Peace_education

The teachers reported that they devoted an average of seven periods per month to specific lessons in conflict resolution,
and that they were also infusing conflict resolution concepts into other aspects of the curriculum. They reported there was less physical violence in their classrooms, a decreased use of verbal put-downs in favor of more supportive comments, spontaneous student use of conflict resolution skills, and an increase in scl f-estccm, leadership skills and initiative in their students. They also reported positive effects kin themselves, particularly in their ability to handle angry students and deal with conflict in general.

Violence has many sources, among them drugs, poverty and racism. Conflict resolution can help, but it will be most effective as part of a larger strategy. As one of our teachers put it, "the Pro-gram is more than a curriculum, it's a way life."

...we are seeing the change. We are seeing adults change first. We arc seeing individual kids change second, and then we arc seeing whole schools change. More than anything, we are observing that violence is preventable, not inevitable, and that the intervention of education can change us and our schools around. We can create a climate of non-violence. Imagine a child being born today who enters kindergarten in 1997 and begins to learn "another way of fighting." From that first day of school, imagine that this child experiences an atmosphere of acceptance of differences and non-violent approaches to conflict.

- Creating Non-Violent Schools: Beginning with the Children, Linda Lantieri, Blueprint for Social Justice, 01/12/1992, /eldoc/n00_/01dec92bl1.pdf

Decades ago, Rabindranath Tagore said that a nation is not territorial, but ideational. He had grasped that humans build communities first communities sustained by shared and complementary patterns of living; the idea of nation-state as a political entity comes much later. Look at a child's excitement as she creates the world on paper mountains, clouds, rivers, birds, a house, a peeping sun and, perhaps, a child herself...Among the early effects of socialisation is to overwrite her creative and communicative impulse with comments which suggest that her drawing of the sun, flower, cat or house is not correct, and ought to be done some other way These mistakes are powerful signs of the child's individualistic expression and the result of their erasure is calamitous. Art historian Herbert Read puts it aptly: We sow the seeds of disunity in the nursery and the classroom, with our superior adult conceit. We divide the intelligence from the sensibility of our children, create split men schizophrenics, to give them a psychological label and then discover that we have no social unity The split psyche is the focus of the nation-building project. In Prejudice and Pride, Prof Krishna Kumar has brought out this perspective. To make loyal citizens of children, the school becomes a tool, courtesy the state, of socialising the young into an approved national past or history Problems start when ideas of nationalism and nation-hood are increasingly built on prejudice vis-a-vis a demonised other. Krishna Kumar compares the master narratives of the freedom struggle, especially Partition, on both sides of the border, and finds that the rival treatments of these events in school text books are designed to keep misgivings alive. Here, past is not source of understand-ing but of exaggerated pride, and, of course, its counterpart, prejudice. In today's age of the mass media, national-ism is easily encrypted in symbols such as the flag. Couched in a simplistic language of good and evil, prejudice enters the child's mind.

- Colonising the Child Education as an Instrument of Prejudice, Chitra Padmanabhan, Times of India, 11/03/2005, /eldoc/n20_/11mar05toi1.pdf

The National Policy on Edu-cation (1968) states: "The Government of India is convinc-ed that a radical reconstruction of education on the broad lines recommended by the Educa-tion Commission is essential for the economic and cultural deve-lopment of country, for nation-al integration and for realising the ideal of a socialistic pattern of society."

This will involve a transfor-mation of the system to relate it more closely to the life of the people: "A continuous effort to raise the quality of education at all stages, and the cultivation of moral and social values. The education system must produ-ce young men and women of character and ability committ-ed to national service and deve-lopment. Only then will educa-tion be able to play a vital role in promoting national pro-gress, creating a sense of com-mon citizenship and culture and strengthening national integration. This is necessary if the country is to attain its right-ful place in the comity of nations in conformity with its great cultural heritage and its unique potentialities." The National Policy on Education (1986) has laid empha-sis on value education through readjustments in curriculum. It states: "The growing con-cern over the erosion of essenti-al values and an increasing cynicism in society has brought to focus the need for readjust-ments in the curriculum in order to make education a for-ceful tool for the cultivation of social and moral values. In our cultural plural society, education should foster universal and eternal values, oriented towards the unity and integration of our people. Such value education should help elimina-te obscurantism, religious fana-ticism, violence, superstition and fatalism."

4. Education For Peace: Guidelines for Indian Schools, St. John's High School, 01/01/1901, R.N00.600

5. Part VIII Education and Peace pg 253, Thoughts on Education, Vinobha, Sarva Seva Sangh Prakashan, B.N00.B15

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1. Guidelines to Promote Communal Harmony, Ministry of Home Affairs, 1990, R.L53.30

2. Communalism Takes a Dangerous New Turn: An AIRSF (All India Revolutionary Students' Federation) Publication, AIRSF, Vidyarthi Pragati Sangathana, R. L53.32

3. Developing a curriculum on peace education- A workshop supported by OXFAM, Nirmala Niketan, College of Social Work, Churchgate, 15/03/2005 N24 put CED code

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1. Developing a curriculum on peace education- A workshop supported by OXFAM, Nirmala Niketan, College of Social Work, Churchgate, 15/03/2005 Tape 12 (1) N24 (report also available)