Educating in Conflict Zones
If there’s anything we can learn from this COVID 19 pandemic is that education is a privilege. To be able to learn online is a privilege that not all learners across the world can experience. Imagine being a student from a country where learning resources are scare already to begin with, and then COVID 19 happens and then a military takes over the country and starts arresting youths for taking part in protests. In a situation like this, how can the youth continue their education? Should they stop learning entirely? Can they continue to learn from free resources available? On the other hand, how can language teachers from abroad or the diaspora help learners continue with their language learning journey? I’d like to talk about what I have been doing to help learners in Myanmar continue their language learning and with this talk, I want to brainstorm ideas on 1). How teachers from different contexts can help 2). How we can use the ideas to introduce/integrate equity and diversity topics in our classes and 3). How can we connect our learners with the learners from conflict zones?