Script to Accompany Slides

Allow me to define emergency education in three phases:

--CLICK-Before: lets call this education FOR emergencies: preparation and planning
--CLICK-During: lets call this education IN or AMID emergencies: intervention. The establishment of
normalcy, child-friendly spaces, counting the kids, reuniting families all of which are a critical,
though only now emerging as a money and live-saving underused component of the field.
--CLICK-After: lets call this education BEYOND emergencies: reconstruction, which encompasses all of
it: preparedness and planning, ongoing intervention, civic participation, transparency, and the
integration of science and safety
ASAP refers to: Assessment, Support, Awareness, Participation. The model we have developed
permeates each of these three phases and must be present and central to all efforts during the
before, during, and after phases. Miss one element, and much is lost.
Last week, for example, while dismantling the displaced persons camp known as the jungle
in Calais, there was little assessment of the number of wristbands required for children to be
registered and obtain services. As a result, children were escorted away, and separated from
their families. UNICEF then reported a rise in trafficking. Teachers, by the way, knew this all
along. Not enough teachers were not consulted.
Forgive me for being glib or a lightweight for reducing this complex field to a four-letter
acronym (ASAP) and a before-during-after sequence, but the alternative of tunnel vision is
tragic, especially as the stakes for natural and national disasters get higher and higher.
So, with a basic definition and model, heres the challenge. While progress has been made in
disaster risk reduction and early warning systems, the fact remains that most of the money goes
to relief.
--CLICK-

Education gets 2.1%, and most of it for school reconstruction. 2.1%! Even though:
Dr. Fred Mednick | c. 206-356-4731 | e. fred@twb.org

--CLICK-

Approximately 65 million children aged three to 15 are directly affected by emergencies

and protracted crises

The Syrian conflict has put 2.7 million children out of school in the region. Al Jazeera
reported last week that the resumed bombing of Aleppo has killed up to 100 children
per week. The school year has been put on hold indefinitely.

In Nigeria, 1.4 million children have been displaced by Boko Haram whose name, by the
way, means western education is evil

In Nepal, the earthquake destroyed more than 90% of the schools in the hardest-hit
regions

In Haiti (last month), 130,000 children displaced. My 101-year-old father and I discussed
this a few weeks ago. He asked me: Freddy, why do the biggest natural disasters
happen to the poorest countries? It just seems unfair. I could only respond by saying:
Dad, I think the biggest disasters happen to the poorest countries because theyre poor.

In Iraq, the League of Arab States, the United Nations, and the European Union claim
that, if Mosul is retaken, 500,000 children will need to return to school. Meanwhile, they
are using children as human shields.
--CLICK--

Girls are 2.5 times more likely to be out of school than boys in conflict situations. In

many parts of the world, campaigns have been spread that the cause of these
calamities are womens sins.

Women are often the last to receive space

Relief usually issued to males

Disruption of social support networks

Domestic violence, sexual exploitation

And yet, at the same time, women have been instrumental in disaster preparation and planning,
intervention, and reconstruction. It has been shown time and time again that womens high
level of risk awareness, social networking practices, extensive knowledge of their communities,
and role in managing natural environmental resources is often the difference between life and
death.

Dr. Fred Mednick | c. 206-356-4731 | e. fred@twb.org

It reflects a relief-centric, hierarchy of needs mentality that has served far too long as the go to
strategy in response to emergencies. Originating in the U.S. in the 1940s, the Hierarchy of Needs
assumes, in triangle form, the necessity for addressing basic needs, then narrows toward selfrealization at the top. While this characterization of the hierarchy of needs is not as linear as I
am portraying it. However, I remain skeptical. Here are my concerns:
It favors triangles (of more at the bottom and fewer at the top) over circles. The triangle
assumes a savior narrative and exclusion; circles reflect a community capacity narrative and
inclusion.
It favors the individual over collective responsibility. It is every man (often to the exclusion of
women) to himself. I believe this notion is wholly inconsistent with and often counter to the
orientation of indigenous cultures and the value they offer.
It assumes the poor have no skills or expertise to offer, while the rest of us can go for selfactualization. Here, the ASAP model upends and addresses the insufficient assessment of skills,
little support for local leadership, a lack of awareness of the range of needs, and no
participation.
It appeals to donors to take care of the basics only. We hear often that there are more cell
phones than toilets in parts of sub-Saharan Africa. Those that make this point may be implying
that technology companies are predators. Ok, lets grant them that. But statements like these
give communities the distinct impression that (a) others are making choices FOR them (b) that
the information age does not apply to them, and that (c) their priorities are misplaced because
they should dig latrines before getting online.
If someone tried to take judge whether we should have mobile phones, we would protest loudly.
Just to clarify further. I am not saying one is more important than the other, but it bears
mentioning that mobile phones have provided communities access to information and each
other in order to build capacity, not to mention alert systems for natural disasters and civil
disturbance. The main point is about the condescension of making decisions for communities,
rather than with them.
So, lets focus on earthquakes. Heres what weve seen again and again and again a recipe for
disaster, worldwide.
--CLICK
Dense populations
--CLICK
Shallow earthquakes
Dr. Fred Mednick | c. 206-356-4731 | e. fred@twb.org

