Teach Peace Secondary Pack

The U.K.-based Peace Education Network is pleased to release this second edition of their Secondary Level curriculum. The Teach Peace Secondary pack is aimed at 11–18-year- olds and follows on from the success of the Teach Peace Pack for primary school pupils aged 5–11. It considers themes around children and human rights education, decolonising the curriculum, local, national and international examples of peace in action. It brings together practice from throughout the UK and asks young people to consider the very big questions of peaceful practice.

Copies of the lesson materials described in this brochure are available online at:  http://bit.ly/teach-peace-TES or www.tes.com/teaching-resources/shop/peace_edu_network_uk

Peace Education for Youth: A Toolkit for Advocacy and Planning

In 2022, the Global Campaign for Peace Education identified a concerning gap between youth’s desire for peace education and its implementation in their schools and communities. To mitigate this, the Global Campaign Youth Research Team developed ‘Peace Education for Youth: A Toolkit for Advocacy and Planning’ to support students across the world in advocating for the integration of peace education opportunities in their schools, universities, and communities.

This 35-page “living” toolkit was designed to provide information on what peace education is, how it might be practically implemented, and how to advocate for it in various contexts.

Youth4Peace Training Toolkit

The Youth4Peace Training Toolkit that will guide you through the concepts and practice of delivering educational activities on conflict transformation, peacebuilding, and the creation of peaceful narratives.
This toolkit has been developed for beginners and intermediate youth trainers and educators in the field of peacebuilding and we hope that this is going to be a useful tool for you to start or further implement educational programmes on peace and transforming conflicts and narratives targeting youth through non-formal education.

Empowering students for just societies: a handbook for primary school teachers

The activities in this UNESCO Teachers handbook (77 pages, PDF) are rooted in Global Citizenship Education, an approach which can help foster young people’s trust in public institutions, transforming them into agents of change instead of allowing feelings of disenfranchisement and victimhood to fester. UNESCO works with UNODC to promote the rule of law, democracy and human rights through education.

The lessons in the handbook are interactive: democracy is demonstrated, as students participate in mock elections or take on the roles of judges – jurors – local mayors and refugees. Games and story-telling help bring social issues to life, prompting students to take a moral stand.

Diminishing Islands is one included game the young children loved to play. It teaches them about common causes for conflict, and about the need to work together without resorting to violence. Children occupy ‘islands’ of newspaper on the classroom floor, but as the game develops their ‘islands’ disappear, and they find themselves crowded onto just a few islands, until at the end, most are ‘out’. Afterwards, the teacher leads the class in reflection on how the game made them feel, and on how it relates to real life challenges – war, migration, poverty, inequality. One primary aged child who played this game learnt a valuable lesson about working together: ‘We have to do our best to help one another to survive because I don’t want to be alone on an island’.

Teach Peace Pack Elementary (updated edition)

In Teach Peace you will find a set of ten lesson plans for use as assemblies or workshops aimed at 5-12 year olds. The pack also contains follow-up activities and resources, prayers, and reflections on peace. The original pack was so popular that the Peace Education Network decided to produce an updated edition with three new lesson plans, providing educators with further resources to champion peace education. The webpage for this project is at https://peace-education.org.uk/teach-peace

Education for a culture of peace in a gender perspective

Betty Reardon’s 2001 publication, Education for a Culture of Peace in a Gender Perspective, can be downloaded for free via UNESCO’s digital library. Betty Reardon expresses the basic rationale for including a gender perspective: “War also reinforces and exploits gender stereotypes and exacerbates, even encourages, violence against women. Changing these circumstances, devising a peace system, and bringing forth a culture of peace requires an authentic partnership between men and women. Such a system would take fully into account the potential and actual roles of women in public policy and peace-making as advocated in UNESCO’s Statement on Women’s Contribution to a Culture of Peace. Such participation would indicate an authentic partnership, based on the equality of the partners. Equality between men and women is an essential condition of a culture of peace. Thus education for gender equality is an essential component of education for a culture of peace.”

Family Engagement in Peace Education Workbook

Children play a crucial role in creating social change and a better future for all. The “Family Engagement in Peace Education Workbook,” developed by Katie Santarelli of the DC Peace Team <dcpeaceteam.com/our-work/peace-education/>, encourages children to investigate the role that conflict plays in themselves, their community, and the world. The 32-page PDF has sections for elementary, middle school and high school youth, each providing 5 suggested activities. Throughout this exploration, activities are designed to pique a child’s curiosity in peaceful living and the role that nonviolent peacemaking can play in transforming conflict.

Peace Pedagogy Learning Modules from Peacelearner.org

A series of learning modules developed by Daryn Cambridge for a Peace Pedagogy course he taught at American University in the Fall of 2012. The course was designed around seven pillars of peace education: community building, enabling multiple intelligences, nurturing emotional intelligence, exploring approaches to peace, re-framing history, transforming conflict nonviolently, and life-skills building. The learning modules were posted at the public website PeaceLearner.org as part of the course. Here’s a listing of the available modules:

Learning Module 1 – Welcome to Peace Pedagogy
Learning Module 2 – Peace Education Voices
Learning Module 3 – Community Building
Learning Module 4 – Social and Emotional Intelligence
Learning Module 5 – Conflict Resolution
Learning Module 6 – Yoga and Meditation
Learning Module 7 – Nonviolence
Learning Module 8 – Environmental Sustainability

Elicitive Curricular Development: A Manual for Scholar-Practitioners Developing Courses in International Peace and Conflict Studies

This book is co-authored by Peace Studies Innsbruck core faculty Josefina Echavarría Alvarez, Adham Hamed and Noah B. Taylor and it outlines central principles of the University of Innsbruck’s approach to curricular development for Peace and Conflict Studies around the world. It has been authored in the framework of the project Education for Peace in the Iraqi Higher Education System, implemented by the University of Innsbruck in partnership with the Iraqi Al-Amal Association the United Nations Development Program in Iraq and nine Iraqi Universities.

