Peace Education and Action Center
Sarasota, Florida
What is Peace Education?
“Peace is not the absence of conflict, but the presence of justice.” - Martin Luther King Jr.
Peace education is a movement to humanize education, to integrate meaningful learning, foster communication, and personal reflection, self-actualization and realization of talents and gifts and how they can be used to make the world a better place. Peace education treats students as active participants in their learning and challenges them to look at their participation in the world as something connected to their daily learning experience. It promotes an interconnected world view and gives students tangible skills in conflict resolution and managing everyday problems they encounter. It also teaches students to look at problems in a radical way – radical in the Greek sense of getting to the root. Conflict in itself is natural and unavoidable, but conflicts can be resolved peacefully, with everyone taking responsibility for their own feelings and actions.
Teaching peace is not about having a ready-made soap box to promote progressive social issues. It’s not about pitting lefty progressives against rightist conservatives. And it’s certainly not about telling students what they should think. Teaching peace is about helping students to find their own voice, to listen to themselves, and to each other, to trust and learn more about themselves. Teaching peace is about the process of facilitating a fair and balanced discussion, ensuring that all voices are heard and respected. Teaching peace ultimately is about addressing why our schools, homes, communities and countries are increasingly violent.
There are two inter-related strands to Peace Education: educating for peace and education about peace. Educating for peace includes examining the nature of conflict and nonviolent methods for dealing with conflict, as well as teaching the skills required: active listening, problem solving, critical thinking, and mediation.
Education about peace includes challenging widely held views and assumptions in society, as well as exploring topics such as war, conscientious objection, positive and negative peace, nonviolent direct action, capital punishment, and human rights. There are many types of violence to be found in American society: domestic violence, military violence, environmental violence, verbal violence, emotional violence, racial violence, gender-based violence, economic violence, disability-based violence, corporate violence, structural violence. Solutions to all these kinds of violence exist but unless those solutions are taught and learned little will change.
Picture: Piero Falci and Jack Bloomfield of One Planet United with participants
from the 2009 Teach Peace Conference
from the 2009 Teach Peace Conference
Peace education is a movement to humanize education, to integrate meaningful learning, foster communication, and personal reflection, self-actualization and realization of talents and gifts and how they can be used to make the world a better place. Peace education treats students as active participants in their learning and challenges them to look at their participation in the world as something connected to their daily learning experience. It promotes an interconnected world view and gives students tangible skills in conflict resolution and managing everyday problems they encounter. It also teaches students to look at problems in a radical way – radical in the Greek sense of getting to the root. Conflict in itself is natural and unavoidable, but conflicts can be resolved peacefully, with everyone taking responsibility for their own feelings and actions.
Teaching peace is not about having a ready-made soap box to promote progressive social issues. It’s not about pitting lefty progressives against rightist conservatives. And it’s certainly not about telling students what they should think. Teaching peace is about helping students to find their own voice, to listen to themselves, and to each other, to trust and learn more about themselves. Teaching peace is about the process of facilitating a fair and balanced discussion, ensuring that all voices are heard and respected. Teaching peace ultimately is about addressing why our schools, homes, communities and countries are increasingly violent.
There are two inter-related strands to Peace Education: educating for peace and education about peace. Educating for peace includes examining the nature of conflict and nonviolent methods for dealing with conflict, as well as teaching the skills required: active listening, problem solving, critical thinking, and mediation.
Education about peace includes challenging widely held views and assumptions in society, as well as exploring topics such as war, conscientious objection, positive and negative peace, nonviolent direct action, capital punishment, and human rights. There are many types of violence to be found in American society: domestic violence, military violence, environmental violence, verbal violence, emotional violence, racial violence, gender-based violence, economic violence, disability-based violence, corporate violence, structural violence. Solutions to all these kinds of violence exist but unless those solutions are taught and learned little will change.
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Upcoming Events
Friday, Mar 19 at 1:00 pm
Friday, Mar 19 at 4:00 pm
Sunday, Mar 21 at 11:00 am
Wednesday, Mar 24 at 4:00 pm
