Putting Education for Peace into Practice

Abstract

Now let us turn our attention toward the practice of education for peace from several perspectives. We will examine some developmentally appropriate approaches to children and youth in understanding issues of war and peace, practical applications of teaching the prevention of deadly conflict and conflict resolution in schools, international relationships in education for peace, and other institutions with strong potential to promote peace education and conflict resolution. Even first-grade children can distinguish between societal conventions, noncontroversial questions, and controversial issues. Also, they expect their teachers to teach these types of knowledge differently. They are able to recognize that others may hold opposing viewpoints different from their own. With increasing age, elementary school children in democratic societies expect teachers to present different viewpoints on questions about which there is little societal consensus. And teachers are expected to present different viewpoints in addition to the one that students favor. Adolescence is the period when students markedly increase their ability to generalize the perspective of society, which is most important when discussing issues related to war, peace, and conflict. It is also a time when young people are most interested in issues related to fairness, justice, and equality. In the 1960s, Joseph Adelson, conducted a series of classic studies involving young people aged 11 to 18 from the United States, Great Britain, and West Germany. Interviews were conducted about concepts of law, community, individual rights, and the public good. It was found that at the age of 14, a shift in quality of thought occurred. They could see the possibility of conflict between individual rights and public good; they could connect specific examples of rights with abstract principles; they could consider long-term consequences of specific actions on individuals and communities. Similar findings were noted in subsequent research, leading to the belief that the period of adolescence is appropriate for developing critical thinking skills.