For the Press

A former principal, Dr. Fred Mednick founded Teachers Without Borders (TWB) in 2000 to connect teachers to information and each other to close the education divide. Initiatives are conceived and led by teachers in developing countries. Members represent 171 countries. TWB has been awarded the Champion of African Education Award, the 2018 Luxembourg Peace Prize, and the 2018 Ahmadiyya Muslim Prize for Peace.

He has taught at Johns Hopkins University and is currently Professor Emeritus in Education Sciences at Vrije Universiteit Brussel.

AUTHOR RESUME

Compelling, heartwarming stories that make the case that teachers are global changemakers in everyone’s backyard.” In the Small Places zeroes in on teachers who have tackled some of the world’s most intractable challenges: education in emergencies, peace and human rights education, and girls’ education.

Teachers are the largest professionally-trained group in the world. They know who is sick, missing, orphaned by disasters, and at risk for human trafficking. Their classrooms are laboratories for democracy to teach critical thinking, inclusion, justice, and peace-building. Simply put, teachers are the glue that holds our fragile social contract together and a development army for good.

This book is an evocative and personal look at how teachers can be the central protagonists in the global change-making space. Teachers are not the problem (as they are so often portrayed), but the solution. Their voices must be heard.

The title, "In the Small Places," was inspired by Eleanor Roosevelt's speech at the ten-year anniversary of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights: "Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home — so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world.” These stories are centered in those small places, writ large.

— See the Discussion Guide, which includes resources for teachers\

Undergraduates and graduate students: This book fits as an engaging and informative resource applicable to undergraduate and graduate courses in teacher preparation, education innovation, leadership, and social entrepreneurship. Themes include girls’ education, education in emergencies, and issues in peace and human rights—from grassroots change-making to the level of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Chapters shared with students have sparked action projects, theses, and a renewed commitment to service.

Book club nonfiction readers and community-read programs: Just as great teaching finds a way in, through, and forward a skill, competency, or approach, this book introduces readers to global issues from teachers’ perspectives, shows how they have overcome obstacles, and illustrates how human agency and reciprocity can be replicated and scaled. It is intended to leave one informed, hopeful, angry, engaged, and inspired to make a difference.

Teachers and Teacher trainers: Teachers are the largest professionally-trained market in the world. Recent reports have shown a substantial interest and participation in teacher book clubs and podcast communities focusing on social and global topics such as race, justice, and inclusion. The teachers who have read the book say that it both affirmed and reminded them of why they entered the profession.

In the Small Places avoids the soapbox and pedantic lecturing in favor of humility, humor, and a lesson plan for hope. It is certain to resonate with college students and the public because the stories are authentic and relatable. Even more, readers will recognize that, as one U.N. official told me, "a teacher is anyone with information to share."

Engaged readers will see these stories within a larger context: how organizations form and grow; the tensions between bottom-up and top-down development; the connections between education and human rights, democracy, and the welfare of refugees; the impact of globalism on development; teachers’ ingenuity and gritty drive to make a difference despite a lack of resources, neglect, or respect; and reflections on what we mean by progress in a world where rhetoric and conspiracy theories have minimized respect for truth, undermined democracy and stripped away human rights.