This interview has been published in the educational magazine
Aula de Innovaci? Educativa. Num 99, pp 76- 79 (Editorial Gra? Barcelona. Espa?).

 
The United Nations General Assembly's proclamation "Year 2000, International Year for the Culture of Peace", invites us to unify our efforts to develop this concept early in the boy or girl child and promote a value education from the earliest childhood. The transmission of social and moral values, which guides us to the future, begins from the first months of life. Values such as coexisting in harmony, begin to be instilled on the course of the pre-school period and can be consolidated by programs for the early childhood. Programs related with values for early childhood and family education can contribute to this effort of preserving the social, ethic and moral values, reinforcing the parent's capacities for growing and educating children, giving these children the suitable environment so that they can grow, play, learn and take care of the cultural wished values. 
 
 

Gayatri Naraine - lv@livingvalues.net  International Coordinator of the Living Values1 (Valores para Vivir) Education in New York City. She represents the Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University, a non-government organisation with general consultive status at the Economic and Social Council and at UNICEF.

Bernard Combes - bcombes@unesco.org  Specialist of the Early Childhood and Family Education Unit in UNESCO. He is in charge of the information, documentation, networking and partnerships, through which UNESCO has linked up with Living Values Education to launch an international initiative on early childhood and values education.

B. C.: I would like to begin this conversation starting with how and why we needed to organize this initiative ².

G. N.: It's very interesting all that we have been listening over the last day of the meeting. Early childhood is an important part of a child's life and of the parents. Early childhood is a period of our lives that is not normally taken into consideration as to it's importance in the development of the whole person. I think the more we realize that when we start teaching children about ethics, principles, values and morals, it's sometimes too late in their lives, because they have not had a foundation on which to build their choices. I believe that during the development of early childhood, that solid, firm and rich foundation which they need, has to be given so that they can choose and take decisions to interact widely with the rest of the world. 

B. C.: That which you say matches up with some of the recent discoveries in early childhood, particularly with some of the research that's come out of brain research. It starts forming very early and the connections in the brain need to be nurtured. The child needs to be given opportunities to grow physically, mentally, spiritually and in many other ways. The early childhood is a time of discovery, of exploration of what the world around us is. It is really the time when there are many windows of opportunity where we can introduce values so that a child can learn to live better in multicultural, globalized societies. That's where we are heading, where many nationalities, religions and languages are going to be mixing, being side by side. In part that is also why UNESCO wanted to get into this issue of values at a very young age. Many member states have asked us to help them with the problems of youth and adults who are living in violent worlds both inside their houses or families and in the outside world. So we thought we have to start with the young children, with the parents and educators. In some ways it's easier to start this subject with the educators because there are teacher training institutions or structures where they get training, whereas with parents it's much more complex. Parents in a way do not want to be educated; they feel they know things or if they don't they go to a specialist. I think part of what comes out of the last 4 years of the Living Values experience is that basically it doesn't exclude any area of society. But it's perhaps in education where educators are looking for guiding principles or points where they can hook up to improve their teaching or their listening. The question is, what would be the basic points that educators should keep in mind when they are interacting with children or parents and trying to apply values? Gayatri, I think that due to your experience maybe you have things to share.

G. N.: Early childhood development is so important to me because it does not only involve educators. It also involves institutions and government level representatives. If they are coming together for a common purpose, recognizing that that interest is almost altruistic in the future development of their countries, then what they're investing in is something that would have an impact at many, many levels. So early childhood I always see it as the foundation of a country's future, so it does require all stakeholders to pay attention to it and to invest the right resources in it because the purpose and meaning are linked to the future. That's one thing. The second thing I feel that it is very relational in terms of its dynamic is that we have things like capacity building, empowerment, gender, equality, that if they don't start in early childhood, then when are they going to start? If the relationship as parents to a daughter is not one of equality in terms of recognizing that that girl child should have equal rights as a boy child, then I am denying those rights to that girl child. This happens due to the fact that the child comes to me in the form of a girl or in the form of a boy. I need to provide equal rights for the two of them. So that relational level in terms of the human dynamic begins in early childhood, so when that girl grows up it's not that she's going to be discriminated against by the community and then we have problems with that. Because I need to know what that I contributed to that discrimination, the day I saw her as a girl and she didn't have as equal rights to the boy.

