My Nonprofit Reviews

I have worked with iEARN in some capacity for 30 years. I am currently a board member but I have had many hats over the many years. I brought learning circles to iearn in 2000 and facilitated them for a number of years. Learning circles (onlinelearningcircles.org) is a structure for worldwide collaboration. In secondary and elementary schools, projects are drawn from the classroom curriculum of the learning circle participants. By learning with the world (instead of about it), students develop strong personal connections to worldwide events. They not only learn what is happening but they are able to learn from the students their age what is like to be in the middle of a news event. Student reporters give a unique perspective on social, cultural and environmental events that create a much deeper understanding. When knowledge is paired with the emotional marker that comes with personal connections, it is understood and remembered far longer than content from books. Learning with the world is a powerful way for all of us to learn. For the last decade or so, I have been on the board, and I have been increasing my donations every year as I see the important work that iEARN does to bring global education, both virtually and in person, to educators and students around the world. I have seen teachers who were planning on retiring early change their minds and keep working because they found that connections with teachers around the world gave their careers new life. Love or learning is what should drive schools, but too often, schools have lost the joy of learning. iEARN brings that joy to teachers and students as they work together to heal the planet and mend relationships across cultural barriers. Please join us in this important mission.

More Feedback

I have been connected to iEARN almost from its inception. In the early days we worked on parallel networks but I joined iEARN in 1994. I have seen it evolve as it continues to serve its core mission - to safeguard the planet and build better relationships among the peoples who live here. For generations iEARN has been helping teachers and students to learn with the world. The work is made ever so critical in our current climate. It is a world wide network of people who care about each other.

I have been connected with iEARN in many overlapping ways since 1988. This is an amazing organization. For all of these years, it has been helping students, teachers, and educators find ways to heal the planet by developing strong, caring relationships among all of her many people. With the mission of helping everyone feel the power of service learning, we have come together in dozens of countries and participated in the incredible stories of change. We have cheered as students first and second graders saved a pond that is now the center of a community park, as students bought and fixed bicycles for kids without parents to buy them, as students experimented with solar ovens to find the best model to share with families who cook over open fires, as special needs students worked together to solve the problems they identified at their schools, and as we told and heard hundreds of more stories that inspire the soul, and energize the spirit. My own contact has been as friend, project designer, conference participant, engaged educator, and now board member. In each of these roles I have been impressed with the dedication and devotion of all of the people who live the spirit of iEARN. I often describe it as the “united nations of schools” where students are the people who take responsibility for examining and solving the problems that are earth shaking. When we invite the generations of youth to the table, they have power to do what adults often find too complicated and too difficult to achieve. If there is hope to find in the world, it is in the interchanges between the youth of the world who see problems as invitations to innovate, and are willing to face history through facing themselves learning to see their own part in conflict and their own responsibility for conflict resolution. This is an organization that is doing undeniable good in the world and deserves the support and recognition of all of us. All students should have the experience of learning with the world, not just about it!

Dr. Margaret Riel
Project Facilitator and now Board Member
iEARN