--CLICK
Unreinforced schools
--CLICK-Little science and safety
In 2001, I saw schools in India that had recently dissolved like sandcastles from the Gujarat
earthquake. The teachers I met knew little about the science of quakes. None had knowledge of
earthquakes, nor a safety plan.
In 2004 in Kashmir, an earthquake caused massive landslides. Dislodged by aftershocks, large
rocks and boulders tumbled from cliffs onto populated communities below. It was a race
against time. In 2.5 months, roads had to be cleared and supplies distributed to heavily
populated, remote regions all before the snows would entomb the area for six more months.
We led a relief effort in Seattle for winterized tents and clothing. DHL donated a plane to take
supplies to New York. We called it: Warmth Without Borders. A Pakistani Airlines cargo
plane reserved its hull and delivered our supplies to Islamabad. Trucks, private cars, and horses
took it from there. But still, it was only relief.
In China, the schools that collapsed in the 2008 earthquake were built using fourth-level quality
construction after tourist hotels, government buildings, and companies.
I will return to China in a minute, but I can say this, now. After the 2008 earthquake in China,
seismologists had installed testing equipment on the buildings and warned the government that
a 7.x magnitude earthquake was going to take place.
In Haiti following the January 12, 2010 earthquake, enough unusable rubble remains (close to 7
years later) to build a two-lane highway from Los Angeles to Port-au-Prince. 230,000 dead.
At the sign of any civil disturbance or natural disaster, many Haitians tend instinctively to run
indoors for protection, plain and simple. And one would think that the school would be the
safest place of all. Nevertheless, so many children died there. As a result, many Haitians are
building phobic, refusing to send their surviving children to school.
During the hurricane in Haiti last month, however, where refuge in schools on higher ground
might serve as protection, several families chose to remain out of doors, unprotected.
In Nepal, a girl stands in front of a door, going nowhere. In Nepal, 90% of schools in the hardest
hit areas were destroyed. Here is an alarming fact:

Dr. Fred Mednick | c. 206-356-4731 | e. fred@twb.org

50% of the children who perish in earthquakes die inside their schools. Earthquakes do not kill
people; buildings and their contents do.
Allow me to focus less microscopically on individual countries and more telescopicallyon
regions.
Take a transparent map of megacities and place it on a light table. Then add a map of seismic
risks and educational fault lines around the world. They also match.
-- CLICK -

Lowest literacy rates are located in areas of the highest seismicity

Today, 50 mega cities sit astride the earths plate tectonic boundaries. Thats one
billion people living in areas of the highest seismicity.
-- CLICK --

Lowest literacy rates are located in areas of the highest seismicity. In the last 15 years,
up to one million have died in earthquakes: 70,000 in China and 230,000 in Haiti.
Geologists maintain that climate change and the rise of megacities could result in the
first million-person fatality in our lifetime.

Back to China and the Sichuan earthquake in 2008. In the two years leading up to the quake, my
organization had been working with teachers in China to enhance skills in science inquiry
methods. At 2:28 pm, May 12th 2008 (right when schools were in session), a 7.9 magnitude
earthquake struck Sichuan Province. 10,000 children were buried at their schools.
For those in the upper elevations closest to the epicenter, it was a thunderclap of subterranean
fury, triggering rock slides and creating new quake lakes from disrupted water lines.
Reports say that a new microblog site, called Twitter, broke the story before CNN or the U.S.
Geological Survey. The tweet was tracked to a hilly section above the city of Dujiangyan, the
very center of our operations.
We lost teachers, schools, and children. I thought I was going to lose my mind. I arrived at the
disaster site within a few days. What remained of Juyuan Middle School, where up to 900
children died, was sealed off and guarded. I saw stairwells without classrooms, classrooms
without stairwellsor nothing at all.

