Spotlight MacArthur Foundation

1: Dr. DJ Chandler at 3:03 pm on Wednesday, November 15, 2006

I think the importance of transforming education and learning to include the global inequities of health and nutrition issues is paramount. Those of us who have been working in the field of hunger and world health know that communication, knowledge and learning play a huge role in how each individual perceives his or her position or the position of others. Teaching tolerance is the beginning. Then teaching about the environment and ecology works as well. Learning is about communication. The digital medium gives us an opportunity to cross borders and boundaries never before imagined. One child in rural Namibia, for instance, and one child in rural Mexico, for example, can have an indepth live video/audio conversation about their lives with one child in rural Florida and one child in rural Canada. The hierarchy of ethnocentrism, when monitored by experienced teachers with a background in social sciences and/or special training, will not inflitrate the lessons and communications. Instead, children and youth will become empowered to seek solutions to the problems in their own communities utilizing resources at the local level based on dialogues on the global level.