Learning for Peace
[Introduction] [Feedback Form] [Resources]
Introduction and background:
In 2002 NIACE organised an initial conference to explore the role of adult education in helping to understand the causes of violence and conflict in today’s world, to discuss ways in which such problems could be ameliorated through adult learning initiatives. The event was structured to allow all participants to contribute.
The event raised more questions than it answered but there was recognition that adult education has a history of active engagement with large issues and social movements. In recent times this engagement has diminished and many contemporary social movements do not see the relevance of adult education. Adult education itself has become bureaucratised and has lost much of its ‘social purpose’ orientation.
We believe that adult education can and should have a key role to play. The adult learning environment can provide a structured context for informed debates for the exploration of alternative explanatory and cultural analyses for generating mutual understanding and where appropriate, tolerance between opposing perspectives.
Adult education needs to be more visible and more responsive to new partnership possibilities with social movements. It is also important for agencies such as NIACE to explore what its function should be. An e-mail discussion group has been created to explore issues and create a forum for discussion. Papers around the subject have been published in Adults Learning but we need more.
A conference on 11 November 2003 helped us to explore further how adult education can work with various social movements to act as an agency and broker to foster understanding between differing interests and concerns and to explore possible adult learning initiatives.
These are ideas generated at the conference held on 11th November 2003, London as to how NIACE could take the agenda forward.
For NIACE:
 |
Lobby to raise importance. |
|
Write a “Policy” discussion paper. |
|
Create an umbrella for peace education movements. |
|
Set a NIACE target for next 12 months. |
|
Encourage curriculum development across the range of community/adult/higher education. |
|
Disseminate practice examples. |
|
Map curriculum content in existing provision that could introduce a ‘peace perspective’ - learning from the experiences of schools etc. |
|
Identify funding and research opportunities that might exist for the above. |
|
Look at delivery methodologies such as Reflect as used by Action Aid. |
|
Contact and make links with existing HE experts in the field (Bradford, Woodbrooke, Coventry etc). |
|
Publish examples of conflict - resolution/peace curriculum that work and that can be replicated. |
|
Advocacy - get the idea of peace agenda courses accepted by funders. |
If you would like to record your own opinions on this topic, please use the form below to submit your comments.
‘Learning for Peace’ Conference 11 November 2003, London.
Brenda Gourley...
...opened up the conference hoping that the day functions as a catalyst for action. The morning of the day was primarily dedicated to speakers, while the afternoon was focusing on workshops and the active involvement of participants.
Below there will be key points by speakers and key points for action suggested by the participants in the afternoon workshops:
Paul Mackney...
...started of with his personal experiences of working in Germany in 70s where he learnt to see the history from a different perspective but also to see that on each side there are prejudices and barriers.
- Unions are voluntary movements of millions of people but first of all we are all humans
- The strong need to abolish racism and hatred in Britain but also on a global scale. The American aggression can’t build peace.
_________________________________
Titus Alexander...
...started with an overview of the violent culture and society that we live in: the violence in the education system, violence in families, a violent and market-driven economy, violence as entertainment on TV, the geographic violence of cities, etc.
- It is not enough to say ‘no’ to peace - active peace means generating peace.
- Areas where active peace can be created:
| Family Learning: families are the most important institutions for learning, we need to support them more. Parents are the most important peace educators. |
| Self-confidence, etc.: Confidence is an important factor, learning changes people. |
| The problem with men: women who want to succeed have to be like men: men at the same time don’t know how to act; men have to learn how to be a human being with feelings… |
| Schools: often are places of underlying fear; we should make them to community learning centres. |
| Workplace: how can we educate people to enjoy work and choose their jobs. |
| Media: coverage of war; we need education for understanding media (media literacy). |
| Non violent communication: mediation, conflict resolution, mostly happening in the voluntary sector. |
| Public understanding of globalisation. Etc. |
| To see differences and work with them (awareness and sensitivity). |
_________________________________
Paul Nolan...
...pointed out the importance of contexts in conflicts. As an example, in Ireland the wearing of a poppy is very political- nationalists won’t wear them because they don’t want to be associated with UK. Wearing of poppies sparks incidents of conflict
- Education can feed the conflict: in acting as a gatekeeper, in supporting violent customs
- Five ways of how education can help peace:
| Enlightment Model: knowledge as an important part ; spread of knowledge = spread of virtue. In modern days often unsuccessful on its own because the connection between knowledge and virtue has been separated |
| Only connect: learning should be something that is affective, get in touch with each other ( especially in countries like Ireland where groups are separated from each other); cross-community groups (not sufficient either) |
| Anti-sectarian work: structural roots of conflict; modelled on anti-racism work in Britain, looking on institutional structures |
| Single-identity work: not all community work has to involve cross-community work; individual confidence, belief that their projection on the others is because of lack of self-confidence; the problem can be that they get too confident and not relate to the others anymore. |
| Celebrating cultural diversity: understanding and celebrating each other’s cultures |
_________________________________
David Archer...
...reflected from a global perspective of Action Aid.
- 9/11 as a day of polarisation, monologue and war - 11/11 as a day of peace, remembrance of the costs of war.
- global crisis of education, crisis of democracy in education.
- most money for transforming education in developing countries had to come from international aid, and so directly form the World bank - they are not interested in widening participation, etc..
- how can we achieve learning for peace if people don’t have a say over the learning process? If structures are autocracies? We can’t tell people how to live in democracies- it is contradictive
- Learning for peace is about creating a democratic space, not about messages
- We have to engage people, encourage them to be sensitive, to be reflective, enable people to manage their learning process
- Citizenship is not about facts but about showing how it works
- Learning for peace cannot be in an authoritarian classroom, we need unconventional venues, etc.
- Learning for peace depends on facilitating a dialogue - war is the worst kind of monologue
_________________________________
Key points for action of the afternoon workshops
| NIACE to lobby so this area of work is seen as important. |
| NIACE could function as an umbrella . |
| NIACE should influence curriculum. |
| We should move on to a systematic approach. |
| NIACE could make a clear statement, contribution to take peace education forward; to make a case for Adult Peace Education and to link with the immense interest in the stop the war movement. |
| There is an intergenerational aspect - the way we welcome newborns into the world and the stability of old people - we need to learn not to be warmongering in all these things. |
| Development education. |
| How we teach and which methods we use - look at our institutions and structures. |
| Inform and debate. |
Resources
|