Dr. Fred Mednick | c. 206-356-4731 | e. fred@twb.org

Just down the street from Juyuan Middle School, parents erected this shrine at another school,
now unrecognizable.
--CLICKto play the video
The Director of Education asked me to please transform the science inquiry program into
earthquake science and safety. I ran around looking for people to help nothing until I
searched our global network.
Enter Solmaz Mohadjer. A geologist and classroom teacher, Solmaz experienced the Bam
earthquake in her native Iran, and throughout her travels taking seismic measurements,
observed that there was misinformation and chaos about earthquakes in the areas where it was
needed the most.
Solmaz developed an Earthquake Science and Safety program to connect hands-on earthquake
science (and STEM), safety, and community development. She built a network of excellent
teachers, first-rate content, inexpensive seismometers, and opportunities for true service.
Students use science, technology, engineering, math, and community service and dialogue to
ensure earthquake preparedness and mitigation.
The program uses eggs for the earths layers. It demonstrates vibration with pieces of dry
spaghetti, each with a raisin on top. Shake them lightly to simulate low frequencies to
demonstrate how buildings vibrate the most. Shake them more vigorously to demonstrate high
frequencies to demonstrate how and when buildings vibrate the most.
Using springs, local toys, wooden blocks, and sandpaper, Solmazs team was able to
demonstrate the physics of tension, popsicle sticks, connectors, and rubber bands for students to
compete over which group can design the strongest structure. For more sophisticated contexts,
the accelerometers in all smart phones can be used to teach physics, and seismology apps to
record shock waves. Imagine teachers and their students, around the world, using their phones
to measure and crowd-source earthquake activity.
Easily replicable table-top exercises can demonstrate interior and plate tectonics and
boundaries, motion, seismic energy, liquefaction. Students now only learn ABOUT earthquake
science, they connect the program with prevention and planning and community outreach.
Lets hear from Solmaz herself.
Play the video

Dr. Fred Mednick | c. 206-356-4731 | e. fred@twb.org

So, we returned to China and to the city where we lost so many people where 10,000 of the
70,000 deaths were students, teachers are using the popsicle sticks and connectors to test the
strength of buildings.
These teachers are working in a building completed just prior to the earthquake and, because of
its principal, who demanded better construction and earthquake preparedness and planning,
none of his 2,323 students died.
In Haiti, a teacher is discussing building construction at a temporary school.
It bears mentioning that, within days after the earthquake, we reached out to teachers with even
a modicum of knowledge about geology or earthquakes. While our evidence is based upon a
small sample size, 100% of the teachers we interviewed reported that they had briefed the
children on what to do. In one case, a teacher away from the quake zone rushed back to see a
school beyond repair. As he approached, a crowd formed around him. Surrounding schools
were tombs. In his school, just one injury.
Informed teachers who connect science and safety have saved lives:

In Japan, in the midst of the tsunami and earthquake, teachers and students
knew enough to race, together, to higher ground, leaving no one behind.

In Maikhao Beach in Thailand, ten-year old Tilly Smith, on vacation with her
family from the UK, recognized the earthquake under the sea centered in northern
Sumatra earlier that morning. The beach was getting smaller. Having just studied the
phenomenon, she managed to convince beachgoers to evacuate, saving everyone. At the
next tourist beach over, death.

And back in India, in the region where I saw the aftermath of an earthquake that had turned
buildings into dust, these teachers are preparing lessons on the effects of liquefaction when an
unconsolidated building is erected on wet sand.
The program has traveled to Haiti, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, and Russia, and has
been translated into English, Chinese, Spanish, French, Russian, Hindi, Urdu, and Kreyol. The
program is available without cost. The materials are inexpensive and do not require high-tech
equipment. Most importantly, it engages a network of colleagues who have trained hundreds of
thousands of teachers, school directors, safety officers, and community members.
We applied the model of assessment (prior knowledge, existing expertise), support (school
directors, community members), awareness (enlisting local engineers and launching a
community campaign), and participation (ensuring stakeholder involvement at every stage).
Dr. Fred Mednick | c. 206-356-4731 | e. fred@twb.org

