EDL 640: Module 3

February 15, 2024 

Daily Peace Action: Social Media Pause

For this peace action I decided to have a day off of all social media.  In the morning on Sunday I deleted all social media apps from my phone so that I would not be tempted to open and mindlessly scroll. I found an article from the University of California - Davis that outlined some of the ways that social media can have a negative impact on mental health and happiness. 

This was harder than I thought it would be.  Several times I felt myself pick up my phone and try to scroll through instagram. The news lately has caused me a lot of stress and anxiety and having a social media black out day made me focus on what I was doing.  I took a walk with my husband, read a book, shopped at the local market and cooked a Thai curry from scratch. My husband is already a person who does not use social media and is on board to continue this on the weekend because it was a really nice way for us to connect without any outside influences. 

Peace Education Quote

"But working together we can create cultures that suppport our highest human potentials: our great capacities for caring, empathy, and creativity. We can all help build these cultures through partnership education."   -Riane Eisler in Educating for a Culture of Peace

I chose this quote from the lesson's readings because it highlighted that humanity has common qualities of caring, empathy, and creativity. All people are capable of these emotions. I think that this is something that is often forgotten when we have discourse about different cultures, values, and ideas.  Lately in the media there is a feeling of "us vs. them" whether it is about American politics, wars in Ukraine and Palestine, or any other number of current events such as the immigration crises in European countries.  

Reflection

I chose my peace education quote from the Eisner article because I found it to be interesting and gave me a better insight about peace education.  This article was written in 2004 and many of the points are still true today. Violence is happening all around us, violence against woman and minorities is still prevalent, and the need for peace education continues. 

Turkey and Texas have a lot in common when it comes to gender stereotypes, especially around women needing to be less agressive and very feminine and boys are encouraged to be masculine and powerful.  I think that Eisler did a great job of explaining that this can lead the way to a normalization of the idea that men can and should exert power over women if they are seen as being out of line. The article also points out that this is not the same in Nordic countries where women often hold positions of power in government and the ideas that violence against women and children are prohibited. It seems that many western countries would benefit from the Nordic influence on how gender stereotypes are seen and challenged in partnership models rather than one group being "dominant".

Case Study: Egerton Ryerson

I had never heard of Egerton Ryerson before reading the case study, but I had heard of the Canadian residential school before. I knew that even recently there has been light shed on the atrocities of violence, abuse, and even death. It sounds like Egerton Ryerson was a man of his time and promotoed the assimilation of native peoples to Western ideals of education and living. It seems that his view of the indigenous populations was that their culture was not as important and should be done away with in order to have more control over these groups of people.

I was curious to learn more about him and found information from Brock University. Ryerson had strong beliefs that girls did not need education past a certain point and that a woman's place was in the home. Although we now discredit these ideas, he was not alone in his beliefs. I think that these harmful gender stereotypes are still present, although they have evolved to fit the modern day. I think that it is good that we have begun to question the legacy of people who had good intentions but did real harm to women and minority groups. We need accountability in order to move forward and do better.