B. C.: Talking about the dynamic of human relations, how would you focus it?

G. N.: In respect of the human relations dynamic, I think it's very important to begin things like respect, equality, providing for the rights, recognizing that the girl and the boy have brought with them certain things that we need to honour and respect. The other area for educators specifically, as you ask, that perhaps makes their life a little bit easier is the whole concept of life-long learning. It begins from the time the mother becomes pregnant. From the time that child's conception takes place we are welcoming someone into the world. So the mother, father, the family are actually looking at the whole boy or girl child and recognizing that he or she is learning even in the womb of the mother. Things like behavior, attitudes and values are being instilled in almost the fetus in the womb, before that child is born. So a sense of responsibility and the events needs to be there on the part of the parents but also on the extended family. Finally this whole thing about the generational is very important. For a child's emotional stability, that child needs to be enriched with relationships that are inter-generational. I think in many instances the parents are not able to provide emotional stability because of different reasons. But the grandparents, the aunts and uncles, the cousins, they can provide that because emotional stability doesn't come from only one source. It comes from exposure to relationships that could be trust in different forms and in different levels. 

B. C.: It's a quite good message for any educator and I think in the journey that UNESCO and Living Values have started over the last 9 or 10 months, we have started exploring those links between the parents, the educators, the children, the surrounding environment, whether institutional or non-institutional. In a way we have come to a conclusion that might not please all ministries which want new forms and new laws. On the contrary, values mean that you have to live those values, that education is a matter of everyday life and that within education we should not just stick to arithmetic, writing, etc. but any time during the day you can learn something. In a way educators are not educators because a child can teach you a lot, the grandparents can teach you a lot and there we have to find some way to get the message across. If it's life-long learning it is for all and by all. It is hard to get the message across to educators because they've been trained in a certain way. But it's also hard to get it to a ministry and let alone to a president of a country or even higher up to the UN General Assembly, especially taking into count that next year there will be a special session on childhood. We definitely need to make some kind of statement on the importance of early childhood and that the whole relationship between parents, children, communities and societies has to be taken into count. You can't just discard more than half of the world because they don't have a political voice and we have to find a way to give that voice. So, as a person who has collaborated with institutions and programs of different parts of the world, what message would you give in that special occasion which will gather educators, administrators, fathers, mothers or just those who simply are young?

G. N.: Oh, that's a hard suggestion! What would be my message? I think that young children's voices cannot be ignored. If someone tells me that those voices are not being heard then I would say to the older generation that they are deaf. Because the voices of the young children of the world, for me they are heard through their eyes; they're almost heard because actually they're not completely heard. So I would say to the adult people at that summit to open their eyes and hear. Because if you cannot hear it in any other way then you're not worth being where you are. And that seems to be a strong message on my part, but I feel that if we ignore the children of the world we are not leaders, we cannot represent people if we are not representing those children. You cannot be called a leader.

Pilar Quera: What is your driving force within the Living Values Program?

G. N.: My driving force in supporting a program like Living Values is linked to what I would like to tell that summit. I think children represent the conscience of the world, and once one's conscience has been awoken that is the driving force to make a difference in the world. Because you're making it for the children of the world and they are the present conscience, they are that tool. If everything else fails to work, the children can unite the world and that's the conscience, that is the driving force.

B. C.: Part of my driving force is being reminded by my own children, that they are there and that they can do many things. Sometimes very surprisingly -in particular in this world of technology- they know how to work out the technical equipment faster than us adults. I think this daily encounter with my own children reminds me that even if sometimes in my work I do not see children right there, there is this constant reminder that yes, we do exist, we are capable of doing many things. We just need to have that moment provided so that we can do those things. I think some of the driving force that inspires my work here at UNESCO is that we have to provide those moments and opportunities to the people. We need to give a voice to those who are not heard, we should allow every voice to be heard so that collectively we can make a decision. That's the basic right to freedom of expression and freedom of thought. Once we realize that we have to provide that opportunity then some of those barriers and conflicts maybe cannot completely disappear but at least can evaporate a little bit. Then you can at least see the face of the other without being afraid of whatever the other might say. Basically my message is to look at the face of a child and see a child playing and then you'll know what you need to do. The other message is that we do have lots of theories about child development, play, education, whatever. But the current problem is that some of those theories are theories and when you actually put them into the test of a child, you'll notice that a good half of those theories you can just throw out. Because it doesn't work or concern the child. So look at the child and just follow their lead, that's my conclusion.

G. N.: That would mean to be a real look at the convention on the rights of the child, comparing it to the needs of the children in today's world and the real needs of their life as opposed to legal statements in relation to their lives.

B. C.: And in addition we would also look at their responsibilities, because when you have a right you also have a responsibility. The current systems do not really teach responsibilities to the children, they're just told "do this, do that". Once we get that message across, that rights and responsibilities go together and that child's rights don't destroy the family or the community rights, then we'll move a little faster along the track.


Notes:

¹ Valores para Vivir. International Education Program, is a joint work of a network of educators worldwide. It has the support of UNESCO and it's promoted by the Spanish Committee of UNICEF (Madrid) and the Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University with the advice of the Education Staff of UNICEF (New York City). 

² International initiative on the integration of values education in the programs and services to early childhood. Coordinated together by UNESCO and Living Values: An Education Program. It took place on Paris on November 20-22, 2000.