Cyprus-Forum.com

[kurupetos]

D'oh! Welcome back mate!

[jahitty]

Welcome to the forum, i will also check your website when i have more time, I agree with the concept of a shared educational experience, but it must not be a private education, the English School in Nicosia has incredibly high fees and only the wealthiest can send their children thus creating an further division. The elite so far have made things worse. A shared school would only be effective if it was open to ALL TC and GC cypriots particularly from dis-advantaged backgrounds but with a good general all round mix. The elites are part of the problem, the majority of GC and TC's I know that are in regular contact (over dacades) have close relations are normal everyday working people. Elites have another agenda, maybe votes, buisness interest etc etc that are too important to sacrifice. We need to educate our children from all backgrounds together as one, period!

[Mills Chapman]

Kurupetos, thanks for the warm welcome back.

Jahitty, thanks for your post. I agree with you on everything, and on my website and in this bibliography I just posted, I state that a) 40% of the kids would be drawn from the general public through a lottery simply for the reasons you stated, and b) most of the fees would be picked up by the budgets for the other conflicts I mention on http://www.1for2.org as an R&D expense (research & development) for resolving their conflicts (Iraq, Korea, Israel-Palestinians, etc.)

Cypriot parents would just be asked to pay - confidentially - what they think their child's education is worth and what they can also afford. And that payment can include hours volunteered at the school (planting flowers, helping out in the school library, etc.). Otherwise, if it were completely free to the parents, the school might not have an effect on these parents' attitudes. There would only be an external justification for them, not an internal justification too. (This matters when creating the needed cognitive dissonance.)

[jahitty]

Im a teacher in Cyprus myself, I am currently developing educational projects that I would like to pilot,the school you propose would be an ideal place to try it out. Are you in Cyprus at the moment? I believe the volunteering aspect is something that should be promoted heavily. Can you tell how you reached the 40% figure and what do you mean by 'bugdets for other conflicts'?

[Mills Chapman]

Jahiity,

Thanks for the reply. I am not in Cyprus at the moment. I am in Philadelphia, in the USA, and I will likely be here for at least another year, if not longer. I appreciate your interest in this school, but unfortunately it will be a long time before it is built, at least with my direct help. There are some personal things that I need to deal with over the next 12 months, and only then will I be able to write up a formal proposal for this school and figure out how to apply for grants and how to start a non-profit advocacy to support my work in proposing this school for Cyprus and the other conflicts.

About the 40% number, it is somewhat arbitrary. Enough of the students have to come from families with relatives in the government in order for the school to have the "cognitive-dissonance" and "psychology of inevitability" effects that I think it can have - over two decades or more - on these families and the politicians' attitudes. If you don't have enough of these students, the direct effect of the school's impact on politicians' attitudes won't be as great, the chances of it catalyzing a Cyprus solution several decades from now won't be as great, and thus you will get a lot less funding from international donors.

At the same time, enough students have to be drawn in by public lottery to assure people that it won't just be an elitist school for the politicians' families. So, I figured that 60% of the student body coming from governmental families is the lowest number international donors would accept, and 100-60 = 40%.

About the "budgets for other conflicts," I mean the amount of money that the international community is spending on trying to resolve or keep the status quo in the following conflicts:
a) the Israeli-Palestinian conflict;
b) Iraq
c) Afghanistan
d) the Korean stalemate
e) the Kashmir problem between India and Pakistan
f) Northern Ireland (there is a peace agreement there, but it is very fragile)
g) Lebanon
and h) the Golan Heights issue between Syria and Israel

See the above places described on http://www.1for2.org . These are all conflicts where I think a school like the one I see for Cyprus could help mitigate the tension or resolve the conflict (in these respective locations). I also think this could work in Bahrain which is dealing with heated tensions between its Sunni rulers and its population that is mostly Shia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Bahraini_uprising). Add all of the money being spent every year in trying to resolve these conflicts (or maintain the fragile status quo), and you get a total dollar/euro figure that is well into the billions. (You can choose your currency on that one.) In all of these places, most of the donors are eager for a solution...

but can't find one, just like in Cyprus.

