د خداى په امان

Da Khudai Pa Amaan - د خداى په امان

One of the blogs that I follow will come to a close (for now I hope this is a temporary close). Mariam Jaan has been a writer of poems about the Pashtoon people and finishes with a book, Sorrows and Tears (that can be accessed by clicking the hyperlink or by going here).

Mariam Jaan has picked up a following in online Pashtoon forums - here is a glimpse of her poetry, a fitting poem on Bacha Khan. The poem is the property of Mariam Jaan. It's place here is completely in good faith.

"Just a Dream"
by Mariam Jaan

What would Bacha say if he were still alive today?
I'm sure his heart would be filled with dismay.

For our miserable state we have only ourselves to blame,
After all these years we Pashtuns are still the same.

Instead of taking care of each other and finally uniting,
We ignore our poor Pashtuns and keep on fighting.

Such great things Pashtuns could have achieved as a team,
But it seems to me that will always remain just a dream.

For our sake, I hope and pray to God all mighty that I am wrong.
Nothing will make me happier than seeing us united and strong.

Mariam Jaan,

Where-ever you are, if you visit this blog, please feel free to drop a comment. If you decide that I should edit this posting, I will happily oblige. In the meantime, thank you very much for your wonderful poems. You are an inspiration.

Da Khudai Pa Amaan - د خداى په امان - With God's Peace

Tor_Khan تور خان

SubZero: Messages to the North

Over the three year stretch, the three main adventurers – Aaron Doering, Paul Pregont and Mille Porsild, are, rather surprisingly, not the main recipients of most the messages. A few counts shared here:

• Aaron Doering & Paul Pregont average about 15 messages per adventure
• Porsild recieves 74 messages overall
• Most messages can be divided into three types

1. Good Luck messages - 61 direct messages
2. Footprint messages including comments and one off messages
3. Questions - of the 105 questions asked, the overwhelming majority are about the dogs (there are over 250 references to dogs/huskies)

Expedition 3: The Ice-Men Speaketh
Mar 2009 - May 2009

Overall, in the 2009 expedition, there are about 145 messages. Over the three year period, Doering and Pregont are the recipients of 45 messages each (this is not even over the years incidentally). In year 3 most the messages are for the collective Team GoNorth!. Of the individual messages, Chris Ripken (the ‘civilian’ teacher-adventurer from Minnesota selected to join the team) receives 45 messages both from high school students and colleagues. Some of the messages describe his appearance in the Star Tribune, a newspaper that circulates in the Minneapolis/St Paul region.

Messages for Mille Porsild, seem consistent with previous years – she averages 25 messages this expedition. Of the 15 messages for Mikkel Ketil, many are not written in English.

The key difference between the posters in 2009 and in previous expeditions is that bigger contribution of high school students, in particular that of Lourdes Hill College, Brisbane, Queensland. The Australian school perhaps is the widest contrast in terms of geography and climate. The posters are mostly from an elective ICT class - again, most the messages are "footprint" messages with information about the posters rather than specific comments about the expedition.

Snow Buddy There?

Expedition 2: Teacher Trail
Feb 2008 - May 2008

Of the three message threads that I’ve looked at - the second expedition has the most postings (over 350). A key trend in the second expedition shows a interest in the trail of Wendy Gorton, a fourth-grade teacher from California – she is the recipient of over 121 messages. Over nine elementary schools are mentioned, many dropping by just to leave passing messages and comment on team’s work. The most frequent postings in this category come from Wendy’s fourth grade class at Hancok Park Elementary and regular postings from Walt Disney Magnet School from Chicago, Illinois, where the project is followed closely, in particular by the school librarian. Wendy’s journey on the expedition trail is something of an inspiration to other educators (she has now undertaken a number of adventure learning missions), and includes some one-off messages from elementary teachers across the US.

The early postings in February show an interest in the dogs as the team comes together in preparation for the expedition and this is a common thread amongst many of the children’s postings. Wendy Gorton’s class are likely to be aware of her (later role) in the expedition and start to post early message, wishing the team well and making general comments on the dogs. The questions (around 30 of them) tend to be questions around the dogs and how they are doing.

Wendy Gorton’s arrival at the camp mean that her fourth grade class start to make more frequent postings and there is upward spike in the number of postings around April, including messages from an aunt and her mother.