The program not only connects science with safety for children; it connects safety with
community development. It restores faith in the power of teachers as ambassadors of social
welfare. And it restores the parents faith in the school.
Heres the next step. In partnership with the U.S. Geological Survey, satellite companies, and
global agencies, we designed the Girls Earthquake Science and Safety Initiative.
The Girls Quake Science and Safety Initiative will attempt to bridge the gap between an ounce of
prevention (capacity building through professional development in hands-on science and safety
education and hazard mitigation), versus the pound of cure (the black hole of costs in global aid
following a disaster). This is education from below the ground and up.
The plan is for 100,000 students (with an emphasis on the inclusion of girls) to be educated in a
hands-on, curiosity-driven, regionally-tailored earthquake science curriculum. Plus, students
will survey thousands of buildings in their communitiessurveys that are vital to seismic risk
assessment, earthquake preparedness, and emergency response. Each school would be assisted
by a locally-accessible engineer-mentor who would meet with schools and the community to
translate the surveys into life-saving measures. The content would then be uploaded to the
global seismic survey measuring structural integrity, based upon USGS inventories.
Curriculum, Technologies, Training

Physical Processes

Structural and Non-Structural Hazards

Risk Models, Data Collection, Inventories

Mitigation, Prevention, Planning

--CLICK

Mentors and Networks

Global agencies

Universities

Foundations

NGOs

Civil-society organizations
--CLICK--

Outputs, Outcomes, Impacts

Dr. Fred Mednick | c. 206-356-4731 | e. fred@twb.org

1,000,000 buildings surveyed

100,000 girls educated

5,000 teachers trained

1,500 Android phones used

1,000 engineering mentors

The content is free and available in the public domain.

This initiative relies upon and strengthens local capacity: We not only engage and support
regional geologists and geology teachers, but also actively solicit the support of local
maintenance workers who become heroes for their work in non-structural hazard mitigation.
Students are STEM contributors, not just learners, but instrumental agents of scientific data
collection of building.
Its measurable, even though you dont have to wait for the next earthquake to find out. It can
be assessed by levels of student engagement in the sciences (just as those students in Tajikistan
experienced), school attendance, student performance, community practices)
For us, the key is to reach the people who reach the people; to leverage existing networks; to
identify talent and community assets; to focus on demand-driven projects, rather than drive-by
pilots; to emphasize science and safety in the public interest; to support girls; and to make a
clear connection between education and development.
The only way those Haitian families will allow their children to return to school is to ensure that
those buildings and the children and teachers who occupy them are safeand learning.
The earthquake science program I have described is one of many examples illustrating the
power of education in emergencies.
So far, so good. But heres what we have learned along the way. We discovered that much
information out there is inaccurate, out of date, and downright dangerous.

Doorways are no stronger than other parts of homes or offices.

In earthquakes, some buildings sway, others sink. You have to know the difference

Shallow earthquakes act in ways entirely different from deep earthquakes.

One could argue: just improve ways to broadcast what to do in an earthquake in ones region.
Problem solved. Or simply apply more pressure on building contractors not to skimp on

Dr. Fred Mednick | c. 206-356-4731 | e. fred@twb.org

materials and for governments to watch them. All of that is essential, but one again - far from
sufficient.
We also discovered a key factor that governs all work in international development
CLICK - That even if the science is accurate, content and curriculum alone does not save lives any more
than a textbook creates learning or a pile of bricks ensures a stable building. You just cant tell
people to duck and cover or go outside and expect adoption.
Sure, science is fact. It is also culturally contextual on several levels. Thats where assessment,
support, awareness, and participation are critical.
Here is an example.
In Tajikistan, it is widely believed that the earth sits on top of a bulls horns or that a bull lives
inside the earth. When the bull shakes off mosquitoes, thats when there is an earthquake. It
sounds weird or quaint, but the implications are enormous. Here it is in their own words.
(Play video)
What is important about what follows is not so much the success of the curriculum, but how it
works within the context of culture. Solmaz never dismisses the students beliefs. She works
with what happens TO the earth, people, buildings. Here, science does not trump belief (Sorry
for using the word Trump); rather, science explains what is happening, and how.

(Play video)
With the dark screen at the end, say:
Their curiosity is inspiring, no doubt. But there is another message here. The video ends with
the words: We want to learn about it. Their words apply to us all as well. We must learn
about indigenous knowledge.
Unfortunately, while some information passed down from generation to generation puts people
at risk, indigenous cultures are often dismissed entirely as non-scientific, an obstacle to
progress, or simply as a vehicle for getting services to the last mile.
And yet, these are often the same communities that have understood and worked with their
environment for millennia, yet now have to cope with human-induced disasters that have
ravaged their landscape.

