Peace education may be defined as the process of acquiring the values, the knowledge and developing the attitudes, skills, and behaviors to live in harmony with oneself, with others, and with the natural environment.
There is thus no shortage of official statements on the importance of peace education. There are numerous United Nations declarations or instruments which confirm the importance of peace education. Koichiro Matsuura, the current Director-General of UNESCO, wrote of peace education as being of "fundamental importance to the mission of UNESCO and the United Nations".
Peace education as a right is something which is now increasingly emphasized by peace researchers such as Betty Reardon and Douglas Roche There has also been a recent meshing peace education and human rights education .
Ian Harris and John Synott have described peace education as a series of "teaching encounters" that draw from people:
their desire for peace,
nonviolent alternatives for managing conflict, and
skills for critical analysis of structural arrangements that produce and legitimate injustice and inequality.
James Page suggests peace education be thought of as "encouraging a commitment to peace as a settled disposition and enhancing the confidence of the individual as an individual agent of peace; as informing the student on the consequences of war and social injustice; as informing the student on the value of peaceful and just social structures and working to uphold or develop such social structures; as encouraging the student to leave the world and to imagine a peaceful future; and as caring for the student and encouraging the student to care for others" .
WE will have world peace if we all just learn to understand each other. But to do that, we need education.
“Peace is also not a passive state, it is a process which needs time, attention and the participation from all of us.
Quotes
"I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent." -- Mohandas K. Gandhi
"Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind...War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today." -- John F. Kennedy
"War is as outmoded as cannibalism, chattel slavery, blood-feuds, and dueling, an insult to God and humanity...a daily crucifixion of Christ."
"There was never a good war or a bad peace." Benjamin Franklin
"War would end if the dead could return." Stanley Baldwin
"In peace sons bury fathers, but war violates the order of nature, and fathers bury sons." - Herodotus
"If the human race wishes to have a prolonged and indefinite period of material prosperity, they have only got to behave in a peaceful and helpful way toward one another." -- Winston Churchill
One day we must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal we seek, but that it is a means by which we arrive at that goal. We must pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means. ~Martin Luther King Jr.~
Do not overrate what you have received, nor envy others. He who envies others does not obtain peace of mind. ~Buddha~
