 Thank you, dear Karen, for that lovely introduction and for kind of giving everyone a sense of what this panel is about this morning. And thank you all for being here bright and early, ready to delve into some heavy concepts and ideas. I'm joined here by two brilliant women. First, we have Dr. Chitra Golestani-Magzi, who is adjunct faculty at Valpriso University. She's also co-founder of the Paulo Freire Institute at UCLA and serves as a research associate there. And I could say a lot more about each of these amazing people, but I'll keep it short. And we have Elena Toucan, who is a PhD student right now in curriculum teaching and learning at University of Toronto. And she's very interested in the interplay between global educational policy and local agency. And she's also looking very deeply and very involved in the generation and application of knowledge in community development at the local level. To give you a little bit of background about where this conversation is emerging from, I had the great privilege of being with a group of educators at Bosh Bahai School in Santa Cruz, California in February. And this group was part of a working group in education that arose out of the conference, the ABS conference last year. And many of our conversations really centered around this idea of what is the role of education in advancing the cause of justice. And these questions that came up were very deeply kind of embedded in people's practice, as well as some of the research they were doing in the field of education. And these kind of questions came up and experiences came up again yesterday in our working group meeting in education. So I know there are people right here in the audience who are working in highly segregated schools, for instance, in school districts, and are really trying to grapple with this idea of, you know, how do we recognize what's actually happening? How do we understand racial class-based segregation in schools while trying to be a part of the forces of integration in these schools, while trying to engage in conversations that are very productive and geared towards integration and believe that really integration is how we are going to address some of these problems. We also have other members in the audience who are looking at things like gender inequities in schools, for instance, in Africa or Asia. And so some of the questions that we're going to bring up today in these discussions are really rooted in real experiences of many of you right here in the audience. And we're going to do our best, obviously what we're offering are just two or three perspectives on both education and social justice and the connection which is a very broad topic, but we hope to provide some insights today that can get us in a conversation and to continue thinking about what are some of the current discourses in education around justice and what are some new concepts that we are learning about that we might be able to introduce into those conversations to extend those conversations. So Chitra has teachers, many of the classes she teaches are on the topic of social justice and education. So we're hoping that we can start this conversation with some background about what are some of the concepts that the field is grappling with, what are some of the conversations that are happening, and then perhaps we can move into kind of thinking about, well, what are some insights that we can bring into those conversations. And I should add that one thing we all have in common too is that we are mothers. So we're bringing that perspective as well into this conversation. Good morning, everyone. Such a pleasure to be here and to speak about a topic I'm so passionate about as my colleagues are as well. Everybody can hear me okay? Great. Thank you. Well, I would like to offer just a little bit of background to contextualize where the field of social justice education has been and maybe where we're headed. In the early 1970s, Brazilian philosopher, educator Paulo Freire's book, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, was translated into English, and many I see heads nodding, which paved the way for critical pedagogy in North America. Many of us know in that book Freire talks about how education is not just about reading the word, but to read the word in order to be able to read the world and thereby read our realities and be able to change it. And that oppression, he says, is not a closed door where there is no exit, but it is actually an opportunity for us to raise our consciousness and create a new reality, basically transform what we see. Now, from the promulgation of universal peace, today it is obligatory for the loved ones of God and their imperative duty to educate the children in reading and writing the various branches of knowledge and the expansion of consciousness that all levels they may go forward day by day. So we see the expansion of consciousness becoming foundational for how we see the world, how we think, how we act, our attitudes, our ways of thinking about research, generating new knowledge, whatever fields we're in, you know, continuously raising our consciousness in many, many avenues is a part of the education that Abdul Bahad is talking about. In an effort to look back at where we've been and the various discourses, I thought I'd start in the 80s because that was a really cool decade, right? Some of you may be familiar with the work of Jeannie Oaks and how she really brought to light the issues of tracking in schools, where from a very young age kids are tracked in low, middle, and high achieving, you know, groups. And how that really limits the access to education for all children. And now we see in the United States how the ramifications of that with the school to prison pipeline, for example, for minorities. We also know that a decade later Valencia talks about how educational institutions will have a deficit thinking model in which students who may not be achieving as well as non-minority students, their families are blamed for why the achievement gap is so wide. That maybe the parents don't value education as much. And they don't show up to PTA meetings, where in fact we have to look at the system. What are the systems in place where parents have to work two jobs to make ends meet. And they may have every desire to be as involved, but may not be able to. And so that enables us to really look at what does asset based model look like and how do we mind those gems of inestimable value that education can alone cause students to reveal their treasures. Even if we were to do all of that, Gloria Latsen Billings brings to light the importance of