Let’s Be Friends Elementary Curriculum Grades 2-3

A prevention curriculum teaching young children positive social skills, “Let’s Be Friends” presents useful tools that enable students to co-create a positive social environment that fosters kindness, compassion and responsibility. The 45-page pdf provides 8 lessons targeted toward early elementary students.
Lesson One: Positive Attributes
Lesson Two: Internal & External Strengths
Lesson Three: What is a Friend?
Lesson Four: Qualities of Friends
Lesson Five: Understanding Conflict
Lesson Six: Building Empathy
Lesson Seven: Ways to be a Friend
Lesson Eight: Reflecting on Friendships

Pioneer Peace Pack

This resource collection includes information and activities for groups of 10 – 12 year olds who are participating in the U.K.-based outdoor education group known as the Woodcraft Folk. The resource includes instructor overviews and associated handouts and reading materials for activities focused on the following themes: Bullying, Conflict Resolution, War Toys, War Detectives, Child Soldiers and Positive About Peace. The Conflict Resolution module alone includes 6 separate activities.

The Woodcraft Folk group describes their goals as follows: “Our aim is to have great fun, but also to try and develop children’s self-confidence and build their awareness of society around them. Through our activities, outings and camps we help our members understand important issues like the environment, world debt and global conflict and, in recent years, we have focused on sustainable development. By encouraging children to think, we hope they will help build a peaceful, fairer world.”

Peace education: A pathway to a culture of peace (2nd Edition)

209-page pdf book designed to provide educators with the basic knowledge base as well as the skill- and value-orientations that we associate with educating for a culture of peace. Although this work is primarily directed towards the pre-service and in-service preparation of teachers in the formal school system, it may be used in nonformal education.

Part I presents chapters that are meant to help us develop a holistic understanding of peace and peace education. Part II discusses the key themes in peace education. Each chapter starts with a conceptual essay on a theme and is followed by some practical teaching-learning ideas that can either be used in a class or adapted to a community setting. Part III focuses on the peaceable learning climate and the educator, the agent who facilitates the planting and nurturing of the seeds of peace in the learning environment. Finally, the whole school approach is introduced to suggest the need for institutional transformation and the need to move beyond the school towards engagement with other stakeholders in the larger society.

UNESCO’S Work on Education for Peace and Non-Violence: Building Peace Through Education

A 20-page brochure providing an overview of UNESCO’s work in advocacy, policy, information exchange and the development of text books, learning materials and curricula. It was developed by the Section for the Promotion of Rights and Values in Education, Division for the Promotion of Basic Education. Included are links to many useful publications produced by UNESCO and its partners.

Proposed Guiding Principles for Israeli/Palestinian Academic Cooperation

Short version (29 page pdf) of a UNESCO study conducted by the Palestinian Center for the Dissemination of Democracy and Community Development (PANORAMA), with Walid Salem heading the Palestinian team, and by the Center for Research and Cooperation Jerusalem (CRC), with Edy Kaufman heading the Israeli team, within UNESCO’s Civil Societies in Dialogue Programme. The goal of the project is to explore avenues for significantly increasing the percentage of Israeli and Palestinian academics and intellectuals engaged in constructive dialogue who can contribute towards a just peace. This document was launched in 2004 by UNESCO, which commissioned a study on the obstacles and promises of establishing a sound basis for academic and intellectual cooperation across the Israeli/Palestinian divide.

Teacher insights from an intercultural peace curricula development project

25-page PDF article from the Interamerican Journal of Education for Democracy, vol. 2, no. 2. September 2009. Abstract: “Data garnered from an eight month critical ethnographic action research project tells a story of prejudice and discrimination in a white, Euro-American dominant context at Junction High School in the U.S. Midwest. However, counter-normative efforts aimed at transforming the situation for newcomer students were conducted by both the researcher and a group of teachers who developed and implemented intercultural peace curricula. White, Euro-American constructions of “others” and teacher reflections on their engagement in the process are presented in this article. The article aims to provide a case study and to encourage deeper dialogue on intercultural peace education in schools for achieving an authentic democracy.”

