You are most welcome to this Teachers' Guide to Peace Education. This comes
to you as a gift from UNESCO. The educationists gathered from India, Pakistan,
Bhutan, Maldives and Sri Lanka at the Conference on Curriculum Development
in Peace Education organized by UNESCO in January 2001 in Colombo, accepted
that peace education should be an integral part of general education in their own
countries and South Asia at large. They decided to produce a Teachers' Guide to
introduce Peace Education to schools in South Asia. So this is it! Taking the
teachers' needs to learn what peace education is all about this guide:
This guide aims at empowering you as a teacher in your attempt to foster
peaceful attitudes, values and skills in children. It provides a basic theoretical
foundation and a variety of learning activities, classroom practices and suggestions
for building peace culture in schools.
The approach suggested here does not intend to make another subject out of
peace education; rather it advocates integration of peace values into the school
curriculum. It suggests ways of making every lesson a peace and every teacher a
peace teacher. Inclusion of peace values and activities will make the subjects more
meaningful and interesting to learners in many ways. It increases the quality of
teaching as well as learning. The approach attempts to make Peace the central
theme, in the total school curriculum, which unifies the learning experiences in
various subjects. In absence of such a unifying central theme, children may experience
the curriculum as a package of fragmented pieces of knowledge, with little or no
relation to each other.
Curriculum designers can also find clues and insights here as to how peace
concepts, values, and approach could be included into curriculum. Having peace
values in the curriculum is so necessary, In them teachers find a legitimate foundation
on which they can build. However mere inclusion of a few peace values as they
happened to be there in a curriculum in a disorganized way, may not be taken
seriously by teachers. It should be stated in this context, that it is disheartening
to see how little space is given in many school syllabi to discuss most important
matters related to the human development of children. If you do not agree with
the statement, find yourself space in syllabi where you can discuss happiness,
empathy, friendship, responsible decision-making, conflict resolution and peaceful
living with children. This is because of the lack of interest in aspects like human
development, peaceful living, and morality by the curriculum designers. But the
present crisis in the world, both locally and globally, demands that curriculum
designers should be more interested in peaceful living aspect of children by including
such values in subject syllabi, teachers' handbooks, school texts and teacher education
courses. It has to be done with clear vision and goals.
Introducing the concepts and methods of peace education for teacher trainees
in Colleges of Education needs to be a priority in introducing the innovation into
a school system. This Guide may also be used for teachers' training in peace
education. Along with it an education authority who wants to make peace education
an integral part of education has to work from all levels with an unshaken interest
and enthusiasm.
Part one [Chapters 1 and 21 of the guide discusses the nature of peace education
and the concept of peace. Part two [Chapters 3 to 51 explores ways of integrating
peace values into the school curriculum and various practices that make school a
place of peace. It also introduces a large number of teaching and learning methods
of peace education. Thirdly, Chapter 6 considers ways of developing staff in peace
education. Chapter 7 suggests ways of reducing violence in school.
All the activities and the models introduced herein have been largely tried out
by the writer in schools with students, in Teachers' Colleges with teacher-students
and educators. Such activities will surely enrich the quality of education through
the raising spirit of liveliness, joy and creativity in schools. They provide socializing
experiences and the insights necessary for peaceful living.
If you are a peace-loving teacher naturally you want to integrate it into all the
aspects of schooling. There are six major media of integration into the total
curriculum of the school. They are:
These are how teachers make a subject meaningful. A subject is not learned
merely for the subject's sake. It has to be interpreted in such a manner so as to
contribute to learners' social, emotional, intellectual and moral self-development.
Peace education attempts to humanize subjects through bringing in human
perspectives and effective dominion into learning.
In education both what is taught and how it is taught are equally important .A
good teacher adopts the child-centred education approach, especially in the primary
and secondary levels. Instead of routine lecturing, she uses interesting learning
activities. She is not only concerned with imparting knowledge but also concerned
with developing socializing skills, moral attitudes and learning skills of children
in parallel.
These are activities done outside the classroom to achieve the goals of the
formal subject learning. Here we include extra curricular activities as well. Extra
curricular activities are complementary in the sense that they do not directly relate
to subjects or formal curriculum, but are helpful in achieving the goals of education.
To successfully implement any innovation, first of all the teachers need to
develop by raising awareness and training. This can be done through in-service
seminars and school-based sessions.
This is the administrative, structural, policy-making and policy implementation
level at the school level principal as the Head. Teachers who implement peace
education at the classroom level need the support of the whole school. Peace
education provides important insights into management development of the school.
Ways of integrating peace into lessons is discussed in'detail in Chapter 3.
This Guide presents you with over 100 learning activities in the third part. With
each the subject context or curriculum concern is suggested. However, the teacher
is the best judge where to use them. While using them as the minimum request
of this course, you can create and design similar or even improve your own activities
to meet the needs of peace education in varying situations. The experience gained
from using these activities will be helpful in creating your own activities. Perhaps
at the beginning children may hesitate to participate in activities, because of the
previously acquired habits of passivity. However, as they continue to participate,
they will begin to enjoy the activities and shed the former habits of hesitancy.
It is difficult to make this guide exhaustive. However in preparing this Guide
attempts have been made to make it a module in the sense that it will be self-
sufficient for the teachers who use it. However, teachers can build much more from
their experience gained through applying this approach in their classrooms.
clarifies the scope, goals, core values and concepts of peace education;
suggests a thematic model on which school peace education programmes could be designed, implemented and evaluated;
identifies characteristics, attitudes and skills necessary to be a peace teacher;
provides learning activities useful for educating peace;
points out ways of infusing peace values, attitudes and skills in the formal teaching and learning in the classroom;
discusses ways of eliminating violence in school in all forms;
introduces co-curricular activities for peace programmes in schools;
presents a procedure for staff development in peace education within the schools;
gives practical steps to build peace culture in schools; and
specifies intended outcomes, as objectives to strive for and as indicators to use for evaluation.
Uses of the Guide
The guide mainly addresses teachers in primary and secondary schools. School
principals may, too find it useful for introducing peace education into their schools.
Teachers need the school principal's support, guidance and facilitation in their
attempts.
Design of the Guide
Part four [Chapters 8 to 181 introduces a thematic model for peace education
with 10 themes based on core peace values most relevant to education in our present
global context. Each theme presents a conceptual analysis, intended outcome,
classroom practices, hints for peace culture building and model learning activities.
The last two chapters are on designing school programmes and evaluating peace
learning.
How to Integrate Peace into the Curriculum
1. Subject context
Here we take Language, Social Studies, Religion, Physical Education, Arts, and
Science as the core curricular subjects, which can be used to infuse peace.
2. Subject perspectives
3. Teaching methods
4. Co-curricular activities
5. Staff development
6. Classroom management
Classroom management includes maintenance of discipline, organizing learning,
character building, conflict resolution, counselling, etc.
7. School management
Learning Activities