cultural relevancy. We can have the most brilliant instructional strategies, but if they are not relevant to the realities of the various students, then how far can we get? This framework really gets us to also analyze the color blindness discourse that's taking place now where teachers might say, well, you know, I don't see color and so therefore the dominant curricula continues to be used and minority students do not see themselves reflected in the curricula. And so we're moving beyond color blindness to listen to the voices of the minorities who say, see my color and celebrate it and incorporate it into the curricula. If we were to have cultural relevancy, still we're building on these theories, which is so beautiful to see how we continue to advance. With James Banks who brought forth multicultural education for decades writing in this area and then seeing the limitations of that, of maybe having, you know, different times where minorities are included in the curricula, but it's a tokenism kind of approach and where Kristin Slider talks about multiculturalism having to actually become social activism and change the educational system and really give allegiance to the fact that we are all one humanity bringing forth global citizenship education, which was referred to yesterday in the plenary session so beautifully. I thought it might be a good time at the beginning of the conference to give the definition that UNESCO uses for global citizenship education. They say it aims to empower learners to assume active roles, to face and resolve global challenges, to become proactive contributors to a more peaceful, tolerant, inclusive and secure world. Does that sound good to you? We done? Should we go home? No, not so fast. Because in our efforts to pledge allegiance to the world and to do these wonderful things that this definition brings forth, we run into some problems. If we are continuing to use lenses which do not take into account the various principles brought forth by the revelation of Baha'u'llah, there are many times that we can have pitfalls. This is brought forth by Vanessa Andreletti. I don't know if I'm pronouncing her name correctly, but I think she's a Canadian educational theorist who talks about the importance of having critical literacy to examine global citizenship and therefore she calls for a critical global citizenship education. And this is important because sometimes in our zeal to work for social justice, we end up doing things that have unintended consequences that actually hurt those we're trying to serve. One example might be I learned about Muhammad Yunus' micro-enterprise and I want to start a social business and that social business is with a global citizenship lens. And my business becomes successful because I say if you buy one shirt, then another shirt will be given for free to a country that is economically developing. Well then we have to look. If we are inundating a specific place with free clothes or what have you, does that help or hinder their economy, their self-reliance? What are all the implications of our actions? And so critical global citizenship has many aspects and things we can talk about, but there's little time and I'd like to just finish up with a couple more things. This sense of really looking at global citizenship from various angles brings forth an emerging field which is humane education. So Valprasio University and the Institute for Humane Education work together to give master's degrees in education. So I work for both and humane education is quite unique in its development because it's looking at how through systems thinking, human rights, environmental ethics, and animal welfare are all interrelated and what are the root causes of our social problems and how we can foster students' thinking to be solution-based. And so with that, the author, Zoe Weil, who writes the book The World Becomes What We Teach, we really get to look at nurturing this solution-based thinking in students by looking at the root causes of the problems and taking a more holistic approach. Now to end this part of the intro, I'd like to just share that through a Baha'i lens, the injustices we see in the world are manifestations of a socially bankrupt society. And if we are to use all of these wonderful lenses and the discourse that we just briefly took a look at, but don't have spiritual transformation as one of the important aspects to look at, we end up missing a lot. And therefore my colleagues, I'm sure we'll talk more about that, but without looking at transforming hearts as well as minds and solution-based thinking, we may work within existing systems and not pay enough attention to creating new ones. We know that Sharia Fendi says, we cannot segregate the human heart from the environment outside us and say that once one of these is reformed, everything will be improved. Man is organic with the world. His inner life molds the environment and is itself deeply affected by it. The one acts upon the other and ever-abiding change in the life of man is the result of these mutual reactions. And so with that, I'd like to turn it over to explore what some of these new realities might be. Thank you so much, Chitra, for that overview. I think one of the things that we in education tend to kind of, one of the theories that we tend to kind of be attracted to is critical theory, is at the basis of many of these discourses, because it allows us to look a little bit deeper at questions of inequity and realities within education. How do these inequities manifest themselves in schools? How are schools in some ways, in many ways, a reflection of the larger society that they're in? How do those systems of oppression, systems of inequities that we see in the larger society actually manifest themselves in schools? So I appreciate that and I know that in my work with graduate students, a lot of times they find these theories and it's very exciting, but then at some point it leads to a sense of hopelessness because you are made aware of the depth of inequities and the realities and then the question becomes, and many of my students ask this question, which is, so where do we derive hope? How do we actually bring about changes? And so I know that part of what you mentioned, Chitra, is that all of these discourses talk about a need to shift consciousness, but they're talking about shifting consciousness within existing systems that are often very oppressive, very problematic and in which issues are deeply embedded. And so I think what we have in the way of inspiration is a lot of the work that we're doing in communities around the world, through the