Background
| Classroom applications | Internet
resources | Appendix
Chapter
1
By Carolyn Duffy
Defining Peace is the theme of the first chapter of the Peace Education volume and will provide learners with a common core of knowledge and experiences related to the concept of peace. By examining a series of photos depicting scenes of people working together to achieve harmony and understanding, students can establish a core vocabulary and shared concepts which will be the basis for discussing peace.
Using the photo series as the basis for discussions on the topic of peace, the teacher helps organize the information by using "webs" to introduce the concepts and "class word lists" to record key words and phrases. Dictionary and word-building activities engage students in working with the new concepts and lexicon. Learner notebooks will help students to record and organize the words and phrases for later use in their personal journals. The activities presented in Chapter 1 may be used in one lesson or presented over a series of lessons as a more extensive teaching unit in combination with the related Internet Resources, which are given at the end of this chapter.
Peace has been defined as the absence of conflict or violence and, conversely, as the presence of states of mind and of society such as harmony, security, accord, and understanding. In order to better understand how to achieve peace on the global level marked by the absence of violent conflicts or wars between nations, states, and communities, it is important for us to examine what personal attitudes, values, and knowledge provide the basis for working toward peace making and peace keeping.
While almost all of us want peace and prefer to live and work in a peaceful situation, few of us have examined situations in order to identify the elements that foster peaceful living. What beliefs, traditions, attitudes, and values lead to living in peace and harmony? Is it possible to have global peace if we do not reflect personally on how peace is achieved in our daily lives?
An exploration of the elements of peace includes examining the language we use in our discussions. Tolerance, understanding, empathy, cooperation and respect for differences in others are at the core of our peaceful coexistence on earth, but each of us may interpret these concepts somewhat differently based on our cultural values, our life experiences, and our beliefs about the world. It is important for us to share an understanding of these concepts as we talk about our attitudes and values and as we describe and analyze situations for elements of peace or conflict.
