Educating the Heart

At the 2009 Vancouver Peace Summit there will be over a dozen brilliant minds coming together in an effort to reframe the idea of education. Educating the Heart will feature two unique discussions on how education can be more than just personal or professional advancement, but also influential in the advancement of peace.

The list of people joining the Dalai Lama ranges from academics and activists to educators and entertainers, all of whom care deeply about the potential of education in peace-building.

Creativity and Well-being

This session will feature Sir Ken Robinson, Eckhart Tolle, Daniel Siegel, the Blue Man Group, and Murray Gell-Mann.

Creativity is often seen as something necessary to construct magnificent pieces of art or great feats of architecture but as these speakers will discuss, creativity also plays an integral role in the establishment and preservation of our happiness. They will also explore how education can promote creativity (watch Sir Ken Robinson describe how education is currently stunting creativity)

Heart-Mind Education

This session will feature Clyde Hertzman, Kim Schonert-Reichl, Stephen Covey, Mairead Maguire and Adele Diamond.

As Stephen Covey told the Dalai Lama Center, “The heart represents the deepest part of your nature, the mind is our education. When you put the two of them together, you have a pure motive.”

Three of the speakers at this session – Hertzman, Schonert-Reichl and Diamond – are world-renowned experts who operate right out of Vancouver, the home of the Dalai Lama Center. Hertzman is the director of Human Early Learning Development (HELP). HELP’s research focuses on exploring how a child's environment affects their development. Schonert-Reichl’s work is focused on social cognitive development, emotional development and the influence of contexts on development. Her research has proven that these skills are critical in developing empathy and compassion. Diamond’s research focuses on early development of Executive Function – cognitive skills that enable self-control and emotional regulation, working memory and adaptability. Her research has shown that these skills can be taught to children as young as preschoolers in regular classrooms with regular teachers - at minimal cost.

Tickets for Educating the Heart, which includes both the discussion on Creativity and Well-being and Heart-Mind Education, are still available at www.ticketmaster.ca.