Undergraduate / Franklin & Marshall -Who is a Diplomat to you? 'I and my colleagues' [5]

Near the end of Theodore Roosevelt's first term, Russia and Japan were fighting a war over control of Manchuria and Korea. Roosevelt volunteered to act as mediator and at first, both sides turned him down. Then the Russians lost Port Arthur and reconsidered. The two sides sent representatives to the naval yard in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, for negotiations. Roosevelt had a luncheon for the representatives on the presidential yacht and monitored the progress of the talks. The parties agreed to the Treaty of Portsmouth which meant the end of the fighting and Japan returned the northern end of the Sakhalin Island to Russia and dropped its demand for indemnity. In return, Russia returned southern Manchuria to the Chinese and they all agreed to recognize Japanese control of Korea. For his participation, Roosevelt received the Nobel Peace Prize, the first American to win this award. To me, a diplomat is not only a professional in a pin-striped suit negotiating peace and hammering out terms of a particular treaty, but any person who initiates peace and equality for the betterment of everybody.

I was once part of a learning links program that taught at a public school in Ghana every Thursday. Some of the kids I taught were smart and some were slow so I had to teach in a way that wouldn't offend the slow learners and irritate the others. It was sad that the local teacher had already separated the students into slow and fast learners. When the slow learners gave me wrong answers the local teacher who had now resorted to relaxing on a chair at the back of the class shouted at them as if they were embarrassing her. I didn't expect a collective display of intelligence from these students because even from the way the class was divided, learning wasn't favorable to the slow learners because they developed insecurity and hatred. What their teacher had done was create a kind of verbal war between these two groups since they often argued in their local language and only reconciled when classes ended. After realizing these differences among the students, I and my colleagues rearranged the class before teaching and advised the teacher to do same. After two weeks it was surprising that all students including the slow learners raised their hands to answer questions and I can boldly say that I and my colleagues are diplomats.