Walt Disney Magnet School adopts a husky, Ginger – there are several comments about this. Some of the other postings by the school reflect the multi-ethnic intake and are comments on various other countries and places.

One of the adult posters, Teddy (posting to Mille Porsild) has experience of these kinds of expeditions. He checks back on a number of occasions to follow the trail and update Mille on his own travels. Mille’s son, Aksel also makes a posting to the message boards.

A key contribution to the postings is made by Lourdes Hill College, Queensland, Australia. The college returns to the expedition in the next trail where I will be looking at the contents of some of their posts in detail.

Arctic Messages: Footprints in the Snow

Arctic Messages

The message postings that I’ve looked at span three years, each time a different expedition. They are mostly “footprint” messages from visitors, wishing the GoNorth! team or an individual well. A few questions are asked, though in general most make a comment about something they have discovered or liked. Though followed by up to 4000 schools, the visitor messages come largely from elementary aged school children from the US; for example, a fourth-grade class from California following the adventures of their grade teacher who has joined the expedition in 2008 and regular postings made by children from the Midwest (mostly Illinois and Minnesota). For the 2009 expedition, messages from high school visitors from Queensland, Australia (who made some postings the year before) feature as part of an IT elective class.

There are adult visitors; some family and friends and other educational professionals – a librarian from Walt Disney Magnet School in Chicago is a repeat poster and well wisher.

Expedition 1: Footprints in the Snow
Feb 2007 - May 2007

This is the shortest of the three message trails. Third, fourth and sixth graders from different schools follow the expedition trail from February through to April. In May most the messages are from people known to the team – often these are personal messages. A key exception is a posting made by a woman on behalf of a Minnesotan fourth grade grandson, whereby she compliments the team on their adventure and her grandson's teacher for being a school partner in the expedition trail. Another posting made to Mille Porsild by a Danish-American child makes the connection between her ancestry and and that of Mille's. Of the 30 postings, 14 are directly or indirectly about the husky dogs. The huskies are popular throughout the three expeditions and feature in many of the postings made by children.

The photo shows the northern lights in Greenland by Nick Russill. The light on the horizon is a fishing boat, and the smaller one behind, the entrance to the fjord into Tasiilaq. This photo is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

GoNorth!

GoNorth! is a five-year Adventure Learning project which aims to circumnavigate the Arctic to observe, experience and to learn about traditional ecological knowledge and to document data on environmental change. The core team is made up of a partnership representing The College of Education and Human Development at the University of Minnesota and NOMADS Online Classroom Expeditions:

• Aaron Doering, Ph.D, Education Director, Department of Curriculum & Instruction, University of Minnesota
• Paul Pregont, Expeditions & Field Research Director, NOMADS Online Classroom Expeditions
• Mille Porsild, Program Director, NOMADS Online Classroom Expeditions

Since 1999 NOMADS Online Classroom Expeditions have involved students and teachers in exploration and research through following adventure learning programs and dogsled expeditions to the Arctic. School participation is growing – in 2008 for example, 3336 schools across the globe ‘joined’ the team and kept up with developments via the expedition website, participating in conversations, following the adventure trail through team blogs, joining in with the games and learning about the culture, ecology and the environment as the team progress through their mission.

Local knowledge is a key factor for each expedition, so each year a local expert joins the team as a guide. For the GoNorth! programme, a K-12 teacher is also selected to join the team for the last part of the expedition (about two weeks) - the conversations between participants and the team are the basis of my observations here.

... Fighting ... for Peace ...

Q & A with Teri McLuhan

In the Q&A that went with the screening of The Frontier Gandhi: Badshah Khan, a Torch for Peace, the question I asked Teri McLuhan, (producer of the film), was, "Is there any revivalist non-violent movement amongst the Pashtoons today?"

She said that a new generation of Pashtoon peace was essential, "We've tried everything else". I managed to talk in person after the sreening in a more relaxed atmosphere - she came across as a strong believer in peace and a supporter of the Pashtoon people. She was hopeful - the Khudai Khidmatgars were active - and there were educated professionals amongst the Pashtoons who supported peace.