Dr. Fred Mednick | c. 206-356-4731 | e. fred@twb.org

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Science and safety education must also find ways to navigate other factors: power, rights,
dignity, engagement, credibility, and cultural practices many of which have stood the test of
time.
Those working in emergency education need to do far more than pander to indigenous cultures.
They need to learn from and RELY UPON indigenous communities for cultural knowledge they
could not obtain any other way.
-- CLICK-This traditional bamboo house in Colombia emerged as a partnership of engineers and
traditional building practices.

The Moken community in Thailand understood the unusual low tide as a sign of
impending danger of the wave that eats people.

In China, ancient dams and water systems held up, while modern plumbing systems
and schools crumbled

In Quito, Peru, stones assembled and notched to fit each other have protected structures
from earthquakes since the Middle Ages.

Cultures around the world have developed:

Wind-break structures, walls, and fences

Stories about the color of clouds that carry hailstones

The height of birds nests near rivers indicating floods

The number of moths indicating drought

The recognition of new plant species

Traditional slope farming to strengthen hillsides against erosion

Food management and distribution

It is no stretch at all to see the value of indigenous knowledge in development, beyond

education in emergencies, and it is here where I want to start drawing parallels between the
earthquake examples and all of education in emergencies. Please bear with me while I show you
how
SEISMIC RISK
There is a formula for seismic risk. The simplified version is SR = H x E x V divided by
Community Resilience. It is a calculated score that weighs expected losses for a specified
amount of time against hazard types and intensity, and the capacity to cope.

Dr. Fred Mednick | c. 206-356-4731 | e. fred@twb.org

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H = HAZARD (structural, non-structural, geological) the source of the disaster

E = ELEMENTS (people, physical assets, combined with exposure and time) or what happens
next. Whats at risk.
V = VULNERABILITY (percentage of loss from exposure/proximity to hazard in other words,
the consequences.
/divided by COMMUNITY RESILIENCE
Community Resilience is mostly defined by amount of available services and speed to which the
affected area can return to pre-disaster or normal conditions. This is a start, but heres my
perspective:
--CLICK-There is NO cohesive formula for how to strengthen the numerator (hazards, elements,
vulnerability) or denominator (Community Resilience) and how the direct influence of education
on the numerator or denominator not just in terms of cost savings or saving lives
There is little analysis of educational capacity building as a factor in community resilience.
In other words, where are the factors underscoring the capacity to prevent a disaster from
becoming a catastrophe in the first place? Or, for that matter, the capacity to build back BETTER
after the crisis?
and here is where I want to pivot away from earthquake science and safety for emergencies, but
educational fault lines, even education itself as an emergency
CAN BE APPLIED TO EDUCATIONAL FAULT LINES
HAZARDS
EH = Educational Hazards (causes): climate change, political instability, lack of institutional or
state integrity
EE = Educational Elements (at risk) and Vulnerability (the consequences): people, culture,
schools, teachers Schools as battlefields; unsafe buildings; destruction of biodiversity; deeper
isolation from access to information; greater inequality; further marginalization of cultures;
wider corruption
/divided by Community Resilience
(denominator)
What if Community Resilience included a substantial component of education to mitigate
against disasters?

Dr. Fred Mednick | c. 206-356-4731 | e. fred@twb.org

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Strengthening the numerator and denominator applies to education itself because an natural
and national disasters are bound up with education disasters.
Lets take EARLY CHILDHOOD. The formula has some relevance. For instance:
Hazards and Elements = insufficient attention to public health: spotty hygiene programs,
immunizations, distribution of vitamins, or clean water; unequal accessibility and affordability
of pre-natal and ongoing care; little or no parent education
Vulnerability = children at risk of falling irretrievably further behind, dropping out.
The key is to make connections:
Between science education and safety
Between literacy and public health
Between seismic risk and education risk
Between educational resilience and victimization
Almost exactly 10 years ago, I attended a meeting of the InterAgency Network for Education in
Emergencies (INEE) in Istanbul, at which time a document was finalized for submission to the
United Nations advocating for policy requiring that the emergency cluster (the lead
organizations directed by UNICEF to respond to emergencies) to include educators as part of
first-responder teams, whether they are responding to a natural or a national disaster
And since

The Hyogo Framework for Action was created to build the resilience of nations and
communities to disasters, and all recognize that funding for, and emphasis on,
education is wholly inadequate.

