Compared to what he envisions as the work of true democracy, the current presidential contest, said Ceasar McDowell, defined as it is by rancor and a scarcity of content, amounts to little more than theater. McDowell offered this perspective in his role as the featured speaker and dialogue facilitator at the 13th Annual Ikeda Forum for Intercultural Dialogue, called “Crisis or Opportunity: A Dialogue on Democracy, Inclusion, Community.” Held at the Ikeda Center on October 27, just twelve days before the 2016 elections and near the end of a year marked by bitter and emotional conflict...
News & Blog
In her new essay for the Ikeda Center website, "The Personal Is Social," Natalie Evans observes:
Often, we attribute our powerlessness to other people, institutions, or forces. This is when the “blame game” comes into play. We accuse: “You’re wrong. You’ve created this for me. I’m the victim.” But this is not the complete truth. While we are certainly impacted by social conditions as well as the actions of others, other people don’t have control over our emotions, reactions, and inner states. And so, the most important way that we can create a positive...
If you work in education you might have seen it on a refrigerator magnet or read it on a poster; or maybe you’ve heard it quoted in a talk. Lately you might have encountered it as an Internet meme. It being Gandhi’s claim that “if we are to reach real peace in this world..., we shall have to begin with children.” But what did Gandhi mean by that? What kind of education of youth would lead to peace, in his view? This September 2016 essay by the Center's Mitch Bogen looks at how Gandhi was inspired by Montessori...
A great resource for up-to-the-minute articles and essays relating to peace, learning, and dialogue is the Common Threads blog, hosted by Soka Gakkai International, the parent organization of the Ikeda Center. The Common Threads mission is "to generate interest in topics related to the development of a culture of peace and to stimulate a growing network of global citizens active in the pursuit of peace. It features articles written by a diverse range of contributors in the hope of providing a space for sustained dialogue and for exploring...
Two new episodes of the Ikeda Center podcast are now available for listening. The first episode features peace activist and New York City public school educator Matt Meyer in part two of a discussion of peace as a classroom practice. In it, he says: “If you go in with respect, with the truth, with your own honest self, no matter what you teach, you will most likely get it back from at least the vast majority of students you're teaching. And to me that says a lot, not just about how to become a good teacher, but how to become a good organizer and a good person.”
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The Ikeda Center promotes the humanistic education philosophy and model called Soka, or value-creating, education. First developed by Tsunesaburo Makiguchi in Japan in the first half of the 20th century, Soka education resonates both with Buddhist humanism and humanistic education in the tradition of John Dewey. Soka education is an emerging field of study in the United States and abroad. To serve as an introduction and to further research we created an annotated bibiography of sources exploring multiple dimensions of this important educational movement. You can view the newly updated...
The year 2016 marks the anniversaries of two publications important to the Ikeda Center. One hundred years ago, in 1916, John Dewey published his landmark book Democracy and Education. And twenty years ago, in June 1996, Center founder Daisaku Ikeda delivered an address at Teachers College, Columbia University, called “Thoughts on Education for Global Citizenship.” On June 17 the Center held a panel discussion featuring top education scholars who explored core themes from these works and explained why humanistic education, as it has developed over the last century, is so well...
The goal of education for global citizenship is steadily on the rise. This is a welcome development, one that inspires hope for the fate of our world. Universities have been taking the lead in this effort for a number of years now. For example, Northeastern University (with whom we partner in their student Cooperative Education program), decribes itself as "a leader in global experiential education," with most of its students spending a semester overseas working for an NGO. K-12 schools also emphasize increasing global awareness, often through environmental- or civic-related projects that...
Now Available for Purchase!
Knowing Our Worth:
Conversations on Energy and Sustainability
by Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker and Daisaku Ikeda
What is to be done? No challenge summons this question more urgently than the global challenge of transitioning to clean, efficient, and renewable energy...
As much as we want to "increase the peace," sometimes we also want to "increase the confrontation." This comment by educator, author, and activist Matt Meyer captured the tone of the recent panel discussion "Glimmers of Hope: Peace Education Around the Globe," co-sponsored by the Ikeda Center and the University of San Francisco (USF) School of Education. Joining Mr. Meyer on the panel were Monisha Bajaj of USF, Maria Hantzopoulos of Vassar College, and Tetsushi Ogata of the University of California, Berkeley. The event was moderated by USF doctoral student in education Mahi Takazawa. The...
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Ikeda Center for Peace, Learning, and Dialogue
396 Harvard Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
Phone: (617) 491.1090 Fax: (617) 491.1169