The Education School, in conjunction with other colleges and universities is co-sponsoring the Mind and Life Institute's conference, "Educating World Citizens for the 21st Century," featuring the Dalai Lama. The conference, held in Washington, D.C., began yesterday and continues today.
The Mind and Life Institute, founded in 1987 as a collaborative partnership between science and Buddhist thought, seeks to unite world-renowned educators, scientists and philosophers to discuss the importance of "cultivating healthy students in multiple facets that go beyond test scores," Education School Communications Director Audrey Breen said.
Breen added that she believes the synergy of Eastern philosophy with Western educators, world-renowned scientists, anthropologists and psychologists will hopefully facilitate the examination of the student as a multidimensional being.
This week's interdisciplinary dialogue will address the current challenges associated with not only the development of well-rounded students in general, but also accomplishing this task in classrooms with ever-changing demographics, Breen noted.
"The difficulty is to effectively teach wellness to children of different backgrounds and races, not just to students we can easily understand and relate to well," she said. Breen added that she hopes that the lessons learned from the conference will prove translatable to diverse populations, such as rural southwest Virginia or inner city Richmond.
To share the conference's outcomes and messages with the Education School's interested community members, 13 education doctoral students were invited to attend. One participating student, Ingrid Hakala Isin, said she looks forward to the diversity of thinkers that will be present at the conference.
"As an educational anthropologist, I am looking forward to the conference in great part due to the opportunity it presents to explore diverse thinkers' conceptualizations of global citizenship education and the potential role of cultivating certain virtuous emotions, such as empathy and compassion, in children as an aspect of the process of making the world a safer place for difference," she said.
The Dalai Lama will be the conference's main speaker and will be active in each session of the two-day conference, according to the event's Web site.
"The Dalai Lama embodies the spirit of giving, with hope compassion, and wisdom," said education doctoral student Lynn Crotts, who is attending the conference. "I have been presented with the opportunity to learn. It will then be my charge to contribute, however small it may be, to others"
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