The United Nations Development Plan in India and the government have put a
considerable amount of energy into the instrumental role of women and gender equity
practices in disaster risk reduction.

Thanks to organizations like the SPHERE project, CARE, the European Commission,
Save the Children, and the Interagency Network for Education in Emergencies, there are
protocols, practices, and pocket guides, assessment manuals, support structures,
awareness campaigns, and policy recommendations for education in emergencies.

Today, the evidence is irrefutable that education is not only a right, but a basic need, like food,
potable water, medicine, and shelter. In the midst of a crisis, educators count the children,
reunite families, develop a sense of normalcy by establishing child-friendly spaces, and establish

Dr. Fred Mednick | c. 206-356-4731 | e. fred@twb.org

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the reassurance of routine, stability and structure. They protect children from exploitation and
harm, including forced early marriage, child labor, organized crime, and extremism.
Because of educators a reunited family makes it possible for that family to survive; a child cared
for and protected makes hope possible. Educators build critical survival skills and coping
mechanisms by which they can most effectively disseminate lifesaving information about
landmine safety, HIV/AIDS prevention, conflict resolution and peace-building.
And even more than a basic need, education not only strengthens a communitys resilience, but
also its capacity to flourish. In the end, this is about dignity, and nothing short of the
reconstruction of self.
The challenges of educational reconstruction are equally demanding:
--CLICK-Is it available? By available, I mean schools, teachers, training, resources, and content. The
quantity of schools and teachers mattered a great deal in the last decade. Today, the central
questions have to do with quality.
--CLICK-Is it accessible? Who is included? Excluded? Children from families in conflict may not be
comfortable with each other. Child soldiers returning to school are often stigmatized and over
age. Issues of identity, tribe, religion come to the surface. Post-disaster or conflict, there is a
great deal of self-segregation. Reintegration, then, must be a priority.
--CLICK-Is it acceptable? Issues of identity are significant, and many are forced to confront questions
such as Who am I? Who are you? Who are we? How can the system become acceptable to
cultures and communities stripped of their sense of place? How can traumatized refugees
become comfortable with psychosocial services and adapt to an entirely new culture? How can
they trust it? Who chooses acceptable content for students or teachers?
--CLICK-Is it affordable? What are the roadblocks? School fees? Uniforms? Bribes? The school may
once have been the place where genocidal ideas were promoted. Many international
development reports have detailed resistance to schooling in favor of working the land or
carrying water. Other reports contradict these and describe how families are desperate for an
education, but they want it to be productive and safe. Parents ask themselves, if I make this
investment, will my childs human rights will be respected, or will my child be at greater risk?
Dr. Fred Mednick | c. 206-356-4731 | e. fred@twb.org

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--CLICK-Is it adaptable? Is this about replicate the old system or creating something new? How can the
old system blend with a new system? What will enable a transition to take place? How do we
assess what could be an entirely new role for teachers? Will they be able to adapt? How can
professional development be accelerated?
--CLICK-Is it adoptable? What will it take to become durable and pervasive? Or will it be an import?
Is it accountable? How will governments ensure stability? In post-disaster contexts,
governments or loan agencies have promoted distributed leadership. How will they be
accountable for promoting safe schools (emotionally and physically)? Failing states are unable
or unwilling to reconstruct and revitalize education systems. In several cases, well-intentioned
NGOs, well-resourced individuals, and global agencies are attempting to fill the gaps, but are
they de facto absolving governments from the responsibility of taking care of their own people?
How can I be certain that a promise will be kept?
These questions about community resilience, education, vulnerability are (of course), not
limited to earthquakes.
These questions and models matter.
Millions of refugees are escaping the horror of violence in their homelands. The psycho-social
dimensions of this trauma are extraordinary. This week, we have learned that children are being
used as human shields in Mosul. They must escape.
My point is this: education for communities escaping from emergencies is a local problem on a
global scale. This slide represents refugee movement to Europe. But the migration is not just
from ISIS-dominated regions. Its also from regions devastated by climate change. They are
literally and metaphorically seeking higher ground.
Where can we make an immediate difference? In classrooms and in non-formal education
settings. We can do this because teachers are a sustainable national (and international) resource.
Teachers are the difference between disaster and catastrophe.
They are the largest professionally-trained group in the world. They know who is sick or
missing or orphaned by AIDS. Teachers are the ones with their ear to the ground, checking
sensitively to their communitys pulse.

