Daisaku Ikeda’s Cosmopolitan Curriculum of Value-Creation

• In Event: A Cosmopolitan Curriculum of Value Creation: Examining Daisaku Ikeda’s Philosophy of Education

Abstract

The first panelist will explore Daisaku Ikeda’s philosophy of cosmopolitan education as a way to set up a theoretical background to all subsequent presentations. Ikeda articulates his philosophy of cosmopolitan education in terms of the promotion of three virtues:
(1) The wisdom to perceive the interconnectedness of all life and living; (2) The courage not to fear or deny difference, but to respect and strive to understand people of different cultures and to grow from encounters with them; (3) The compassion to maintain an imaginative empathy that reaches beyond one’s immediate surroundings and extends to those suffering in distant places (2010b, 112-113).

These three virtues of global citizenship are mapped out onto three aspects of the cosmopolitan curriculum. With respect to the wisdom to perceive the interconnectedness of life, Ikeda insists in learning in schools are continuous with the life of local communities and calls for an education for global citizenship as “integral part of daily life in our local communities” (2010b, p. 116). With respect to the courage not to fear or deny difference, Ikeda proposes that educative relationships be intense and demanding “engagement of the entire personality” (2006, p. 118). Ikeda’s cosmopolitan curriculum places the relationship of teacher and student at the center of the learning process and especially values moral and intellectual integrity in the teacher as source of motivation for the students (see Goulah, 2010). Concerning compassion, Ikeda proposes the study of issues of justice at a global level as a way to understand structures of injustice and conditions of suffering for people near and far. His proposed curriculum focuses on peace education, environmental education, developmental education, and human rights education. The liberal arts curriculum of Soka University of America, founded by Ikeda, is distinctive for its emphasis on these subjects.
Following the same pattern, three capacities as outcomes of Ikeda’s vision of a cosmopolitan curriculum are mapped out onto the three virtues of wisdom, courage and compassion. The first is concerned with the capacity to value values (Hansen et al., 2009), the second pertains the capacity to criticize values (Hansen et al., 2009), and the third is about the capacity for value creation.
This cosmopolitan curriculum does not naively celebrate globalization, but constitutes a critical response to such processes. The global citizen according to Ikeda does not regard this world of unfathomable diversity as a barrier-free marketplace for cultural consumption, but as a value-laden space for cultural responsibility. Under this vision of a cosmopolitan curriculum of value-creation, acquisition of knowledge and skills is not enough. The emphasis, instead, is in engagement, with individuals in the learning process, with local communities, with the world at large.

Author

• Gonzalo Obelleiro, Teachers College, Columbia University