peace is every post: peace education and social media
TRANSCRIPT
The potential and challenges of social media as a tool for peace education
Stephanie Knox Cubbon
Teachers Without BordersSan Diego City College
Metta Center for Nonviolence
July 31, 2014
Overview• The role of social media in promoting our peace
education work at TWB
• The types of conversations that have taken place
• Explore the potential uses and challenges of social
media as a tool for peace education
My roles as a peace educator
• Graduate of the University for Peace (MA in Peace
Education)
• TWB Peace Education Program Coordinator
• Peace Studies Faculty at San Diego City College
• Director of Education at Metta Center for
Nonviolence
• Global citizen/netizen
• Yoga teacher
Peace ed working definition
Peace education is the practice of cultivating the
knowledge, values, attitudes and skills needed to
transform the culture of war towards a culture of
peace at all levels, from the individual to the global.
http://www.un.org/cyberschoolbus/peace/frame.htm
TWB mission:To connect teachers to information and each other to
create local change on a global scale
o Provide teacher professional development opportunities
online and offline
o Bring teachers together in virtual and face-to-face learning communities
o Local initiatives with a global impact
South African workshop participants, 2011
Social media and the birth of the
TWB Peace Education Program
Offering the TWB Peace Ed Program
• Free to download => 15,000+ downloads since Nov.
2010
• Offline workshops – US, Canada, Mexico, Uganda,
DR Congo, Kenya, South Africa
• Online
o Free self-paced version – Nixty.com
o Instructor-led version in partnership
with Johns Hopkins University
Social media and promoting peace education initiatives
• Through that initial post, we developed partnerships
with a number of organizations which led to long-
term projects and on-the-ground workshops in the
DR Congo, Kenya, and Uganda
• Led to on-the-ground engagement : over 300
teachers trained as a result
Partners from PCDN
TWB Social Media Policy• No formal organizational policy on social media in
employee handbook
• Social media work was written into staff members’
individual contracts (Scope of Work)
From Peace Education Coordinator SOW:
“Promote TWB work in Peace Education by posting
blog entries, engaging online members in
conversations inside the TWB social network, and
reaching out to non-members and a wide variety of
subject-specific online social networks and
communities.”
TWB Social Media Policy (continued)
• All staff members posted to Facebooko Organizational voice: mix of our own content, promoting our work,
engaging our community, and promoting complimentary efforts, articles,
and resources from other organizations
• Use of Facebook (page & groups), Twitter, external
blogs (like PCDN, PeacexPeace, Classroom 2.0, etc)o Most success on peace-related networks vs. education networks
• October 2010-May 2011 – Content Manager
curated all social media contento In May 2011, Content Manager position was eliminated due to budget
constraints
o Significant decline in posts and consistency
Example: What does peace
education mean to you?• Asked community members via social media
(Facebook comments, PCDN blog, Twitter #TWB) to
complete the sentence: Peace education is…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enu0lQlCFYw
TWB Groups Space• No longer exists, TWB has moved activity to a Ning
network (currently 3,509 members)
• Creating a new space for people vs. meeting them
where they already are (subspaces within other
networks: PCDN, Facebook, Twitter, etc.)
TWB Peace Education Facebook Group
• 450 members as of 7/28/14
• Started out of TWB online course, grew to expand to
include program graduates and anyone interested
in peace education
• Primarily used to share links and resources
facebook.com/groups/twbpep
Conversations through social media
• Trying to engage in discussion has been a
challenge…
UPEACE Alumni Network
• Thanks to social media, word got out about
proposed changes
• Change.org petition
• Alumni group conversation >100 comments
• Social media used to organize alumni around the
world towards an action on campus
• Thursday = day of action….
• => Peace Educators United FB group
Nurturing long-term relationships
Using social media in my peace
studies community college class• Facebook groups as a way for students to share
resources, stay connected outside of class time and
after the semester ends
• Not required participation
• Student engagement – the students who are active
in the community tend to be the ones who post on
Facebook (the activism fuels the social media use,
not the other way around)o Social media as a way to augment participation, but not replace it
Summary• Social media is an invaluable tool for promoting
peace education programs and work, which led to
long-term partnerships and on-the-ground action
• Social media can be used most effectively when
organizations have the capacity for a full-time staff
member devoted to its use (curating and creating
content)
• Social media has great potential for sustaining
relationships (in a meaningful way?)
• Facilitating critical dialogue is a challenge
Peace Education Principles and Social Media
• Can peace education principles be applied
through social media?
o Building community
o Cultivating horizontal relationships
o Engaging in critical dialogue
o Self-reflection
o Transformation
o Taking action/civic engagement
o Holistic perspective, multiple viewpoints
Potential • Building a global community of peace educators
• Developing knowledge about peace and peace education
• Strengthening relationships with students through sustained engagement
• Educating beyond “the choir” (reaching those in my general feed, not just my peace education groups; but am I reaching them?)
• Social media makes it easy to share ways to take action in the community=>“Ladder of engagement” (Engler & Engler, 2013)
Challenges• Lack of (critical) dialogue
• The relationship between social media and inner
peace, mindfulness
(FB leads to a decline in well-being, Kross, Demiralp
Park, et al, 2013)
• Passive vs. active engagemento Lurking => “Liking” =>Sharing => Sharing with commentary =>….
o Being active on social media vs. in the community (“clicktivism”)
• Social media as a force of negativity
Questions• (How) can social media contribute to inner and
outer transformation?
• (How) can we move beyond passive use of social
media to promote and engage in critical dialogue
and action?
• (How) can self-reflection (rather than self-
aggrandizement) be nurtured through social
media?
• What is our intention in using social media?
The horse is technology
http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/paintings/john-gilpin-on-a-runaway-horse-133967
