The Art of Living in Peace through Education

The Art of Living in Peace through Education: By Collins A. Kajisi UNESCO ASP-net Zonal Coordinator, Southern zone, Tunduru                                                                                                   

                                                                                                                                            

Introduction:

  

Peace for all is possible but war is not acceptable. The only choice ahead of us is either to achieve peace after unimaginable horrors and misery OR work tirelessly to maintain the current roots of peace. The key task is how to resolve patterns of stubborn behaviors that destroy peace and lead to emerging wars in various parts of our world. Demilitarization is one of the key steps towards construction of Universal Peace/Peace for all. This can be one of the efforts to remove barriers of construction of peace which may also enhance fundamental effective communication regardless of lack of existing common language for meeting the goal. If all people join hands and work together, they can promote the above practical efforts to reach true World Peace.

Objectives of Peace Education

The objectives of peace education in developing knowledge, attitude and life skills for peace are;-

• To acquire the concept of peace as a state of being,
• To identify the barriers for peace,
• To outline causes of ceaselessness among individuals and institutions,
• To look for alternative ways of creating peace and justice in communities.

The curriculum that may focus and maintain peace will help learners to argue and dialogue on respective moral values and finally understand the world they live in.

                                    

Through education young people may identify, outline, and observe, judge, sort, determine, discover and expose all forms of root causes of wars.

Tanks

Missiles

Soldiers

Warships

Arms race

Jetfighters

Small arms

Space arms

Submarines

Militarization

Armed forces nuclear weapons

There is a room for changes to be brought to harmony so as to avoid aspects that may create and lead societies to increasing number of vulnerable as result of conflicts and wars. Something can be done to reverse the situation so as to make the earth fit for everyone to live in.

Federico Mayor, in 1988, said; “Yes, peace is possible for life at all stages, and it is up to man to choose his destiny or to suffer from horrors of wars. Yes, today mankind is at the crossroads where he has to choose peace with courage determination and imagination. UNESCO has been working in order to establish peace in the minds of men”. Educational institutions are the right places for creating peaceful societies.

Processes of acquisition of Peace through Education

Teachers participating in the World Study Courses should find it necessary to rethink of their approaches to teaching/learning situations. Firsthand experience in teaching reinforces this. It becomes important for the teachers to look at the attitudes they are bringing into the classrooms. They should ask questions to see if they are working cooperatively and peacefully with their students and respecting the rights of all in the classrooms.

When teachers begin to examine their own practices in this way, they then find that they start to move to a role best described as facilitator and resource person. In this type of classroom situation, trust is put in the student’s ability and potential to be involved in being responsible for developing the details of the courses, for deciding on the organization of the course and for general classroom management.

In classrooms where this shift has taken place there will be a great deal of cooperative learning – people sharing and learning together – each individual learning to be responsible for contributing to the whole, which becomes more than any one person by themselves could achieve. Note that; “the class” or “the students” and “the teacher” tend to become “the people”.

The physical arrangement of the room is also important. The tables or desks get moved around according to the requirements of the particular day’s activities; sometimes they will be pushed aside to sit in a circle, sometimes the tables, desks or themselves push round to form a circle, or they will be moved into groups for small group work, and so on, as shown in the pictures here under.

Education is the only thing which can mobilize children of different backgrounds in one class ready for learning in this sense education can foster the culture of living together in peace and harmony.

The main thing that teachers who work as a facilitators and resource persons find is that, they themselves draw learning experiences out of something which the students either have experienced for themselves or could experience. It is through this fact which offer the greatest challenge to the conventional teaching process but which at the same time provide the most rewarding experiences in the classroom situation hence constructing peace among learners. There is real joy in being part of a total learning experience in this way.

One of the main aims of such teaching/leaning experiences in different subjects, namely pure science and social sciences, is to empower students with a sense of their own ability to find answers about the conflicts between the nations of the world. They want to know whether war is indeed the only way of solving conflicts, is it really inevitable? The answer is obviously not. Nations do not always solve their conflicts in that way. Where students can come to a real understanding, through appropriate learning experiences in the type of classroom described above, these areas of international understanding, cooperation, peace and human rights and fundamental freedoms, then school will be providing international education in its real sense.

However studying peace should take a broad sense not only the absence of war and conflicts. Peace education should be taught broadly by focusing on the analysis of conflicts from personal to global and ways of resolving them. Peace learners also need to recognize the dangers of other factors that destroy peace among individuals, i.e. looking at peace education as personal peace. In this regard peace is related to quality of areas that signify the roots of peace:

Justice

Empathy

Education

Balance of power

Fundamental freedoms

Observation of Human rights

Distribution of wealth, resources

Equality between men and women

Sustainable environment and development

Cooperation planning and decision making

The above areas have a far reaching contribution in the construction or distraction of peace at personal to global levels. If the above are violated an individual may be disturbed, hence no peace of mind which affect individuals, society, nations to global levels at large.

The Culture of peace that is to be developed in the education systems can play part in making the twenty first century to be for technology that advances people for more understanding and discard all forms of violent programmes. Young people in schools are likely to appreciate that fighting is not natural but a man created phenomenon that can be avoided and finally universal peace can be in young hands.