Summary:

This article is a summary of the authors' reflections on the Education Diplomacy Course offered by the Association for Childhood Education International (ACEI). The authors embarked on a journey of discovery through learning in a community and reflecting on each other's personal takeaways.
When we first started, we had a confused and vague idea of education diplomacy. But all of us dived into this new learning opportunity. We were aware that diplomacy has traditionally been seen to be "... the conduct of relations between sovereign states through the medium of officials based at home or abroad" (Berridge and James, 2003, p. 69). As such, in the traditional sense, a diplomat is one appointed by the government to conduct official negotiations and maintain political, economic and social relations with another country.
During the course, however, we discovered the "new diplomacy" in which each one of us can play a leadership role as education diplomats who take on the responsibility of identifying an education issue, initiating an idea, advocating and negotiating a sustainable plan that would improve the lives of children and their families. We also found answers to the questions: Why is education diplomacy important? What exactly is education diplomacy? Who is the education diplomat? What does it require of us? And, how do we carry out our role as an education diplomat? This article will address these questions each in turn.