Education as Reflection

From the Andra Pradesh Mahila Samatha organization:

"Education is understood as a process which enables women to question, conceptualize, seek answers, act, reflect upon their actions and raise new questions. It is not to be confused with meer literacy."

Chambers on Development

"As people we are now, as never before, in all this together. All of us human beings, wildly different though our circumstances are-young men caged and tormented in Guantanamo Bay, corporate fat cats complacent in capital cities, child soldiers in African conflicts, middle class children of the OECD, skinny people scouring for scraps and obese people stuffed sick, those who see evil and those who see good, those who hate and those who love, fundamentalist and ecumenicals, believers and skeptics-a kaleidoscope of people, culture, languages, faiths and beliefs...We see all these differences, but they are overwhelmed by what we have in common-our global habitat, our miraculous genes, our brains, the mystery of consciousness, our ability to reflect on ourselves and our potential for selfishness and greed to be overturned by generosity and altruism."

-Robert Chambers

Courage

"At the very lowest time, in a moment of hopeless despair, when any effort at all seemed impossible, the word 'courage' suddenly appeared in my mind...With some magic of its own, it unhooked the last deep place of aversion and fear about what was happening that was keeping me separate from the experience. It brought forth the courage of simply being...Courage is not about changing anything o grasping for some better state. Its the valor of truly being present."
-Joseph Goldstein