The film, she explained, was 21 years in the making and that she had travelled across India, Pakistan and Afghanistan to make this happen. This had been a life's passion and that presently she needs to get financiers to produce the DVD. The message of Bacha Khan, is perhaps, too important to not be heard. She also said something that stuck in my mind. Standing behind the microphone, addressing the attendees in the theatre, she said that she didn't really believe in coincidence (basically having a belief that things happen because they are meant to).

Anyway, it seems that the my recent reading on Adventure Learning & Peace, the Nobel Prize going to Obama and the film that she has made come together at the same time and are all connected by a common theme of peace. I guess I am meant to be thinking about these things at this time.

I mentioned my MA programme and she said that she would visit this blog, so with this I extend my invitation with a personal هر کله راشه.

Her production company, is appropriately enough, is named 'Peace On Earth'.

Badshah Khan: A Torch for Peace

Yesterday evening, I saw the film The Frontier Gandhi: Badshah Khan, A Torch for Peace, which played at the Marina Mall as part of the Middle East Film Festival, Abu Dhabi 2009. The film is an amazing documentary on the life of the Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, a towering giant of heart and stature who was, is and will always remain a Pashtoon King of Peace, known as Badshah/Bacha Khan. He was a key figure in the Free India movement and this of course, invited the wrath of the British, even towards his peaceful cause.

As a Pashtoon, Bacha Khan showed the people that he loved a very different way - he challenged the opinion that Pashtoons could only be known for the gun and as a result could only remain backward. Bacha Khan was a good friend of Mahatma Gandhi and, like Gandhi, managed to mobilise the masses to resist injustice through peace. His movement of Khudai Khidmatgars (Allah's helpers) were taught to stand on their feet and bring about a positive change in themselves and their society through peace and social work. In the film, his daughter talks about his 'love for the poor people'.

Peace: Long live the King

His peace movement invited trouble and for a third of his time on earth, Bacha Khan was prisoner of conscience - in 1962 he was named by Amnesty International as Prisoner of the Year - overall for every three days of his life, he spent one day in British or Pakistani jails, often in solitary confinement. He continually challenged the validity of the British laid-down borders and later found sanctuary in Afghanistan - a natural home for the Pashtoons, travelling extensively and asking to be buried in Jalalabad when he was dying. When Bacha Khan's family said it would be difficult to arrange visas to cross the border, his reply to his family was "One day all this will be one".

Prize for Peace

Something political is going on - I'm not the only one to notice the irony in offering the Nobel Peace Prize to a US President who is currently discussing an expansion to the war in Afghanistan.

Some quotes:

"I believe the Nobel Committee has not met the conditions of Alfred Nobel's will where he stipulates it is to be awarded to those who work for an end to militarism and war, and for disarmament. This is not the first time the Nobel Peace Committee in Oslo has ignored the will of Alfred Nobel and acted against the spirit of what the Nobel Peace Prize is all about," Mairead Maguire.

"He just became the president. Things are just the same as the way they were by the administration of Mr. [George W.] Bush. Things are not better, things are worse and worse." Obaid Alam, Afghanistan, "The number of U.S. Army [troops] has increased here. The number of terrorist attacks increased here. I’m kind of confused whether that Nobel Award [is] for all those things."

“Who, Obama? So fast? Too fast — he hasn’t had the time to do anything yet…For the time being Obama’s just making proposals. But sometimes the Nobel Committee awards the prize to encourage responsible action. Let’s give Obama a chance." Lech Wałęsa

"It's a joke. How embarrassing for those who awarded it to him because he's done nothing for peace. What change has he brought in Iraq, the Middle East or Afghanistan?" Liaqat Baluch

"To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who've been honored by this prize -- men and women who've inspired me and inspired the entire world through their courageous pursuit of peace." President Barack Hussein Obama II

"But I also know that throughout history the Nobel Peace Prize has not just been used to honor specific achievement; it's also been used as a means to give momentum to a set of causes. That is why I've said that I will accept this award as a call to action, a call for all nations and all peoples to confront the common challenges of the 21st century."

Let's hope so.

Technology and Peace

It is essential that educational initiatives are directed towards promoting peace within a humanitarian approach to education. (Veletsianos & Eliadou, 2009)

I'm inclined to strongly agree. The whole point of education, I believe, is to take us - the people - and to equip us with the understanding, knowledge, skills and literacy so that we can do our part in this, our shared world.

