Education in conflict- A Utopian dream?

Note to reader: this is a RANT and I am angry about other things also so I am unreasonably angry in this blog post

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We've all seen those pictures and videos coming out Palestine. I don't need to attach those here.

We've all seen conflicts around the world growing up- in newspapers, then on Facebook, now on Instagram.

We've all seen the children.

Children who can barely survive. Children who are losing their families, their homes, themselves.

We've talked about how ironic it is that the US-centric NGOs started taking education in conflict, or conflict in general, seriously after 9/11. How problems seem important only when they become WHITE problems. Fuck them, right? That's so self-centered- so shallow.

Is it not shallow and self-centered to think that we have all the answers? That we know that the golden key to everything is providing education to these kids? That education will help them 'cope and hope'?

I'm sure the people who came up with these studies have done their research- there must be a reason why the INEE was created. They're not just pulling this shit out of their ass- I'm sure that education DOES have all those transformative qualities that they claim it does.

What I have beef with is the fact that it is all so extremely theoretical.

How do you bring all those theories to life? How do you have context-specific interventions that end up actually doing good and making a change?

How can you say that education needs to be a first priority response along with medical aid, food and shelter, when it is probably not even in the top 20 priorities for those actually affected? (It's possible that education is a first priority for them- I don't know.)

There is so much we've studied about how important education is- it undoubtedly is. I agree. There's been so much about interventions- the School in a Box program, NGOs dispatching resources for governments to distribute, short two-week training workshops for members of the community. I think everyone is sick of me constantly asking HOW but in spite of all the detail we've studies, all the case scenarios we've read about, that is a question that's still unanswered for me and it's driving me crazy.

What's also driving me crazy is the fact that I know that there are no answers. It may just be my irrational need to control or fix every situation ever but it is so frustrating NOT having a solution. What do you mean there's no right answer? That's insane.

My question throughtout the course and to you the reader then is: Do you think education in conflict is possible? Do you think there truly is an answer or a solution to this problem? And how important do you think education really is in a warzone- realistically?

Maybe the real question is whether education matters more to us than survival does to them.