Tolerance: the threshold of peace: A teaching/learning guide for education for peace, human rights

42-page PDF document which was “prepared to serve as an introductory resource material, to provide some understanding of what is involved in and required of education for tolerance. It provides a statement of the problems of intolerance, a rationale for teaching toward the goal of tolerance, and concepts and descriptions for identifying both the problems and the goals … Each chapter of the guide comprises material that can be used for study and discussion on issues of tolerance and peace. Organizations, groups and formal classes of secondary level and above can explore together the issues raised and problems identified…”

Continuum of [restorative justice] strategies

1-page PDF chart illustrating a continuum of restorative justice strategies, with an informal end where staff are provided with skills of how to engage young people in a dialogue that emphasises a greater sense of other and a more formal end with skills to restore damaged relationships following an incident or outburst.

Opening the door to nonviolence: Peace education manual for primary school children

Electronic version of the second edition of a teacher’s guide for teaching peace education to primary school students. “Part I is designed as a training in affirmation, cooperation and communication. Part II deals with the healing of trauma; Part III is about bias and prejudices. Part IV introduces peaceful problem solving and nonviolent conflict resolving and Part V is about peaceful living. There are 20 chapters/sessions in the book, each session developed through step-by-step activities.”

Conflict transformation: A standards-based conflict resolution unit for middle school students

Web-based “twelve-unit, thirty-six-hour course designed to teach middle school students basic conflict transformation skills for personal, community, national, and international situations. The short stories, current events, class discussions, guided reading activities, and guided writing assignments make this course ideal both for social studies and language arts classes.”

Conflict negotiation skills for youth

186-page PDF training manual on Conflict Negotiation Skills for Youth. The manual is directed at government and nongovernmental organization personnel working with young people. It presents a variety of participatory training methods and exercises. Users are encouraged to refine and adapt the materials. The contents are organized as follows: Conflict Negotiation Skills for Youth: Facilitator’s Guide
Section I: Youth and the conflicts they face in daily life, Session 1: Understanding youth, Session 2: Understanding conflict, Section II: Techniques for resolving intra-personal conflicts, Session 3: Self-awareness, Session 4: Communication, Session 5: Negotiation, Session 6: Mediation, Section III: Techniques for resolving group conflict, Session 7: Group building, Session 8: Team building and cooperation, and Session 9: Advocacy for youth development References.

Community-Based Institutes on Peace Education (CIPE) organizer’s manual: A peace education planning

78-page pdf manual “designed to assist formal, non-formal and grass-roots educators and educational planners by providing ideas and tools for the development of community-based peace education learning projects that might contribute to the reduction of violence at all levels of the global social order. More specifically, it has been developed to aid in the planning of “Community-Based Institutes on Peace Education (CIPE),” a special community-centered initiative of the International Institute on Peace Education (IIPE) … As you explore the contents you will see that this manual is arranged like a workbook. It is organized around inquiries into practical considerations for designing peace education initiatives in multiple and varying contexts. These inquiries are designed to engage you – the educator/planner – in reflections upon your own unique situation and possibilities for affecting change through education.”

Statement of restorative justice principles: As applied in a school setting: 2nd edition

24-page PDF document of “Principles [which] form the basis for restorative practices in all settings, using all models, where the primary aims are to repair harm and promote dialogue … Restorative practices are underpinned by a set of values, these include: Empowerment, honesty, respect, engagement, voluntarism, healing, restoration, personal accountability, inclusiveness, collaboration, and problem-solving.”

Tolerance in multiethnic Georgia: Training methodology manual for educators

156-page pdf training manual, “on the management of interethnic relations intended for teachers and youth leaders (educators). It also includes the description of the ethnic groups residing in Georgia and covers the themes like the nature of ethnic stereotypes and attitudes, peculiarities of intercultural dialogue, the essence of ethnic identity and conflicts. The suggested training system is based on the findings of the empirical research carried out with the teachers in the public schools of Georgia, youth leaders in patriot camps and future teachers. The system underwent an additional testing with 195 training participants. The given book can be useful to psychologists, students, ethnologists and those who are involved in the fields of education and interethnic relations.”