The previous article here, introduced how as a community we can promoting peace, and concluded that early education is highly effective and this principle is promoted elsewhere as well.12 It was shown that:
Peacemaking Skills for Little Kids Key Components:
Development of listening, speaking, and cooperative skill
Accept and enjoy similarities and celebrate differences.
Understanding feelings and how to express them
Development of conflict resolution skill
These authors are of the school of thought that peace education is primarily a
question of developing skills.3
The fundamental and central skills are:
cultivate nonviolent character and acquire
conflict resolution skills
The aforementioned skills are brought about in early childhood by creating within the child peaceful thoughts and views.4
And that in order to cultivate these thoughts and views, one has to:
understand themselves
create a harmony formed by understanding and respecting the differences in others
feel they are an integral part of society.
In order for there to be harmony, there needs to be open and clear communication. If this communication is missing between the conflicting parties, there will be ignorance, and ignorance causes misconception, unrest, and furthers the conflict. 5
Teaching Peace in Early Education - Resource within the USA
Teaching Tolerance
Teaching Tolerance is a program of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Its mission is to reduce bias and promote equity in schools throughout the United States.6
Its core goals are to “foster inclusiveness, reduce bias, and promote educational equity” for K-12 students in the United States.
The Director of Teaching Tolerance Maureen Costello notes:
One challenge the organization faces is gauging how effective its methods are at creating change.
“The big challenge is that it’s hard to know whether you’ve had an impact. That’s a challenge of teaching in general,” Costello says. “The kinds of things that we teach are the things that change character.”
That is shocking. This aspect of self questioning what seems to be if they have had any impact at all, will need to be explored in subsequent articles. However, Teaching Tolerance works to achieve these noble goals as:
a publisher of books, magazines, films, and teaching materials. Its flagship publication, Teaching Tolerance magazine, is published two times per year and distributed to 450,000 educators. Its films address topics ranging from the Civil Rights Movement to anti-gay bullying in schools and have earned two Academy Awards in the short documentary category. All materials are free to educational institutions.
This topic requires more explorations and discoveries what if anything is having a positive effect on improving world conditions.
UNICEF. (2014). Peace building through early childhood development. UNICEF Education Section.
Lasi, S., Jiwan, J. J., Batool, Z., Dhanani, S., & Shrestha, K. (2017). Peace-Building In The Minds Of Early Childhood Education Teachers–Voices From Pakistan. Journal of Early Childhood Care and Education, 1.
Deutsch, M. (2015). Educating for a peaceful world. In Morton Deutsch: Major texts on peace psychology (pp. 89–103). Springer.
Alfonso, S. A. M. (2014). Peace Education in Early Childhood Education. Journal of Peace Education and Social Justice, 8(2), 167–188
Kartadinata, S., Setiadi, R., & Ilfiandra. (2018). Peace Education Pedagogy: Reference for the Development of Safe and Peaceful Schools. UPI Press.
https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/teaching-tolerance/