HANDS UP FOR WOMEN'S RIGHTS! These young boys are speaking up!

HANDS UP FOR WOMEN'S RIGHTS! These boys are speaking up!

This was incredibly heart-warming.

Having discussed and shared activities in my Leadership Within workshop, it was time for an Open Space activity. The idea was to allow these Yr 6 Heidelberg Primary students to lead their own discussion groups through topics of their own choosing, and then to create actionable and solution- focussed steps.

Students stepped forward to lead groups on topics such as 'Ending poverty,' 'Raising student voices', 'Equality,' 'World Peace,' 'Reducing bullying,' and 'Animal Rights'.

Then one young boy stood up. 'I want to lead a group on Women's Rights.'

'Excellent', says I, beaming at him.

When we had all the topics sorted - 11 in all, the rest of the year level got to choose which group they would go to.

Six boys joined the Women's Rights group. It became an all boys group, and I wish you could have all been privy to the mature, rational and inspiring conversation that ensued.

Congratulations to the teachers and parents of these boys for raising such consciously aware individuals.

Cheery blessings,

Marg

Margaret Hepworth is the founder of The Gandhi Experiment. Margaret facilitates Global Citizenship and Leadership Within workshops across Melbourne schools and internationally.

'SCENE ONE; SCENE TWO' - A ROLE PLAY TEACHING HOW TO MAKE BETTER CHOICES

‘Scene One; Scene Two’ - a role play about making better choices.

These young students, Yr 4-6 (age 10-13yrs old) are completely rocking my role play on anger management and the choices we can make when we are upset, frustrated and angry. 
The role play intentionally utilises the learning preferences for audio, visual and kinesthetic learners, so that everyone is readily engaged and learns the messages. 
I crafted this role play to follow a pattern that works:

1. To ‘take them out beyond themselves’ 
2. To bring it back 'to me', to 'my school' and 'my home' environments
3. To understand I might get angry, yet I can calm down and choose a different response
4. To see that both violence and kindness have a ripple effect- and I can be a part of either one.

5. It is a choice. My response is important not just to me but to others around me as well. 

These kids are amazing improvisers, acting completely off the cuff, acting out one scenario and then going into 'rewind' to act out a different response- and having a ball doing so! My heartfelt thanks to them. 

‘Global Citizenship - It starts with us!’ is one of The Gandhi Experiment’s signature student workshops

Feeling great after our workshop

"MANDELA DID NOT CARRY BITTERNESS." LESSONS FROM MADIBA AND SELLO HATANG

Sello Hatang, CEO Nelson Mandela Foundation, speaks at the opening of Mandela, My Life exhibition, Melbourne Museum.

“Mandela did not carry bitterness.”

There were many ‘aha’ moments listening to Sello Hatang, the quietly measured, impressive speaker - CEO of the Nelson Mandela Foundation - at the opening of the Mandela, My Life exhibition at the Melbourne Museum. I had the privilege to meet and hear Sello speak again, the very next day, to a more intimate audience at the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission where I was working with the Mandela 365 organisation, the Commission and 20 young African Ambassadors seeking to become advocates for their communities.

Sello’s ‘ahas’ were coming thick and fast: stories of Mandela – his ability to remain humble in the face of potentially usurping adoration; his willingness to travel the journey that we should all be travelling; and that Mandela saw hope as a gift.

God knows how he held on to that hope, spending 27 long years in jail.

Yet this is the ‘aha’ that resonated with me that day and left me wanting to unpack it – to discover its secrets for education: “Mandela did not carry bitterness.”

In my leadership workshops with community groups, I call on Mandela as a role model. Only two weeks earlier, with this very same group, I had placed the name ‘Mandela’ on the whiteboard, circled it, and invited the group to explore the values that this man exhibited. They swiftly came up with a weighty list: courage, inclusiveness, empathy, the ability to self-reflect, forgiveness, tenacity – that ability to persevere in the face of seemingly insurmountable challenges. And more.

Then came the real challenge: ‘You see, any one of us knows how to answer this question – to throw a list of impressive qualities up there that reflect really great leadership. Any one of our current world leaders could do this. Yet, the real questions are these – ‘Do I carry these qualities? Have I really learned how to be humble? To genuinely feel equal – with everyone? To treat everyone with respect? How am I going to learn to do these things? How am I going to work on not only my capacity to ‘get the job done’, but also on my character?’

But one of Sello’s observations had not been on our list. ‘Mandela did not carry bitterness.’

I guess you could argue that this is another way of saying Mandela had the ability to forgive. Not just say it; really do it. Forgive. Yet, for me, this statement was beginning to reveal to us clues we all need if we want to build a more forgiving world. Not carrying bitterness is one of the keys to learning how to forgive. It is the what comes before forgiveness. And forgiveness is paramount in a world that needs healing.

‘Mandela did not carry bitterness.’ Let’s unpack this a little. You will note the statement does not say Mandela never got angry; Mandela never got bitter / upset / frustrated. What it says is that he did not maintain it.

Was this innate for Mandela? Was he born like this? I am not sure and certainly he may have been somewhat wired that way. However, his early years and actions with the ANC would suggest otherwise. Or was it a learnt trait? And if so, if he could do this, then surely so can we all.

Thank you Sello Hatang for your insights into an incredible man. He told that small, attentive group, ‘We must find the Mandela within ourselves. We must be the legacy.’

What is the relevance of this to today’s world. Imagine the inter-generational / inter-racial / inter-communal / inter-cultural hatred that could literally be halted in its tracks, right here, right now, if we were all better able to not carry bitterness.

The CEO of the Mandela Foundation, Sello Hatang, has put it out there. Yet the mantle has passed to us. How do we teach ourselves and our young people not to carry bitterness?

I, for one, am going to keep exploring this. I believe it already exists in the lessons of my forum activity, The Best Forgiveness Role Play Ever, yet I will seek to emphasise it, draw out the learning so that we may all benefit. And I will keep you posted as to new ideas and tools that will come. And of course, the outcomes!

Cheery blessings to all,

Marg

Margaret Hepworth is the founder of The Gandhi Experiment. She travels widely, running forums in teaching non-violence as a conscious choice.

‘The Best Forgiveness Role Play Ever’ can be found in Margaret’s new book: The Gandhi Experiment - Teaching our teenagers how to become global citizens www.thegandhiexperiment.com Available at all amazon stores and bookstores worldwide

‘Fortitude’ - a compelling short story on Mandela, courage and expansive thought, can be found at https://thegandhiexperiment.teachable.com