institute process, in developing communities. We're starting to get some insights into how do we actually challenge the systems themselves because I think educational discourse has moved to a point where we realize that part of why it's been so hard to break these cycles of inequities is because they're systemic, that they're systematically embedded. And so I think, you know, Elena, you have this great positioning being both in the field of education, but also being so heavily involved in this community-building process. And so I would love to hear your insights on how do we move from really talking about just shifting consciousness to really also addressing these systems to creating new systems. So as Shabna was sharing some of the words of the kinds of questions that her graduate students ask about where we find hope, I could hear my own questions echoed in those words as someone who's beginning my own path of graduate studies in education and coming up against these many different ways of looking at the systems of education that we have currently and the deeply complex challenges that are within them. And we know as in with any social challenge that we face that to really address what humanity needs at this time requires much more than a surface level reading of reality and requires looking at the very roots of society and of civilization and thinking about what is the civilization that we are working with our friends and as a Baha'i community to advance. And thankfully we do have the teachings of Baha'u'llah to provide that hope, to map the course that we are all aiming to apply into action in the many spheres of influence that we have in our own lives. So I think this is really the starting point in which I come into my own thinking about these questions and this is really simply from my own perspective. But really this question of how do we draw from the revelation of Baha'u'llah to illumine both our understanding and our reading of these discourses in education and social justice, as well as our practical actions. And some of us here are educators as Shabnam mentioned, some of us are academics in this field, some of us are researchers, and of course all of us who are members of a community, who are parents, who are junior youth animators, who are neighbors, we are all deeply concerned about these educational processes that affect all of our lives. So certainly part of our work as members of a Baha'i community is to contribute to the system that exists, to think about these matters of equity that Chitra described so well and think about these pockets of receptivity, these concepts that align with our own conceptual framework and our thinking about matters of education. And many of these insights as she mentioned are deeply insightful. They really look at the situation of the world right now, the dominant narratives as they are and provide very insightful critique and analysis from which we can learn a great deal. But then I think also at a certain point we have to look at the systems we have now and ask the questions of where actually did they come from. If we were to all close our eyes right now and bring to our minds the image of a school, I imagine that for many of us in this room that image wouldn't look extremely different. There would be many elements in common of what we think of when we think of a school. But we also have to be aware that this idea of a school, the systems that we have currently have their own historical processes that are rooted in humanity's earlier stages of development. So as we progress at this time in a stage towards humanity's long-awaited maturity, how might the relationships between individuals, communities and institutions also evolve? And to be characterized by and find their proper expression in the context of the principle of the oneness of mankind in working to build a civilization that is materially and spiritually prosperous. What kinds of systems of education would be needed? So as Baha'is we contribute to the systems and the discourses as they exist, but we're also working to broaden the basis of these questions by learning how to bring into being new educational structures and system that directly contribute towards the processes of transformation and building of a new civilization that is spiritually and materially prosperous. If we were to think about the elements of this system, we might think about these individuals, the communities and institutions, all of these elements of a community that exists. So what might be some of the qualities, attitudes and skills of such an individual who can labor for the well-being of their communities? What knowledge and skills would an effective educational process have to build in these individuals? What conditions facilitate the emergence of a culture and a community that reflects the principles of unity, justice and equality? How would the school be or this educational process be so deeply embedded with the community that it would be directly related to its needs and exigencies of the time? What would be some of the characteristics of the organizational and administrative structures and institutions that harness and channel the initiative of scores of individuals and communities and raise this capacity? So these are just some of the underlying questions that might come to our minds as we try to broaden the basis of these discourses. So perhaps in order to learn about some of these questions, it is helpful to first take a step back and consider some of the ways and we might think about the fundamental purpose of education in the light of the teachings. So as we are today, society expects a great deal from its educational system and some of these expectations are stated more explicitly than others. So in North America at least, we expect students to come out of their educational processes able to participate in society economically by getting a job, by sustaining their livelihoods. So for example, when we're talking in broad policy terms about the success of a school, employment rate or graduation rate might be some of the indicators that we would look at to measure the so-called success of a given educational institution. But at the same time, society also expects education to help students to become good people, good citizens, to participate actively in society, to be kind to their neighbors, to be parts of this organic whole that we consider to be a healthy society. So these questions about the fundamental purpose of education that are being asked in more and more spaces as Chitra mentioned as consciousness broadens creates a lot of receptivity for Baha'is to think