Can Peace Be Taught?
Peace is not always a simple concept about which to talk. Nevertheless, people are seldom in doubt about wanting peace and about peace being good for all humankind. If we are to work towards peace, it would seem necessary to come to a shared understanding of the concept. How do we define peace? We see students often rapidly responding with the most obvious explanation: ‘Peace is the absence of war’. Are we satisfied with this as a definition? Can peace be something more than the absence of war? If the answer is yes, then what is it?
To come closer to an accurate definition, it can be useful, together with the students, to ask the question: What destroys peace? The answer may be war and conflict, but it could also be poverty, racism, environmental disasters or the absence of democracy and human rights. These answers bring us closer to a broader, better definition of peace, and we have a logical approach to a fruitful session. If racism destroys peace, should we not oppose it? If poverty destroys peace, should we not work to eradicate it? If the absence of human rights destroys peace, should we not work to ensure human rights for everyone?
We can also ask the question: ‘What promotes peace?’ Among the answers are perhaps that peace is promoted when people enjoy their human rights, when different countries and groups are able to work well together and when all people have a basic respect for one another. The purpose of these questions is to provoke the students themselves to come to the understanding that peace is more than the absence of war. Thus, perhaps the foundation is laid for an interest in learning what that ‘more’ consists of.
Peace education can take place anywhere and it can be made relevant to anyone. At the Nobel Peace Center, we believe that learning about themes related to peace can contribute to creating peace. The goal of peace education, as we see it, is for students to acquire knowledge and values that can be transformed into actions that benefit ‘my own and the community’s best interests’. Peace education is about nurturing conscious, tolerant and empathetic citizens. To achieve this, the students need to acquire knowledge about democracy, human rights and conflict resolution.
Peace education is also about the understanding of concepts. Language functions as an identity carrier and marker, it codes and decodes, and an understanding of language is the starting point for impressions and reactions. Because of the way that language and identity are interwoven, work with concepts and an understanding of these constitutes a significant part of peace education. Discussions about complicated concepts such as ‘peace’, ‘human rights’, ‘conflict’ and ‘identity’ can also lead to a more conscious approach to actions and the consequences these have for our surroundings.
Because human rights are universal and apply to everyone, it is natural to speak of them in the light of the student’s own lives. What interests them? Are they allowed to express their opinions? Are they heard when they express these opinions? From this, it is a small step to talking about others who have not been allowed to talk freely: Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi or Carl von Ozzietsky. By clarifying the responsibility that follows from these rights and by focusing on the universal aspects of human rights, peace education can contribute to tolerance.
Keywords that characterise peace education at the Nobel Peace Center include problem-solving, age adequacy, interaction, teamwork and variation.
Common to the methods we use in meeting students at the Nobel Peace Center is that the students’ own experience is actively used. There are many for whom human rights are something that does not concern them; problems concerning human rights are something that happens so very far away. By using the students’ own experience, it is easier to make the universal aspect of human rights visible and to create a safe framework within which the students may dare to share and try standpoints out with each other.
A concrete example is the role the students’ experience of conflict plays in our educational programme Talk, don’t shoot! In comparing their conflicts with the conflicts experienced by others, students will find many differences and similarities. For us it is important that the students are not made to feel that their conflicts are considered as being less important. Conflicts that affect us, whether they stem from secondary or primary needs, feel vitally important to us while we are in the middle of them. This type of exercise enables the students to more easily place themselves in another’s situation.
It is important for us to emphasise discussion and teamwork ahead of a unilateral use of lectures. It has been our experience that a directed discussion, where we make use of good questions, can lead to insight into a given theme. Certain questions can be used as catalysts as long as the students experience them as relevant and meaningful. Working with human rights, we might ask the question: Would we have peace in the world if all humankind enjoyed their human rights? Students are given a few minutes for a discussion, in pairs, on the subject before they are asked to give the reasons for their answer. Posing questions in a directed discussion can also be used to train and increase the students’ empathetic abilities. What is racism? What happens inside a person who is exposed to racism? What consequences can these feelings have for a person?
Peace education is about acquiring knowledge and values that can be transformed into action, but just as often peace education consists of a set of actions that can be transformed into knowledge and values. We believe that students need experience to be able to acquire the knowledge and achieve understanding.
The object of the exercises we use is for the students to be able to experience that they have control over a given situation and can govern their lives in a way that provides them with better premises for making decisions that safeguard their own and others’ rights.
In order for the students to benefit the most from education on conflict and conflict resolution, it is important that themes for discussion are recognised as being relevant by the students themselves.
The educational programmes at the Nobel Peace Center make use of the Nobel laureates’ efforts and work to show what individuals or groups have done, concretely, for peace. We draw inspiration from resolute Nobel laureates when, together with the students, we attempt to find solutions to some of the greater issues. We point to Bertha von Suttner’s persistent efforts on behalf of the international peace movement, to Martin Luther King, Jr.’s stouthearted use of non-violent methods and to Shirin Ebadi’s audacious work to achieve universal human rights.
Can peace be learned? Yes.
“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” — Nelson Mandela.
This is a shorter and updated version of an article previously published in Weltethos und bildung | User Generated Ethics by Michael Noah Weiss (2011).
