Open Learning ExchangeUniversal Basic Education 2015

Dr. Richard Rowe, President of Open Learning Exchange (OLE), and Larry Direnger, Executive Director of Educators for Social Responsibility (ESR) National met in ESR’s Cambridge offices on August 14 to sign an important and far-reaching Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). The agreement permits OLE to distribute through the Billion Kids Library all of ESR’s materials on conflict resolution and aggression mediation, which have been used successfully in urban school systems throughout the United States.

Once the materials are in the Library, they will be available for use and adaption by teachers and leaders all around the world.

The agreement also anticipates OLE and ESR working jointly to provide training for OLE centers in Rwanda, Ghana, Haiti, and other locations where conflict and civil turmoil have been a key issue.

Plans are underway to help ESR localize their programs in these international areas through the inclusion of local content and references to local issues. The content of Connected and Respected a nationally respected K-6 curriculum, and ESR’s equally acclaimed Conflict Resolution in the Middle School and Conflict Resolution in the High School will become available to OLE members around the world as a complete K-12 curriculum.

–Joe Rappa

OLE’s lead software engineer Paul Cézanne spoke to a standing-room-only crowd at the Truro, Massachusetts, library when he gave a presentation on astronomy on August 12th. Cézanne’s interest was obviously shared by the group, which asked lively questions about topics ranging from constellation mythology to UFOs.

His talk was grouped around celestial bodies and events: the Milky Way, the constellations, the moon, Jupiter, and the current Perseid meteor showers. Mixing humor, academics, and his own personal experiences as an amateur astronomer, Cézanne gave a lively talk and then took participants outside to the library’s deck, where he’d set up his Burgess five-inch refractor telescope on a computerized German equatorial mount, and gave everyone the opportunity to take an exciting up-close-and-personal look at the moon and at Jupiter.

Cézanne can often be seen at the base of MacMillan Pier in Provincetown, Massachusetts, inviting passers-by to “come see the moon!”