about this question alongside them. How can Baha'is help deepen this conversation? What insights from the writing but also from our experience as a worldwide community can we bring? So we are fortunate in fact as a worldwide Baha'i community to have been contributing to the advancement of many educational processes that have given great thought to this question of purpose and nature of education. The educational process that is advancing the junior youth program for example is driven by a twofold sense of purpose that impels individuals to take charge of their own spiritual and intellectual growth and simultaneously to contribute to the welfare of society. This purpose has all of these aspects that we would hope for an educational process seen as rather than in conflict with one another as part of a single integrated whole. We've seen in so many of our communities and I know that for many of us here many examples come to mind of educators, parents and community members who as they come into contact with the junior youth program or their children's classes or these different educational processes in their neighborhoods or among their networks of friends and acquaintances are likewise inspired by such a breadth of vision that avoids the separation of the individual and social requirements and that quotation from the Guardian that Chitra shared about how inseparable the individual and the society are to their mutual progress resonates deeply in these conversations with these friends. So I think that those are just some very initial thoughts and of course there's many more things that we can think about and we'll continue to discuss this morning but we can think of this conversation about the purpose of education as maybe just one example of the kinds of conversations that we can have as we try to broaden the base of our contributions to advancing these questions of education and social justice as members of a worldwide community. Thank you Elena. I think Elena what you shared is something we can all connect with given our involvement at the grassroots and this idea of really reimagining the purpose of education and therefore starting to address some of these systemic issues what does this look like when the purpose of education is really defined at the grassroots based on the needs of any given community is very different from what we see in our education systems today which are very prescribed and very static and motivated by competition and we know there's a culture of testing and so on that very much kind of goes against this idea of learning as being very collaborative and really geared towards empowerment and change so I really appreciate that connection. I also appreciate going back to Chitra's earlier points and I think one of the huge shifts in educational discourse that I appreciate is this understanding that part of the reason why we haven't been able to address social justice issues in education is because we've been approaching these issues from a very deficit based lens we see marginalized communities as lacking certain things and therefore not able to participate girls as lacking certain things and therefore not able to achieve as well as boys, indigenous communities so on and so forth so this new kind of evolving of a very asset based perspective many educators and scholars are talking about that we need to be approaching educational pedagogy, practice and research from an asset based perspective is one discourse that I feel we can connect with because it really brings this idea of the nobility of human beings and recognizing that and the gems and recognizing those gems and learning how to actually bring those gems to bear in their educational process so I'd love to know we believe it or not we only have about 15 minutes and so as we kind of wrap these ideas and continue them I know there's a group meeting at lunch today to grapple more with these thoughts and then with the working groups what are some very concrete ways in which both of you are participating in discourses on education and bringing some of these insights from the revelation into these discourses well I thought I would offer one personal example and one professional one the personal one is quite easy I grapple with the discourse in my household with, you know, an almost teen we had to ask ourselves what does social discourse among 10 to 12 year olds look like and what do we want it to look like so there's an over-reliance on technology as we all know and if this were my device or phone and I came into a social setting instead of having social discourse with others I would just be focused on this so sometimes you can walk into a room of youth and they're no longer looking into each other's eyes they're looking at the screen but that's not all because when they're looking at the screen there's so many apps and so forth that for example one of them is musically where they're doing this all day long and the focus becomes the perpetual self how do I look in this and the conversations become about how many likes I got on that how popular I am and so what we decided to do is create our own reality and instead of just having friends hang out we had a change makers gathering that we're doing now regularly where everyone comes and they put their phone aside and we watch clips of young people being change makers doing very significant things and then altering the dialogue that takes place after that so just a personal example of how we can create our own change that we want to see even starting very very small this can happen in every one of our professions as well so in my particular example that I'd like to offer is an amazing thesis student that I have who is looking through the lens of humane education at the relationship of boom towns where there's a lot of oil extraction and a lot of young men who are hired with high salaries to work and then what that does for increasing female sex trafficking in those areas for example this particular one is in North Dakota and as we were dialoguing about what her research would actually be there was a lot of talk about what are some of the ways in which pimps for example target young girls and how this great human rights abuse continues in country after country but her particular focus was here how law enforcement could curb this and all of these ways in which this could be contained well we asked the questions of what causes children to be recruited in this way and as she started doing her research it came to the fact that the family structures are not there and the children are neglected so they run away from home and that's where they get picked