Our global community invests in many different opportunities but there is one that is in my opinion the most CRITICAL of all.

If you had to name one global area of investment that will have the greatest impact on the future well-being of the world what would it be?

My answer: OUR CHILDREN

According to UN statistics, we have over 1.8 billion young people in our world between the ages of 10 and 24 and 90 per cent of them live in the developing world.

Educating these children will determine the innovation and economic growth we will see in the future, but unfortunately a quality education is not a given for many children in many places. Even in developed countries education quality varies because the curriculum is not created consistently.

In so far as we rely on a model of education that is invented over and over across many regional geographic jurisdictions we will have inconsistency in quality leading to inconsistency in learning outcomes. I believe we MUST RETHINK our educational delivery models if we want to ensure that every child has an opportunity to get a quality education.

Global digital education solutions available to all students will empower teachers with a repository of best-in-class learning resources that can be tailored to the aptitudes, learning preferences and special needs of students. Digital education solutions can become a POWERFUL EQUALIZER ensuring that a quality education is available to all students. This creates an urgency to complete the global network infrastructure that will give students and teachers access to new best-in-class digital learning solutions.

CONSIDER THIS OPPORTUNITY TO CHANGE OUR WORLD…

THE GLOBAL PEACE CURRICULUM

The Global Peace Curriculum would consist of creative, digital educational solutions to teach conflict resolution, promoting human rights and equality for all our children all over the world.

Prejudice and discrimination, even violent tendencies can be learned at home, but consider that the new ‘global classroom’ could challenge the roots of all forms of discrimination with a Peace Curriculum that is globally endorsed.

“Our people must learn to devote themselves to doing what is good, in order to provide for urgent needs and not live unproductive lives.” Titus 3:14

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” Matthew 5:9

It’s time to spark an important global conversation that will ask youth to consider and reflect on many important issues to promote new constructive ways to resolve conflicts and build bridges across cultures and regions.

Consider some of these facts from the United Nations:

Approximately 15 million adolescent girls (aged 15 to 19) worldwide have experienced sexual violence.

Globally, one out of three students (aged 11 and 13 to 15 years) have been bullied by their peers at school.

THE GLOBAL PEACE CURRICULUM will focus on ending bullying and violence of all forms, including sexual violence.

PEACEMAKERS MUST BE TRAINED TO MAKE PEACE!

IS THAT NOT WORTH INVESTING IN?

“Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness.” James 3:18

I have spent most of my career helping schools envision how to use technology to enhance learning outcomes, but major innovation requires that governments invest in solutions that all schools can benefit from.

Imagine students entering a ‘virtual world’ where they can visit different parts of the globe to understand issues and current realities, meeting other students and building solutions interactively to address conflict, to respond to emergency scenarios and to end wars, promoting peace and justice for all. This kind of learning experience will change student perspectives by allowing them to learn to become leaders and peacemakers. This type of interactive learning model will enable the formation of new relationships and friendships, providing a voice to students to speak out and create the kind of world where they can live in peace and not be bullied or violated.

The Global Peace Curriculum would include many different learning modules to enable students to consider different scenarios and to dialogue about different issues so that peaceful outcomes to critical problems can be envisioned.  Gaming technologies could be used to make the learning experience engaging and interactive, allowing for students to meet each other across geographies to work together to understand and resolve conflicts.  Teachers would facilitate the exercises and interactions with students in classrooms all over the world.

It is the Lord Jesus that is inspiring me to provide a seed of inspiration to our global leaders.

Let us invest in the global education of our youth so they can surpass every generation before them, embracing a global vision to foster equality and opportunity for all irrespective of race, gender, religion, ethnicity etc.

If this idea of The Global Peace Curriculum interests you then share this and pray for God to bring the global leaders of our world to invest in this initiative as a pathway to a world that is more just and more peaceful, a world where we challenge all youth to respect one another.

“Stop judging by mere appearances, but instead judge correctly.” John 7:24

As spiritual people we must remember that we are persistently at war with the forces of evil that want to spark violence and conflict, not peace and security. So I invite you to join the peace movement that is calling Christians to unite in a powerful daily prayer at the Time Jesus died for us, 3pm. At this time we remember the Passion of Christ and we pray for Jesus to send His Holy Spirit into our world to help us find new ways to end violence and create peace and opportunity for all our children.  Let’s invest in The Global Peace Curriculum so our youth can live, learn and grow together in a global climate that values diversity and works to end prejudice, discrimination and violence.

Learn more about the Global Education Vision here.

Learn more about The Mercy Movement.