Peace Education

Philosophical Principles as Pedagogy for Social Change Mary Lee Morrison

you will teach me first, my students, the character of my indifference and the dark confusion of being young. I will teach you then my students, a hope that lies beneath the surface, a love inherent in the nature of things. follow the course of it to the end of knowing; gather the thread of it line by line.

Poem by Michael True, in Ordinary People: Family Life and Global Values.

What is Peace Education

Peace education is the pedagogical efforts to create a world at peace. By peace, we mean more than the absence of violence (negative peace) (Galtung).

Peace in its most positive aspects embraces ideas of justice, global sustainability and the eradication of structures that promote insecurity: poverty, hunger, malnutrition and lack of access to resources

Peace Education rests on 2 assumptions

Conflict is ubiquitous There are ways to transform it

Education for peace assumes peace in education (M.Haavelsrud)

Peace Education Holds Both Philosophical Principles and Processes (Skills)

Peace education is visionary and inherently moral

Philosophy of Peace Education Involves

Nonviolence Love as the basis for transformationtranslated into caring classrooms (Noddings, Martin) Reverence for the environment and for all life

Processes of peace education Include

Skills of conflict resolution (transformation) Attitudes Values These rest on the ethos of having enough for all to sustain life

Betty Reardon has defined peace education as

the attempt to promote the development of an authentic planetary consciousness that will enable us to function as global citizens and to transform the present human condition by changing the social structures and patterns of thought that have created it. The transformational imperative must be at the center, both in knowledge and values. (Comprehensive Peace Education)

The root of education

Is educare To lead out Peace education seeks to draw out from people their own best instincts to live more peacefully with others. This implies working from within, starting the transformation of society beginning with each individual.

Peace education

Seeks to build on the philosophy and the processes of nonviolence to help us understand the role that conflict and violence have played in our own lives, seeking ways to transform them. Peace educators point out both the value of and the risk of conflict and social change.

Peace education

Appreciates the richness of the concept of peace Addresses fears Provides a futures orientation (imagination) Teaches peace as both a process and philosophy

Promotes peace as a concept alongside justice Promotes the care of and love of the Earth and respect for all life Teaches nonviolence as a way to settle differences

Peace education is practiced throughout the world in many settings

All have in common the idea of transforming conflict into something positive and sustainable so that our world will continue to turn. Peace education seeks to make and build peace through pedagogy. Peace education rests on the assumptions that morals and ethics cannot be separate from the classroom. The concept of responsibility, both individual and shared, is embedded in the philosophy.

How is it done?

An educator teaching peace will use conceptual elements of the philosophy and the processes to structure formal, informal and hidden curricula,

including classroom climate, tolerance, respect and those teachable moments that can transform classroom interactions and learning.

Some elements of the curricula

An understanding of war and its causes An understanding of violence and its causes Knowledge of the military and its structures An understanding of some principles of world order, including the United Nations system An understanding of the role of citizen participation

Knowledge of NGOs and their impact on social change Knowledge of world-wide and local grassroots initiatives Principles of restorative justice Listening and dialoguing The importance of nonviolence

Elise Boulding, a founder of the peace research movement has said

There are certain characteristics that optimize young people growing up to be peacemakersthose who will seek to shape their societies toward peace (Building a Global Civic Culture).

These include: genetics, cognitive maturational processes, modeling and reinforcement, knowledge stock, cultural values and beliefs, family influence, peers, the media, community inputs. Models are key. The important function of education cannot be underestimated.

Who Has Gone Before?

Montessori in 1937our hope for the future lies not in the formal knowledge that we pass on, but in the normal development of the new man (sic) (Education for Peace).

Montessori has often been quoted as saying establishing peace is the work of education: all politics can do is keep us out of war.

John Dewey

Deweys philosophical ideas involved concepts of educating for peace. He saw the necessity of teachers loving their students- love through common selfsacrifice to reach the common good (found in Simpson and Jackson article in Educational Foundations-taken from Dewey MW5).

Dewey and other progressives were concerned about the growing militarism of America

Dewey connected ideal education to one involving values of peace Began the Outlawry of War campaign

Horace Mann hoped that common education could free humankind from the ever present danger of war

More Modern Educators

Neo-Deweyan Maxine Greenes understanding of education is releasing persons to be different-inherently reflecting concepts of freedom and choice-, listening and dialoguing in order to view things as they might be. J.R. Martin-schools as homes

The importance of nurturing

Sara Ruddick-maternal love giving rise to maternal practice can promote peace hooks-teaching to transgress-only happens with adequate nurturing. No dichotomy between education and social change. Healing of the world can happen if teachers know themselves and their students

Parker Palmer has written

The goal of knowledge arising from love is the reunification and reconstruction of broken selves and worlds. (To Know as we are Known: Education as a Spiritual Journey)

A Brief History of Peace Education

Contemporary view on peace education reflect the evolution of its concept from the beginnings of the peace research movement-40s and 50s

However its roots go back much further Reformers such as Addams and Fannie Fern Andrews

IPRA (The International Peace Research Association)-1965 and COPRED (Consortium on Peace, Research, Education and Development)-1970 were outgrowths of the work done by the Womens International League for Peace and Freedom

The relational and transformative elements of peace education arose partly out of the 2nd wave of the womens movement Peace began to be seen as including concepts of relationshipsinterpersonal, intercommunal and interglobal.

peace education rests on those values and attitudes often associated with women

Peace as a concept, and thus peace education, cannot be separated conceptually from networking, connecting people in mutually productive, constantly interacting processes of teaching and learning.

The Earth Charter as a Paradigm of Education for A Sustainable, Peaceful World

The Earth Charter is a declaration of fundamental principles laying out what is needed for to build a just, sustainable, and, ultimately, peaceful world 4 interconnected themes:

Respect and care for the community of life Ecological integrity Social and economic justice Democracy, nonviolence and peace

We are now at the mid-point of the UN designated Decade for a Culture of Peace We have just begun the Decade for Sustainable Development

From the Hague Appeal for Peace (2001)

A culture of peace will be achieved when citizens of the world understand global problems; have the skills to resolve conflicts constructively, know and live by international standards of human rights, gender and racial equality, appreciate cultural diversity and respect the integrity of the Earth. Such learning cannot be achieved without intentional, sustained and systematic education for peace.

Peace Education in Action

A Visit to Costa Rica

The University for Peace

Visit to Two Schools Implementing the Precepts of a Culture of Peace

With cooperation and support of the University for Peace and the Ministry of Education for Costa Rica

Three Themes

Peace with self Peace with others Peace with nature

Why do we do what we do?

From the Preamble to the Earth Charter

We stand at a critical moment in Earths history, a time when humanity must choose its future. It is imperative that we, the peoples of the Earth, declare our responsibility to one another, to the greater communiy of life and to future generations.

We urgently need a shared vision of basic values to provide an ethical foundation for the emerging world community.

To End:

My country is the world-to do good is my religion (Thomas Paine) We must not only prepare our children for the world-we must prepare the world for our children motto of Curbstone Press, a CT based 501 (c ) (3) organization http://www.cunepress.com/cunemagazine/n ews/articles/curbstone.htm