up a little digging deeper then we looked at what about the demand side what causes men of all ages to demand this kind of services from young children does anybody know the average age of girls who are taken into this modern slavery 12 to 14 years old and so when we look behind these acts our hearts and minds of people and when that spiritual transformation happens and people's consciousness are raised and they are educated as a new race of men in this case we mean specifically then you are truly changing the nature of the problem from its roots and so when we are able to utilize in various professions our lens of spiritual transformation linked in with the science that we use in our professions think we are able to uncover a lot and the research then that's done with students then generates new knowledge and that new knowledge is based in deeper rooted issues with more long term solutions I think similarly this question of how we are thinking or I specifically am thinking about my contribution to these questions also touches as Chitra mentioned on the role of knowledge and recognizing that there are particular things that I can do as an individual and the different spheres of influence that I have access to there's certain conversations I can participate in for example as an academic and then there's other processes that are much beyond what I can do as an individual and so I think about my participation in this worldwide community and all of the insights that we can glean from that so I just wanted to also share a short story that really touched my heart from one of these environments these community building initiatives to advance education in the light of these questions about the generation application of knowledge so in this particular neighborhood there was no drinking water available to the inhabitants homes and even though the government had provided the pipes for this neighborhood it didn't seem as if they were going to be established and installed in the near future so the group of students in this neighborhood along with some of the participants of study circles and junior youth groups and the family members in their community decided that with the community's help they could begin taking steps to provide water to the inhabitants of their community so they began excavating the soil arranging the pipes, connecting it to the homes and this allowed the neighbors to have water in their homes without the daily exertion of going to and from the spring to bring water this act of service, although it's simple in one sense was an opportunity for the students to put in practice some of the things that they had learned in their studies about mathematics, about architecture, about geometry about measurement but it also required the students and the community members to draw on certain spiritual principles about the questions of equity and justice and making sure that everyone had access in this way if there had to be a choice between one family or another who are the ones that really would benefit from this more than others and how can collective decisions about this process be reached together in consultation with the community? So this act of service helped the community to understand that they were able to contribute to solving their own problems to certain situations even those that they assumed were the responsibility of people outside of their community and all of the residents participated and actively contribute to installing the pipes singing and smiling all the while while they generated an atmosphere of friendship and generosity among them. So in one way this is a small example but there's so many profound implications about the role of knowledge, about the potential and even though perhaps it's far from our reality here we can still glean some insights about the role of knowledge in this collective endeavor. So certainly there was some application of knowledge of infrastructure and the use of mathematical skills that were gleaned through the student's studies but there was also the spiritual and social knowledge of creating consultative spaces in which unity of thought and action could be realized. There was knowledge of the power of selfless service and the notion that a community is more than the sum of its parts and it was the application of these principles from both the spiritual material dimensions of existence that the group generated the experience and knowledge that could help to inform and expand the vision of communities that are treading a similar path of education. So I think as Karen mentioned before at the beginning of this session we have so much to learn from the implications of the principle of knowledge and its relationship to justice the participation of everyone that justice demands universal participation of everyone in the generation application of diffusion of knowledge in whatever context we might be so I guess just to kind of conclude my thoughts on this how can we all contribute to advancing our understanding and our application of these principles and whatever sphere that we're in because it's also this experience that we're generating as a community that will shed light on the questions of these discourses that we participate in education. Thank you both so much for those very inspiring stories that kind of demonstrate how some of this work can be done. I think we're always looking for those examples. How do we actually introduce new frameworks that can complement existing frameworks in our fields to extend the work to really challenge some of the problematic structures that are in place that perpetuate some of the issues because many of these issues like was mentioned yesterday we've been talking about for decades and so we're really excited thank you for also connecting it to the work that we're all doing in our communities to really learn anew how to create new structures how to create new ways of being how to build relationships that are based on principles of justice and so thank you both. The conversation again will continue there's a group that's meeting during lunch in salon 3 so they invite others who may be interested in continuing the conversations. We don't have time right now for questions and answers but all three of us would love to engage with any of you that have questions or would like to continue this conversation further and to all of you in the audience thank you so much for coming so early in the morning and for being a part of this discussion because as you can see even with the three of us in our work the conversations are always in progress as we're learning together so thank you very much.