, Shelley!)....not forgetting either that my Dad was a top-notch professor in comparative education systems, I felt I had covered the ground. Considerations regarding the fairly short duration of this period of homeschooling (4months or perhaps 1year), their grade levels (only in Grades 1 and 2) and that they are pretty on top of things when it comes to the 3R's; reading, writing and 'rithmatic led to a general consensus that they simply needed to keep up, be stimulated and achieve the milestones for their grade levels. All else is gravy to lubricate their already fluid capacities to absorb, learn and reflect on their worlds. What seems also to be agreed is the need to properly document the process and create portfolios of projects and activities to show to their next formal school when that time comes.

We have created a learning space for them in the loft that includes a charging station for their iPads and their tutor's laptop, a white board and places to hang art. I made desks that they can sit at on the newly carpeted floor and they have a crash pad reading corner. The dedicated physical space makes it all the more conducive to focusing on their scholastic tasks. Discipline however isn't achieved so easily and getting the boys to focus on the lesson at hand is proving the most challenging part of homeschooling. We had one tutor for September then she had to move on, now we have two splitting the week. I haven't had to be fussy finding tutors;.....I put it out there into the ether and lo and behold, nice well-spoken and educated young 'teacher-types' appear.....and even with child-friendly experience! Our current tutors are gals from Belgium and New Zealand, each with complementary subject area interests and skills.

Lets be clear.....you can sign up (and pay big bucks) for stringent homeschooling systems that provide materials, workbooks, text books and teacher's guides. The French system has the CNED which is a virtual home implementation of their curriculum that comes with deadlines and weekly submissions of work. Or you can register to have an online teacher or tutor and submit work to be graded from one of many methods available. I can see the point of this for the sake of continuity and quality content but see its use primarily for older kids with a more complicated need-set so decided not to go that route for our experience.

Fact is that online one finds a multitude of resources for early years homeschoolers, apps and websites abound.....clearly a segment of the .com boom that didn't get overlooked by developers.....so many however that confusion is all to easy and you risk getting lost in the murky myriad of apps and urls. I waded through many but one of the best was closest to home in the Alberta Education website which outlines, subject by subject the rationale and specific outcomes (and sometimes providing resources) for each Grade level. There is also a chart laying out generally what needs to be ticked off when during the school year. Easy peasey? Well not so fast. It might be easy to source resources.... I mean try googling Grade One Math and you'll see what I mean but finding what is right for the needs of your children is another thing.....filtering the quagmire, distilling the disparate many...is quite a task.

I persisted and even found that a school district in Manitoba has done some of the work for me putting together their own grade by grade web-learning sites. Following the notion of the Primary Years Programme of the International Baccalaureate system we settled on two themes for these 4 months.  ecology, stewardship and environment will culminate in a visit to the Galapagos Islands at the end of  October. Planet earth, the solar system and the universe will dovetail into the end of the Mayan calendar on 21 December.....there isn't much the boys won't know about that! What we try to do is ensure that in each subject there is a connection to the theme at hand. And together with the tutors we try to incorporate participatory/play methodology which we need to work on a bit more given their preference to do it all on the iPad! Madam Montessori must be rolling in her grave with this educational 'innovation'!

For now we have settled on a website for Math (ixl.com), I have workbooks for English (Language Arts) and various apps, we follow conceptually the guidance Alberta gives for Social Studies, Art is co-figured out weekly by another homeschooling Mum and our tutor.  Music is more free-flow depending on the druthers of the tutor and the instruments at hand. A homeschooling Dad has been doing Science at his place, thus far the boys have explored gravity and last week was air pressure. They do sports with a guy from Quebec who lives here (and they ride their mountain bikes almost daily and horses at least once/month). There is a great app for French that uses the system they were using at their French school in Beirut and they have a class in Spanish. Our September tutor was brought up in a biodynamic household and so their Health class was hands on in the garden planting seeds, learning about plants, making pestos and smoothies. And then there is a dog (named Chaupi Tuta) on the property, the boys have a pet goat (named Cheetah), I am constantly about building various things like shelves, ongoing process of putting in an irrigation system, we are renovating a cabana, etc and they play in the natural environment of an expansive garden with wood, bricks, water, etc....it was Mark Twain who said 'don't let your schooling get in the way of your education'....and we are not!

I look at the week ahead and the day thats coming and try to ensure the boys and the tutors are all on track with achieving the prescribed (by the Alberta site) milestones and that any materials or resources are available, iPads charged up, etc. I remain flexible as to how things go happy in the knowledge that with every passing day they are learning, absorbing and improving in so many different ways. Just have to nail down the discipline part.....something that will come with time and I hope doesn't derail the whole process but rest secure in the knowledge that Travel is the best education!

and in case you were wondering....goat care link....