CHAPTER 2

PEACE EDUCATION AS TRANSFORMATIVE EDUCATION

People plays an important role in building culture of peace because they are the main proponents of peaceful
relationships.

Peace building refers generally to the long-term project of building peaceful communities.
Peace building therefore is both a significant peacebuilding strategy and an effective way of preventing violent
conflict.
What is Peace Education?

Peace Education – an education that promotes a culture of peace that is essentially transformative. It cultivates
knowledge base, skills, attitudes and values that seek to transform people’s mindset, attitudes and behaviors
that have either created or exacerbated violent conflicts.
Transformation seeks through building awareness and understanding, developing concern and challenging
personal and social action that will enable people to live, relate and create conditions and systems that actualize
nonviolence, justice, environmental care and other peace values.

The figure above illustrates the learning process that is used in peace education that is holistic and it tries to
address the cognitive, affective, and active dimension of the learners. This also includes the introduction of
relevant new knowledge or reinforced knowledge, posing valuing questions and using discussion and other
participatory methods to cultivate concern, and eliciting/challenging/encouraging appropriate personal and social
action.

Why Educate for Peace?

Peace Education has an important social purpose.
It transforms human condition by changing social structures and patterns of thought that have created it. The
main purpose of Peace Education is to eliminate social injustice, rejection of violence and the abolition of war.
Since war, social injustices and other forms of violence have long been features of our human condition, with
universal peace education there is some hope that we may be able to move toward having a critical mass that
will demand and address needed changes.

EDUCATING FOR PEACE IS BOTH A PRACTICAL AND AN ETHICAL IMPERATIVE

Peace Education is a Practical Alternative
-it will give us a long run of practical benefits that we seek.
-It will build a mass of people who will demand for and address the needed personal and structural
changes that will transform problems that relate to peace into nonviolent, humane and ecological
alternatives and solutions.
 -Peace Education challenges the belief that wars cannot be avoided through transforming the people’s
mindsets with regard to the inevitability of war and can in fact enable people to see that alternatives exist
and that there are ways by which violent conflict can be prevented.
-In a macro-level, Political advocacy of nonviolent resolution of conflict is a key element for peace
education. In the micro-level, education on nonviolent conflict resolution approaches like collaborative
problem solving, mediation can improve the quality of human relationships and may bring about solutions
that are constructive, fair and helpful to all parties concerned.
Peace Education is an Ethical Imperative
-this is an ethical imperative considering the negation of life and well-being caused by all forms of
violence. The ethical systems of the major world faith traditions, humanitarian ethics and even primal and
indigenous spirituality have articulated principles that inspire the striving for peace.
-these principles include the unity and value of life, respect for human dignity, nonviolence, justice and
love as a social ethic. These are expected to bring us to the common good.

SCHEMA OF KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS AND ATTITUDES/VALUES

The list is based on a survey of peace education literature and of key informants/peace educators that was done
by the Center or Peace Education of Miriam College.
Knowledge/Content Areas
Some contents that are integral to peace education:
1. Holistic Concept of Peace
2. Conflict and Violence
3. Some peaceful alternatives:
Disarmament
Nonviolence
Conflict Resolution, Transformation and Prevention
Human Rights
Human Solidarity
Development Based on Justice
Democratization
Sustainable Development
Attitudes/Values
The following attitudes and values may be cultivated:
Self-respect
Respect for others
Respect for life/nonviolence
Gender Equality
Compassion
Global Concern
Ecological Concern
Cooperation
Openness/Tolerance
Justice
Social Responsibility
Positive Vision
Skills
Some of the skills needed to be developed:
Reflection
Critical Thinking Analysis
Decision-making
Imagination
Communication
Conflict Resolution
Empathy
Group Building