Dr. Fred Mednick | c. 206-356-4731 | e. fred@twb.org

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Under a tree or in a cramped room with a tin roof, in war-zones or in temporary child-safe
shelters following a natural or national disaster, or in air-conditioned, high-bandwidth wireless
state-of-the-art buildings, they remain the conduits of safety FROM danger and safety TO
flourish. As the acupuncture points of our society and the glue that holds our world together
Teachers are nothing short of a development army
Nevertheless, teachers, schools, and education remain under attack abducted, assassinated,
threatened, and sexually terrorizedall
for reasons that offend even the most basic sense of
human decency. Girls who seek an education are shot. Those who protect them are silenced.
Civic discourse is considered treasonous. In societies fragmented and failing, schools have been
occupied, bombed, burned, ransacked, and turned into storehouses of munitions or fronts for
fake polling places.
And yet, in the face of this irrationality and barbarism, teachers remind themselves in the space
of a heartbeat that they made a sacred commitment to protect children.
Like here, in a cave school, in Aleppo. In every corner of the earth I travel, in some of the most
intractable and desperate places written off as beyond hope, teachers like these are making a
difference.
In regions terrorized by civil unrest, teachers have relied upon their finely honed instincts to
snap into action. They simply dont think twice. They make those hand gestures and conduct
those rituals they have practiced hundreds of times with their students to capture everyones
attention. And the children listen. They look to the teachers.
Teachers look back into the eyes of those children pleading for a sign of something familiar,
anything at all, that could restore a sense of peace and order to which they were accustomed.
Teachers feel the heart beating in every child in every classroom theyve ever taught.
They hold children, hide them, heal them, hope with them, usher them to safety, even when
grenades are exploding outside their windows and bullets pinging and hissing through the
shattered glass, even when thugs pull up in pickup trucks with black flags and masks or white
hoods and burning crosses. They teach anyway, even when the bull is enraged and the building
is swaying or shaking.
Amidst all this, they teach anyway about what to do when their beach gets smaller or the
oceans waves rise enough to eat people, or the bull thrashes about trying to shake mosquitoes.

Dr. Fred Mednick | c. 206-356-4731 | e. fred@twb.org

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Later, when no one is looking, they may cry for hours, throw up, or sweep their hand in anger
across a table. They may wonder night after sleepless, sweat-drenched night why they
were chosen to experience such horror. But they get up and teach anyway.
A backfiring car or an unusual rumble outside their windows may trigger a rush of images and
emotion they thought they had suppressed. They might find it almost impossible to concentrate
or communicate their pain. Or they work manically until exhaustion, refusing to slow down for
fear that the echoes of trauma may bring them to their knees. But they teach anyway.
Teachers are often told that they are the problem. I say they are the solution. And I have seen it
first-hand. It is therefore our moral obligation to provide the GLOBAL support of our teachers
as LOCAL change agents.
- - CLICK - Anyone can help. Advocate for teachers. Teach yourself. Inform your communities. Write the
United Nations to seek more money for prevention and planning.
We know that the local and the global are intertwined. Our classrooms are more diverse than
ever. Teaching is now a global enterprise, and information is ubiquitous. We know all of this.
But we must act upon it.
No one will do this magically for the children. But we, here, can bring these issues to light and
make a difference. I think this university can shoulder part of the responsibility, and do so with
enthusiasm and joy. I know of no other university that is willing to try. I love being here. I
believe in you, and I want your help.
Ill leave you with this.
To use a geological metaphor, teachers are a societys foundation and its pillars.
Teachers dont have a PR firm to make their voices known, nor a publicity campaign by which
their voices can be heard. It is our duty to provide those forums. Teachers dont have a truly
representative voice at Davos or influence at the G8 summit. It is our duty to fight for that
representation. Teachers cant wait for an Act of Congress because they are busy operating from
acts of conscience. It is our duty to expand our conscience.
These are troubling times. Sometimes I think life is a sewer, but its filled with generous,
ordinary people, especially teachers, who function as leaders, armed with information, and
capable of making an extraordinary difference.
for in the end
- - CLICK - Dr. Fred Mednick | c. 206-356-4731 | e. fred@twb.org

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in darkness there is light. In teachers there is hope.

Thank you

Dr. Fred Mednick | c. 206-356-4731 | e. fred@twb.org

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