The ECDM is a systematic collection of experiences and lessons identified in academic contexts around the world in Austria, Cambodia, Colombia, Brazil, Ethiopia and Iraq. The ECDM reflects core elicitive principles such as the importance of a focus on relationships, looking beyond the episode of conflict, collaboration, communication and local knowledge. These principles are consistent with the mission of the Research Center for Peace and Conflict (InnPeace) to teach, learn and research as reflective processes of relevant social questions of peace and conflict transformation.

This manual offers helpful guidelines for academic and administrative staff, as well as international cooperation partners trusted with developing peace and conflict courses at the graduate and postgraduate levels.

Quaker Peacemakers Poster Collection

This set of 10 letter-size posters describes the work of 9 Quakers (members of the Religious Society of Friends) active in various domains of peacemaking. Featured peacemakers include Lewis Fry Richardson, Adam Curle, Bayard Rustin, Elise Boulding, Kenneth Boulding, Priscilla Prutzman, Jennifer Beer, Bill Kreidler and George Lakey. Also featured is the Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP), a Quaker-founded program working in prisons and community settings. Each poster includes a quote, a stylized picture and biographical background information on the featured person or project.

Drama for Conflict Transformation Toolkit: Youth Theater for Peace

Youth leaders and adult facilitators can use the Drama for Conflict Transformation Toolkit to create a customized training agenda based on their needs, timetable, and cultural context.

Across Kyrgyzstan, youth participants in the Youth Theater for Peace (YTP) program are using the Drama for Conflict Transformation methodology introduced in the toolkit to create community conversation about conflict issues. Since 2010, participants have collaborated with more than 50,000 audience members to talk about solutions to bullying in schools, labor migration, bride kidnapping, resource scarcity, and substance abuse.

Cultivating Peace – Taking Action

This 66-page pdf is a curriculum packet developed for use in Canadian classrooms. “This resource encourages students to examine their own beliefs regarding the need for change in our world and their personal responsibility in taking action. The preconditions necessary for a culture of peace are explored through the examination of global issues in sustainable development, economic disparity, fair trade, human rights and consumerism. Students are given opportunities to explore the range of actions possible, the ways in which change occurs, the barriers to participation and the factors that support youth involvement. The resource includes a teacher’s guide, a video, a poster series and a student guide to taking action. It is designed for use in grades 10-12.”

Learning Skills of Peace through Every Day Conflicts

Practical Activities and Resources for Families, Teachers and Other Caregivers. Noting that the conflicts arising daily for young children provide an opportunity for adults to model and teach skills for handling conflict peacefully, this guide provides tips for preventing unnecessary conflict, offers “first aid” for conflict moments, and provides resources for addressing common situations that can cause conflict. Developed cooperatively by Ohio’s Commission on Dispute Resolution and Conflict Management, Head Start Association, and Department of Education Division of Early Childhood, with implementation facilitated by many Ohio public libraries, the guide is comprised of 40 thematic units of instruction for the early childhood setting, with most units accompanied by home cards providing tips for preventing conflict and suggested activities. Each unit contains information on the importance of the topic for conflict management and its link to peace, suggested books, activities, and copies of home cards. The 40 units cover: (1) anger and aggression; (2) art; (3) bad day; (4) bad language; (5) bathtime; (6) bedtime; (7) behavior; (8) big and little; (9) big brother, big sister; (10) biting; (11) conflict; (12) cultural diversity; (13) death; (14) disabilities; (15) divorce; (16) dressing; (17) family; (18) fears; (19) feelings and emotions; (20) free choice; (21) lying; (22) mealtime at school; (23) mistakes; (24) nap time at school; (25) new baby; (26) teaching the problem-solving process; (27) safety; (28) school; (29) security objects; (30) self-esteem; (31) sharing; (32) siblings; (33) sickness; (34) stealing; (35) stress; (36) tantrums; (37) time out; (38) transitions; (39) whining and nagging; and (40) work. Also included in the guide are additional resources, such as a list of books for each unit, information on child development and child needs from birth to five years, and suggested readings for teachers and parents.

Human Rights, Conflict Resolution, and Tolerance Education Teacher Toolkit

This 233-page guide, provided as a pdf, was developed by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). As the main provider of basic education to Palestine refugees, serving approximately half a million students, UNRWA has also been delivering human rights, conflict resolution and tolerance (HRCRT) education in its schools for over a decade. The HRCRT Toolkit was developed to serve as a practical tool to further strengthen the teaching and learning of human rights in UNRWA schools. It is designed to be a user friendly tool which will support the effective implementation of the HRCRT Policy, launched in May 2012. The Policy articulates UNRWA’s approach to human rights education in order to harmonize, update and strengthen it.

The HRCRT Toolkit is a comprehensive and accessible resource for UNRWA’s 19,000 teachers and school management staff. It will equip them to teach human rights in a way that engages and inspires their students and to integrate human rights education into their classroom routines and curriculum subjects. Through the practical activities in the Toolkit (40 in all), teachers will be able to create a rights-based, and empowering environment for their students.

The Policy and the Toolkit both seek to empower Palestine refugees, encouraging them to know and exercise their rights, uphold the rights of others, be proud of their Palestinian identity, and contribute to their society in a positive way.