This is a personal belief, and one that I would hope that is shared by others. My current reading on the subject of peace and technology is of interest - if we miss the opportunity to use the tools around us - in this case, technology, to bring understanding, knowledge, skills and literacy to our shared world, we, ultimately, miss the opportunity for peace.

The academic research out there into the use of technology for peace is, on the whole, fairly limited, so perhaps, I hypothesise. But consider how much of the technology around us has been built or designed with conflict in mind - billions are spent on technologies that keeping the war machinery around the world in continuous operation. The internet has not necessarily joined us all up into one big happy family and of course, weapons technology is exactly that - technology designed to kill. Just think if the same sums of money for development and technology were applied to conflict resolution and sustainable peace.

Peace is Possible

There are some specific uses of technology for peace related outcomes - Peacemaker is a 2005 video game that engages the player in a negotiation for peace within a middle-east context. I've had a personal interest in the One Laptop Per Child programme - a project with that began with an aim to reach nearly two billion children in the developing world with a focus on empowerment. Whilst warblogs seem to run alongside the mainstream media, the antithesis form - peaceblogs are also in existence.

In the paper, Fostering Peace Via Adventure Learning, Veletsianos and Eliadou, return to some of the prime objectives of adventure learning and consider how collaborative learning, cultural exploration, exchange of ideas etc. serve as building blocks for understanding. The initiatives surrounding the technology therefore are important antecedents to peace.

The key, however, is an area that has been explored less by the academics, and that is the how the available technology can continue to foster a long term peace.

Images taken from http://www.kellynewcomer.com/peacemachine.xml

Poetry of the Afghans

For today's posting, I return to Google Books, once again. Poetry of the Afghans is an English Language anthology of Pashto poems from the sixteenth to nineteenth century featuring some great names such as Rahman Baba and Khushal Khan Khattak. From the 1867 collections compiled by Henry George Raverty.

Tor_Khan تور خان

Experience! Explore! Expand!

The reading around Adventure Learning brings up some very interesting points for discussion, but before I get onto those, let's consider the title of this posting.

Experience! Explore! Expand!

As an educator I'm fairly well placed to say that the whole process of learning should go beyond just the experience. Learners need the opportunity to explore a topic to gain deeper knowledge and to expand their understanding. It's quite appropriate therefore, that the motto Experience! Explore! Expand! appears on the GoNorth! website.

Adventure Learning projects, such as GoNorth! have a growing number of global subscribers - (about 3 million annual users, as of 2008), though the research literature surrounding the growth and impact of these programmes is remarkably small. My distance learning tutor, George Veletsianos has invited me to look at this and report back some intial findings. This is an area that is of interest to him, and having read some of the papers that he has co-authored on the subject, something that I feel is worthy of further exploration.

In a previous posting, I introduced some aspects of Adventure Learning. For this example, GoNorth! provides a good illustration - this is because educators have constructed a fully integrated K-12 curriculum with activities that run alongside the Arctic exploration mission. Typically with new technologies, how well Adventure Learning is integrated into classroom practice depends very much on teaching pedagogies and the confidence with which new technologies are taken up. Bearing in mind that most the examples come from the North American samples of their work, I shall look at four models for Adventure Learning integration identified by Veletsianos and Doering:

• Curriculum Based - using the Adventure Learning programme as is (by following the the project's own curriculum programme)
• Activities Based - by selecting key activities from the programme (both in a seemingly ad hoc, unstructured manner as well as a more structured activity approach)
• Standards Based - using the variety of material available through the programme to prepare students for state testing (i.e. tailoring the material to the students' needs)
• Media Based - this is similar to the activities based approach, but is based on a media-rich programme where students are encouraged to explore the media on offer

All aproaches generate their own discussion points, which I hope to explore in a further posting.

Beautiful Afghanistan - ښایسته افغانستان

ښایسته افغانستان
Beautiful Afghanistan sung by Shafiq Mureed

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Language of the Afghans - پښتو

Much is made of the impressive collections of archives available on Google Books. Here, I share A Grammar of the Pukhto, Pushto, or Language of the Afgháns by Henry George Raverty from 1860.

Tor_Khan تور خان