What is peace education (I)
‘Peace is possible for life at all stages and it is up to man to choose his destiny or to suffer from the horrors of war. Today mankind is at the cross- road where he has to choose with courage, determination and imagination.’
Federico Mayor on seeing this guide a teacher might wonder ‘Is it really necessary to teach peace as such? Whole education is for peace. Isn’t it already in the curriculum?’ She may be right in a sense. But the questions remain: Are we giving adequate attention today to teach peace? Are our schools really interested in producing a peaceful young generation ? Is it enough having mere peace concepts in the curriculum?
Violence is emerging in an unprecedented manner in human society. Looking at the world today any sensible person feels disheartened and even horrified to see the kind of violent acts being committed by man against man and nature. It is sad to realize that we live in an era of unprecedented violence in the forms of terrorism, war, crimes, injustice and oppression and exploitation amidst a seemingly outward development enjoyed by a few. The majority of mankind lives in stark poverty, struggling for bare survival. There is so much disorder and confusion in the society man has built for himself.
The saddest part of the story is that this state of disorder and confusion in the society is affecting the children’s innocent minds. Children naturally absorb the spirit of violence in the atmosphere and will soon grow to be the next generation of perpetuators of violence. Therefore the need to nurture peace in the hearts of children has arisen as urgent issues to be addressed.
Fortunately, a few countries may still remain unaffected by such forces extending over the surface of the earth. But the questions remain: How long can they remain so? No country can remain aloof under the pressures of globalization. Under the present secular forces education is narrowing down into the teaching of certain subject matters necessary only for passing examinations. Due to such subject- centred and examination-oriented learning at school the purpose and the beauty of F whole education seems to have much lost. The joy of learning is taken away from children. They are trained to cope with the rat race of the corrupt society. Today school is no more a place of leisure or of peace as the very word ‘school’ means. (The word school drives from Greek ‘&hole meaning leisure)
Today teachers complain about increasing disciplinary problems in schools. One teacher says, “I am appalled to see the mindless behaviour of the adolescents in school. Their mentality seems so different from us!” The public criticizes the youth whom we produce at schools as insensitive to the problems of society, selfish, narrow minded, lacking in intellectual depth and susceptible to the violent and corrupt social pressures. The excellence of a few students cannot make up for the rest. R.D. Laing (1978) puts it this way:
‘A child born today in the U.K. stands a ten times greater chance of being admitted to a mental hospital than a university.... We are driving mad our children more effectively than we are genuinely educating them. ‘
Under the present predicament there is a growing realization in the world of education today that children should be educated in the art of peaceful living. As a result, more and more peace concepts, attitudes, values and behavioural skills are being integrated into school curricula in many countries. There is also renewed interest to develop peace-related disciplines such as values education, moral education, global education, etc. In the past we seemed to have assumed that the more knowledge people have, the better they are. Accordingly, we stressed cognitive learning in schools at the cost of developing children’s emotional, social, moral and humanistic aspects. The consequence of such imbalanced learning is evident today in the forms of youth unrest with their antisocial attitudes and behavioural problems.
This teachers’ guide introduces an educational approach, by the name of Peace Education, which can undo certain basic negative effects discussed above. It attempts to do so by way of bringing in core human values essential for peaceful and health living. It provides a wide range of interesting active methods of teaching and learning to deliver the curriculum effectively alongside with a focus on core human values. This approach has been tried out by educationists and teachers in different countries and found effective. For instance, a student in such a school in Sri Lanka, writes;
‘‘This programme strongly influenced my mind. I was enlightened on how to lead a contented life, to live a conflict-free ltfe in school, to build up mutual co-operation and make our future happy and successful and most of all, to live as a peaceful citizen ‘ (National Institute of Education (2000) Bulletin on Education for Conflict Resolution Programme)
A teacher who had received a short course training on peace education said at the end, ‘I have never received such a wonderful experience and knowledge in my teaching career I have become a changed person with good attitudes. This is indeed a useful Programme which could bring about peace and harmony to our country. ‘ (Ibid)
Robin Montz, another teacher, who tried out such an approach in America writes:
‘School started, and I began to weave into our curriculum some of the effective exercises I had experienced or read about. And I saw some “mi- raculous “ things begin to take place. I saw students form meaningful rela- tionships in the classroom. Isaw students who had been bored and in trouble much of the time begin to learn. I saw myself and my own role as teacher begin to change and to take on new meanings. And I saw genuine relation- ships begin to develop between myself and my students, not so much as teacher and pupil, but as people, human beings meeting each other and leamingLfiom each other ‘. (George Isaac Brown (1972) Human Teaching and Human Learning, The Gestalt Journal, Highland NY, page1 68)
Development of Peace Education In tracing the recent development of peace education, we begin to see that in the past it had been an integral part of education at all times and in all cultures, Every culture regards peace as a noble ideal to attain. However with the advent of Western secularism at the beginning of the 20th century through the guise of a positivist scientific outlook to education, moral and human values including peace were slowly discouraged away from school curricula. Under the ideal of value-free positivist and reductionist knowledge the whole education was viewed narrowly as teaching facts of various subjects.
However, in spite of such materialistic views, the thinking of such humanists like Rousseau, Henry Thoreau, Tolstoy and Maria Montessori kept the sense of education alive. With the witness of the horrors of the First and Second World Wars there was-a reawakening to the need of developing the humanistic side of education at least among a few educationists. In.this context Maria Montessori’s loud and tireless reiteration on the need for educating for peace should be mentioned here with respect and appreciation. At the beginning of the 21 st century today we are only rediscovering her vision of peace education which she tried to tell the world in the 1930s. For instance, she said in one of her public talks:
Those who want war prepare young people for war; but those, who want peace have neglected young.children and adolescents so that they are un- able to organize them for peace.