Solidarity with Colombian Teachers

By Anjum Khan, CASJ Peace and Global Education Action Group and Vancouver Elementary teacher

In November 2019, a group of BCTF delegates—together with representatives from the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation, Centrale des syndicats du Québec, and the Canadian Teachers’ Federation—visited Colombia to better understand the country’s process towards peace within the context of education. Organized by the BCbased, non-governmental organization CoDevelopment Canada (CoDev), the group of Canadian delegates spent a week in Bogotá and various provincial departments participating in provincial teacher conferences, listening to stories from teacher activists, and observing their work in their communities.

“All education is political; teaching is never a neutral act.” Paulo Freire’s words in his book Pedagogy of the Oppressed never rang so true as they do in Colombia. After six decades of struggle and suffering due to violence, mass killings, and threats to social leaders, the war in Colombia has claimed more than 220,000 lives and generated close to 5 million refugees. With over 1,000 teachers assassinated, executed, or missing in the last 30 years, Colombian teachers have been direct victims of violence. While they have always endeavoured to create schools characterized by a culture of peace, Colombian teachers have more recently dedicated themselves to building new communities where students will grow up with books instead of bullets.

The Colombian Educator’s Federation (FECODE), CoDev’s LatinAmerican partner, has implemented the project Schools as Territories of Peace with the goal of developing an alternative education system for peace in Colombia. The project aims to reconstruct the historical memory of schools with regards to the effects of war and violence, and also strives to educate the new generation using a mindset and culture of peace and respect for human rights.

During our visit, delegates took part in FECODE’s provincial encounters of pedagogical circles, which were established to train teachers in the pedagogy of solidarity and the implementation of alternative experiences of peace. Delegates attended various teacher conferences in different geographical departments where Colombian teachers presented the projects that were taking place in their communities.

The diverse and professionally developed presentations often related to the master’s thesis work teachers were undertaking and addressed the unique situations within teachers’ communities. The range of topics included environmental issues, a model United Nations, and dance and art projects, among many others. Teachers spoke about the challenges they were facing, especially in rural areas, and explained how they were helping to unite communities by creating centres for discussion. The pedagogical gatherings created spaces for teachers to share ideas, discuss successful practices, and reflect on how they were addressing the challenges they were facing.

Although Colombia has experienced armed conflict of varying intensity since the 1960s, a peace agreement was signed in 2016. As a result of the agreement, the nation is currently carrying out a Truth Commission. The commission was created to provide a comprehensive explanation of what occurred during the conflict, to acknowledge the experiences of victims, and to underscore the collective responsibility of ensuring such violations will not be repeated. The commission is looking for as many different victims as possible to include as voices in its truth-seeking process, including Colombians living abroad. The United Nations High Commission for Refugees has estimated that Canada has the fourth highest population of Colombian refugees after Venezuela, Ecuador, and Costa Rica.

Colombia’s Truth Commission has undergone several budget cuts and has placed restrictions on the public funds that can be spent abroad. It relies on international co-operation, donors, and allies that can support its international work.

Our visit to Bogotá coincided with several other notable events. One of these events was the photographic exhibition “El Testigo” [The Witness] by the award-winning graphic reporter Jesús Abad Colorado. Colorado’s own story of violence began when a mob entered his home when he was a child, killing his grandfather and slitting the throat of the youngest child. His grief-stricken grandmother died four months later. The exhibition included over 500 photos, mostly black and white, taken between 1992 and 2018. The photos capture the pain of the war through stories and events of the armed conflict, displacement, and reconstruction of the social fabric in different regions of the country. The exhibit was mostly apolitical, but it strongly reflected the tragedy the war has brought to the individual lives of the people of Colombia, especially the rural population. The photographs and exhibit as a whole brought tears to my eyes on several occasions.

Colombia is one of the most ethnically, linguistically, and biologically diverse countries in the Americas. It has a very rich cultural heritage and a varied geographical landscape. The country contains dense jungles in the Amazon Basin, towering snow-covered volcanoes and mountains in the Andes, tropical beaches, deserts, and vast grasslands. Its history includes the settlements of Indigenous peoples from the Muisca Confederation, the Quimbaya civilization, and the Tairona chiefdoms among others. The intense struggles and atrocities of the country’s past are hard to imagine when you meet the warm, generous, and kindhearted people—people who have long been ready to move on from the war and killings to develop harmonious communities that begin with children learning about peace.

Within the BC or Canadian education context, many of us bring peace education to life in our classrooms and schools. We teach students the practice of mindfulness and conflict-resolution skills, and we establish peace tables within the class for children to navigate their own resolutions with guidance. Take a moment to imagine the extent and importance of this work in contributing to a peaceful community and world. Day to day, these practices may seem like small steps, but we must remember that these are skills that will stay with our students as they move into their futures and take on leadership roles within their communities.

Teaching is challenging and important work—work that makes a difference in individual lives and communities both locally and globally. Teaching is political. As teachers, we truly impact what our society will look like and strongly influence how peaceful our world can become.