Thus, if we can make a plausible argument that The Cypriot School could lead to a Cyprus solution (albeit several decades after the school is built), we can argue that the schooling model could be replicated in these other conflicts with similar results. The Cypriot School would be the prototype. Since it would be the prototype for similar schools in other conflicts, we can argue that The Cypriot School is entitled to a small sliver of the funds currently being spent on these other conflicts. Without a successful Cypriot School, similar schools would never be built in these other conflicts, and thus these other conflicts would be denied a possible solution, and the billions being spent every year would continue into perpetuity.

A lot of people are impatient for a solution, and I respect that. If I lived in Cyprus, I would be impatient too. Yet at the same time, there is a need for people to look at very long-term strategies, strategies that won't payoff in the next couple of years or even the next decade, and this is one of those strategies. It's like investing for retirement when you are in your 30's. You must have the discipline to start early. You can't wait until you are 59.

Jahitty, I wish you well with the educational projects that you are developing.

- Mills

[Mills Chapman]

Hi Friends,

There's nothing major here that I haven't already described, but I thought I would share some diagrams that I recently added to my http://www.1for2.org website.

- http://www.1for2.org/12thecypriotschool ... rolds.html
- http://www.1for2.org/15howtcsmightcatal ... attcs.html
- http://www.1for2.org/15howtcsmightcatal ... ttree.html
- http://www.1for2.org/16howtcsmightcatal ... part2.html
- http://www.1for2.org/12thecypriotschool ... ation.html

- Mills

[Mills Chapman]

Hi Friends,

It has been awhile, and I am sorry for the delay. Here is the latest: http://www.peaceschools.org and http://www.cypriotschool.org . It's not perfect, but it's all I have for now.

I have some non-related things to deal with over the next 2-3 months, but my plan is to then
a) write a book to explain this concept more fully, a book that I will likely self-publish (book and e-book);
b) have the peaceschools.org website professionally remade;
c) create a video animation to better explain the process; and
d) perhaps start a nonprofit to advocate for the concept and its implementation.

Thanks for your continued interest, and let me know if you pass through Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
-Mills
p.s. That was a poorly constructed poll I made at the beginning of this thread.

[Mills Chapman]

It's been awhile, and I am still here. Got sidetracked a bit.

It's gruesome, but here we go for "The Best Possible Peace Process for At Least 10 Conflicts in the World" (http://www.peaceschools.org), beginning with Cyprus:

My next steps in order after I get back from a short trip this week.

1 page in MS Word of "rabbit hole" weblinks on the Internet to pour through (this was 32 pages of links about two months ago),
>
7 (and possibly more) paper books to browse through in a library, and 16 (and possibly more) articles to get (not on my laptop)
-----
No outside world needed beyond this point (No internet nor libraries); I could be locked in a basement with no internet and just my laptop and would be fine
-----
515 articles so far (and possibly more) already on my laptop to browse through
>
17 pages of loose notes so far (no order at all, the "kitchen sink") in MS Word -
>
205 one-page "index cards" so far in MS Word (documents that are one-page at the most, sorted by sub-topic, with citations included)
>
27 pages existing of text so far

and that's just the rough draft.

Thanks for reading. Back to the cave. - Mills

[Sotos]

I see you put a lot of time into this, but your whole concept is wrong, at least for Cyprus. The problem here is a problem of conflicting interests. Turkey promises to the TCs territory and powers which neither belong to them nor they deserve, and while GCs are willing to compromise, what the Turkish side is demanding is way too much to be accepted. For the past 15 years we had so called "Confident Building Measures", which they had ZERO positive effect because the root cause is not lack of confidence but conflicting interests.

[MR-from-NG]

I see you put a lot of time into this, but your whole concept is wrong, at least for Cyprus. The problem here is a problem of conflicting interests. Turkey promises to the TCs territory and powers which neither belong to them nor they deserve, and while GCs are willing to compromise, what the Turkish side is demanding is way too much to be accepted. For the past 15 years we had so called "Confident Building Measures", which they had ZERO positive effect because the root cause is not lack of confidence but conflicting interests.

Yes, confidence building measures. The TC's are at risk each time they cross the border south. If you're lucky you'll get away with slashed tyres and a broken windscreen. On a bad day you could end up badly beaten needing a visit to the local hospital. And we can all be confident not a single person will be questioned or arrested. I'm inclined to think the perpetrators would even get a pat on the back. Confidence Building Measures?.......... .My arse!!!!!!