This comprehensive volume on teaching peace and war demonstrates that our choice of pedagogy, or the way we structure a curriculum, must be attentive to context. Pedagogical strategies that work with one class may not work in another, whether over time or across space and different types of institutions, regardless of the field of study. This book offers insight on how to address these issues. The chapters contain valuable information on specific lessons learned and creative pedagogies developed, as well as exercises and tools that facilitate delivery in specific classrooms. The authors address a wide range of challenges related to broader questions on what teachers are trying to achieve when teaching about peace and war, including reflections on the teacher’s role as a facilitator of knowledge creation. This collection offers a valuable reference for scholars and instructors on structuring peace and war curricula in different global contexts and pedagogical strategies for a variety of classrooms. The chapters in this book were originally published in the journal Peace Review.
There is a huge volume of work on war and its causes, most of which treats its political and economic roots. In Peace Education: How We Come to Love and Hate War, Nel Noddings explores the psychological factors that support war: nationalism, hatred, delight in spectacles, masculinity, religious extremism and the search for existential meaning. She argues that while schools can do little to reduce the economic and political causes, they can do much to moderate the psychological factors that promote violence by helping students understand the forces that manipulate them.
Teaching Peace carries the discussion of nonviolence beyond ethics and into the rest of the academic curriculum. This book isn't just for religion or philosophy teachers--it is for all educators.
Little is done in schools at the formal and informal levels to address war and peace, especially in relation to what can and should be done to bring about peace. This volume seeks to provide a range of policy, pedagogical, curriculum and institutional analyses aimed at facilitating meaningful engagement toward a more robust and critical examination of the role that schools play in framing war, militarization and armed conflict.
To see if nonviolence could be taught, in 1982 Colman McCarthy became a volunteer teacher at one of the poorest high schools in Washington, DC. In the thirty-two years since then, he has taught peace studies courses for more than ten thousand college and high school students. Large numbers of those students have faithfully kept in touch with McCarthy, often with handwritten letters, and he has answered them with the same seriousness he brought to his columns and books. The exchanges rise to a rare kind of literature that blends personal warmth, intellectual honesty, and shared idealism. The discussions range from peace and war to a host of other issues of social justice, such as the death penalty, human rights, poverty, the living wage, animal rights, and vegetarianism. The wide-ranging letters suggest how teacher and students co-create a world of more love and less hate.
How Children Understand War and Peace If we had a better grasp on how children and adolescents develop ideas of war, conflict, and peace, would it be possible to consciously influence these concepts toward more peaceful orientations? Would it then be possible to integrate these psychological findings into educational programs throughout the world? How Children Understand War and Peace is a landmark book that examines these two vital questions and provides a solid framework on which to build answers. Written by an international panel of experts in the fields of developmental, social, and educational psychology, How Children Understand War and Peace presents a collection of the most current thoughts and insights into how children and adolescents develop an understanding of war, conflict, and peace. Based on research studies done in Australia, Canada, Finland, Holland, Israel, Portugal, Northern Ireland, Sweden, and the United States, this comprehensive volume presents evidence that perceptions of war and peace formed during childhood relate directly to adult perspectives on these critical issues. The contributors present persuasive evidence that our knowledge about how youngsters from around the globe develop and form worldviews can be used to create educational programs that teach children peace education, conflict management, and conflict resolution. How Children Understand War and Peace is an indispensable guide for psychologists, educators, and anyone concerned with building a solid foundation for a more peaceful world through knowledge and education. What Children Can Teach Us and What We Can Teach Children How Children Understand War and Peace offers an international perspective on how the concepts of war and peace develop in children and how, through overt teaching of conflict resolution and peacemaking skills in schools, a more peaceful world could be created. "I welcome this important new book. The editors and contributors have given us a new and valuable account of how young people understand the essential issues of war and peace. Not only is this a large step forward in the study of child and adolescent social cognition, but, in addition, the knowledge base in this book suggests ways to educate the younger generation toward more peaceful resolutions of dangerous social conflicts."—William Damon, professor and director, Stanford Center on Adolescence "The first comprehensive overview of current research on children's understanding of peace, conflict, and war, this book shows the richness of children's understanding in its sociocultural context. It challenges us to think deeply about the connections between human development, war, and peace and about how to educate for a culture of peace."—Michael G. Wessells, professor of psychology, Randolph-Macon College "This comprehensive book discusses research on how peace, conflict, and war are interpreted by youngsters from different cultures and how such knowledge can help educators contribute to building peace. Anyone interested in peace and conflict, child development, and education will find many useful insights and a wealth of diverse approaches for working with children in this important new book."—Åke Bjerstedt, professor emeritus of education, Lund University, Sweden "This landmark book will help open the way to advances in research on the development of children's conceptions of peace and on the practice of peace education." —Milton Schwebel, editor, Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology
"Teaching About the Wars breaks the curricular silence on the U.S. military engagement in Afghanistan and the Middle East. Even though the United States has been at war continuously since just after 9/11, sometimes it seems that our schools have forgotten. This collection of insightful articles and hands-on lessons shows that teachers have found ways to prompt their students to think critically about big issues. Here is the best writing from Rethinking Schools magazine on war and peace in the 21st century."--Publisher's website.
Books Not Bombs: Teaching Peace Since the Dawn of the Republic is an important work relevant to peace scholars, practitioners, and students. This incisive book offers an exciting and comprehensive historical analysis of the origins and development of peace education from the creation of the New Republic at the end of the Eighteenth Century to the beginning of the Twenty-First century. It examines efforts to educate the American populace, young and old, both inside the classroom and outside in terms of peace societies and endowed organizations. While many in the field of peace education focus their energies on conflict resolution and teaching peace pedagogically, Books Not Bombs approaches the topic from an entirely new perspective. It undertakes a thorough examination of the evolution of peace ideology within the context of opposing war and promoting social justice inside and outside schoolhouse gates. It seeks to offer explanations on how attempts to prevent violence have been communicated through the lens of history.
The Italian educator and physician Maria Montessori is best known for the teaching method that bears her name, but historian Erica Moretti reframes Montessori's work, showing that pacifism was the foundation of her pioneering efforts in psychiatry and pedagogy.
