Teachers Without Borders Module 3

Module 3

The focus of Unit 3 is pedagogy and classroom practice. We start by looking at peace education as pedagogy, and examine important characteristics and skills of a peace educator. We then examine different approaches to peace education. Finally, we review the major subject areas taught in most classrooms around the world, and provide suggestions for ways you could implement peace education in these areas. While we provide many examples that can be directly applied, we hope that Unit 3 also provides inspiration for you to develop your own teaching approaches to peace education for your context.

Pedagogy of Peace Education

• "Pedagogy is the form that peace education takes, and it consists of the teaching approaches and methods used by peace educators"
• The content should be related to our students every day lives.
• According to Haavelsrud (1996), there is a dialectical relationship between the form and content, in which the “form determines the content and the content determines the form” (p. 39).
• How can I incorporate peace education pedagogy into my subject area??
• Incorporate human rights, multiculturalism
• Lecturing about peace is not the right way to incorporate peace education because it relies on the oppressive, banking-style criticized by Paulo Freire

Key Pedagogical Principles of Peace Education (Taken from Module 2, Unit 1 of Teachers Without Borders Self-Paced Course)

"Virginia Cawagas (2007) has identified four key pedagogical principles in peace education:

1. Holism: Demonstrating that all issues are interrelated, multidimensional, and dynamic. Holism stands in sharp contrast to the fragmented way in which school subjects are often taught. A holistic vision allows us to see the complex relationships of different issues. A holistic vision involves looking at the temporal (past, present, future, and how they interrelate) and spatial dimensions (from micro to macro, and across sectors of society) of an issue.

2. Values formation: Cawagas writes, “Realizing that all knowledge is never free of values, educating for a culture of peace needs to be explicit about its preferred values such as compassion, justice, equity, gender- fairness, caring for life, sharing, reconciliation, integrity, hope and non-violence” (p. 302). Peace education involves teaching for these values in all educational interventions.

3. Dialogue: According to Cawagas, “a dialogical approach cultivates a more horizontal teacher-learner relationship in which both dialogically educate and learn from each other” (p. 303). Dialogue is a key component of peace education pedagogy. In addition to class discussion, Cawagas suggests the following tools for dialogic pedagogy:

• Guest speakers: For example, invite street children to a class to talk about their lives; 
• Web charting: Make a web chart using a theme (in a circle in the center), and sub-themes connected to the center, and draw connections; 
• Role-play: Have students act out a cross-cultural conflict; 
• Simulation: Simulate a small-arms convention for a lesson on disarmament; have students play different roles, such as that of an arms dealer, arms buyer, protester, etc.; 
• Singing; 
• Painting; 
• Poetry; 
• Small group discussion.

4. Critical empowerment: Cawagas writes that “in critical empowerment, learners engage in a personal struggle to develop a critical consciousness that actively seeks to transform the realities of a culture of war and violence into a culture of peace and non-violence” (p. 304). Thus, through critical empowerment, learners develop a deeper understanding of problems, and are also empowered to take action to solve these problems. Critical empowerment also requires an understanding of power; in a system of inequitable power relations, empowerment involves reconstructing this system to one of more equitable, horizontal relations." (www.teacherswithoutborders.org)

Attributes of a Peace Educator

1. The teacher is a responsible global citizen and has a vision for positive change in the future. S/he believes that education is for positive/constructive change. 
2. The teacher is motivated by a desire to serve and is actively involved in the community where s/he teaches. 
3. The teacher is a life-long learner. 
4. The teacher is “both a transmitter and transformer of cultures.” The teacher transmits his/her own culture but is also critical and reflective to be an agent of change and understanding of other cultures. 
5. The teacher's relationships with students and faculty must nurture peace via the creation of a community. 
6. The teacher must be aware of racism, sexism or any other form of discrimination that may occur in the classroom and both how s/he perpetuates it and how other students perpetuate it. 
7. The teacher uses constructive criticism to help his/her students grow. 
8. The teacher knows all of the learners as individuals and responds effectively to their differences with a caring attitude. 
9. The teacher creates an environment in which the students are free to inquire by creating questions that address issues. The teacher is the poser of questions rather than the answerer. 
10. The teacher is constantly reflective about his/her own teaching methodologies. 
11. The teacher knows and uses the skills for communication and conflict resolution to build a community. 
12. The teacher utilizes cooperative learning. 
13. The teacher is able to elicit discussion from the students.
14. The teacher motivates and inspires his/her students.
15. The teacher is joyful and positive; promoting hope.
16. The teacher is passionate and compassionate.
17. The teacher is gentle and fair.
18. The teacher is comfortable using personal stories to connect to the learning 

(Navarro-Castro & Nario-Galace, 2008).
Navarro-Castro, L., & Nario-Galace, J. (2008). Peace Education: A Pathway to a Culture of Peace. Quezon City, Philippines: Center for Peace Education, Miriam College. Retrieved from http://www.scribd.com/doc/16686241/

Standards for Peace Education


The following is a list of standard skills that teachers of peace education should demonstrate (Carter, 2006):

1. Facilitate student construction of their concepts of peace and positive processes for increasing it, based on their collective experiences and new information. 
2. Integrate positive contact with, as well as information about, diverse cultures in the local region and afar to overcome ignorance, misinformation and stereotypes. 
3. Accommodate cultural norms of students including their diverse learning styles. 
4. Engage in cross-cultural communication with multicultural school participants, including families, thereby modeling acceptance, accommodation and celebration of diversity through pluralism. 
5. Demonstrate positive regard for all students, regardless of their misbehaviors, to convey unconditional care and respect for them as valuable people. 
6. Use compassionate and equitable communication in dialogic facilitation of classroom management. 
7. Train students through modeling of dispositions and skills that develop peace, including the practice of nonviolence before and during conflicts. 
8. Create a nurturing “school-home” environment which nourishes and provides a safe place for communication about concerns related to violence. 
9. Listen to families’ ideas of how peace can be developed in the classroom and school and then collaborate with them in the facilitation of their suggestions. 
10. Use strategies that support peaceful interaction with the self and all people, including restorative practices in post-conflict situations. 
11. Model action for peace development on and beyond the campus, thereby demonstrating a community norm of social justice. 
12. Cultivate and support the student’s responsibility for their own peaceful-problem solving while you stay aware of, and responsive to, their needs. 
13. Integrate across multiple subject areas information about past, present as well as future peace developments and strategies. 
14. Create and support venues for expressing current and future peace development. 
15. Show appreciation for all student achievements in, and aspirations for, peace. 
16. Attend to and teach ecological care of the physical environment, including sustainable use of its resources. 
17. Teach about socially and environmentally responsible consumerism and the conflicts which result from exploitation of producers and laborers. 
18. Teach about power relations in current events as well as history to help students recognize sources of structural violence. 
19. Facilitate student examination of militarism and its impact on the social order. 
20. Teach students to critically evaluate sources, perspectives and evidence provided in information they have access to while enabling them to recognize the types of information they do not have, but need, to develop clear understanding of spoken and written presentations. 
21. Enable students’ discussions of controversy and unresolved problems locally and globally, thereby cultivating their intellectual and communicative skills for comprehending and analyzing conflicts. 

Carter, C. (2006). Standards for Peace Education. A Florida Center for Public and International Policy Paper. Florida: University of North Florida. Retrieved from http://www.unf.edu/thefloridacenter/PeaceEdStdsForWebsite.pdf