What is Peace Education
Originally a study of the causes of war and its prevention, peace education has evolved into the study of violence in all its manifestations and educating to counteract the war system for the creation of a peace system; a peace system on both the structural and individual level. The content and the methodology of peace education are progressive; promoting egalitarian learning environments, open inquiry, and significant learner participation.
Peace Education aims to help learners of all ages examine and understand a) the various impediments to peace, b) the structural forces at play that limit peaceful and just conditions, c) the root causes of these impediments and limitations, d) the role each of us can play as agents of change to embody and enact peace on personal, interpersonal, communal and global levels, and e) methods of non-violent communication and action.
“Militarism is a value system…which says that human beings basically need to be kept in order by force, and that some people have a natural right to use that force in order to do that. They’re better equipped to decide what’s best for the rest of us.”
Dr Betty Reardon, Founder of Peace Education
“Driven by critical pedagogies that are rooted in critical consciousness, dialogical relationships and practice, transformative agency, and problem-posing, [peace and human rights education] can be vehicles for imagining and working toward more just and sustainable futures.”
Dr Maria Hantzopoulus, Vassar College
What is Peace Education?
Give a listen to Leonisa’s short description of Peace Education!