Education for Peace and Sustainable Development

Talk at the UNESCO Seminar in Colombo

A.S.Balasooriya

Introduction to Education for Peace and Sustainable Development

Peace is the ultimate aspiration of mankind all over the world, despite all ethnic, cultural and other differences. Without peace, life loses its intrinsic meaning, beauty and dignity. This human aspiration is expressed in a variety of forms: poetical, artistic, spiritual, and so on across different cultures. I shall quote two such beautiful expressions. Nearly six thousand years ago, the Aryans who lived in the Sindhu valleys in India sang the following stanza, which we find in the Vedas ( in Yajurveda).

‘May there be Peace in heaven,

Peace in atmosphere,

Peace on earth,

Peace in waters,

Peace in plants and forests,

Peace in the forces of nature

Peace in the absolute Brahman

Peace in all things,

Peace in peace

May that peace be with me!’

Here in Sri Lanka we chant a peace evoking Buddhist stanza in all our important social events.

‘May the clouds give rain in proper time

And crops yield harvest

May the whole world be happy and hale

And the rulers be righteous!’

This stanza views peace as the total product of the balanced ecological cycles, as rain in proper time, abundance of foods from good harvests, happy and contended society and right governance. The concept of sustainable development is imbedded in the above aspiration.

What is peace?

The word peace has a broad spectrum of meanings, which cover all aspects of life. Peace is so pervasive to define. Peace is such pervasive phenomena no definition can be given without reducing its meaning. The capacity to understand peace depends upon our present level of civilization and stage of development of consciousness.

Our predicament is the ignorance of the significance of peace which makes man conflictant with everything that he comes across, be it ethnicity, language, culture, or religion. He becomes more divisive rather than being unitive. Division leads to conflict and conflict leads to mutual destruction. Peace provides the atmosphere, space as well as nourishment essential to grow towards human perfection.

Peace may be viewed as arising from three sources, namely from inner well being, social well being and harmony with Nature. This view can be diagrammed as :


Inner Peace+Social Peace+Peace with Nature+ Total Peace

Inner peace includes harmony and peace with oneself, good health, absence of inner conflict, sense of joy, freedom. content etc.

Social peace means peace between man and man, man and woman, conflict resolution and reconciliation, love, friendship, cooperation, tolerance of differences, democracy and respect for human dignity and so on

Peace with Nature implies harmony with natural environment, caring for mother planet.

Each aspect taken separately is fragmentary. Total peace is the product of inner peace, social peace and peace with nature. Total peace should be our guiding principle and aim of development.

What is Peace Education?

Education is a powerful means of changing human psyche. If we want peace it is obligatory that we have to educate people how to live peacefully. Consider what Dr. Maria Montessori said at the beginning of the last century;

‘Those who want war prepare young people for war: but those who want peace have neglected young children and adolescents so that they are unable to organize them for peace

It is obvious that children should be educated in the art of peaceful living but are we doing it sufficiently and consciously?

RD Laing (1978) points out:

‘A child born in UK stands a ten times greater chance of being admitted to a mental hospital than a university….We are driving mad our children more effectively than we are genuinely educating them’.

He offers a very agreeable definition of Peace Education::

‘Peace Education is an attempt to respond to conflict and violence on scales ranging from global and national to the local and personal. It is about exploring ways of creating more just and sustainable futures’.

In sum, he says that peace education is education’s response to social violence. It is an attempt to inculcate nonviolent ways of behavior, of conflict resolution, of communication in the coming generation. In essence, peace education’s function is to build a peace consciousness in children. It embraces all basic peace values, love, fairness, cooperation and reverence for human family and all forms of life on earth including sustainable development.

Schools can immensely gain by implementation of a good peace education programme. Research findings reports that peace education improves relations among school community, facilitate students to develop peaceful life skills such as cooperation, friendliness, non violent communication, listening, self discipline, creativity and so on which lead to their healthy social and emotional development. Above all it improves quality of both the teaching and learning in the school.

I would like to present some feedbacks, received from students after participating peace education sessions in schools. You can note the dynamic effects of experiencing peace on adolescents.

My mind bloomed like lotus

How beautiful it is?

How fragrant it is?

How can I put the beauty

Of the experience of peace into words?

W. Maduka Himansi ( age 14)

Carmel Girls’ Central School. Chilaw.

Anger vanished away from my mind.

W.K.Nalinda Sampathwickramasirii Age 15

Palawatta Ranjan High School. Buttala.

The pressure in me released like the air in a balloon.

Now I feel relaxed.

The burning within cooled like a pool of water.

My feet wounded from thorns

Pricked in the walk of life have healed.

D. Sandali Prashani Age 14

Carmel Girls’ Central School. Chilaw.

I discovered the calm, peace,freedom, and joy which laid hidden in me so far. .

The door into the chamber of gems opened within.

Metusela Prasadi Livera age 13

Carmel Girls’ Central School. Chilaw.

I realized that peace is the best medicine for healing worries within.

Shalini Babra Age 12

Carmel Girls’ Central School. Chilaw.

The mind which was lost

in home work ,

in tuition classes,

in negative remarks

in distrust, suspicion and condemnations

experienced a momentary peace.

which lightened up my way ahead.

Mary Rose Priyani Age 12

Carmel Girls’ Central School. Chilaw

My desire for learning heightened.

W.G. Kaushalya Weragama (Age 14)

Sirisiwali High school.

Matale

I realized the value of life through the experience of peace within

J. D Krishana Shahani (age 16)

Sirisiwali High school.

Matale

Children from grades 8 to 12 report that they experienced during the peace education session, an increased sense of courage to face challenges in life, heightened sensitiveness to nature, compassion for people suffering, an awakened mindfulness, discovery of intense joy within, heightened spiritual energy, sense of freedom, being opened and clarity of mind. I could not contain my surprise when reading what they had written impromptu within a few mutes time. Teachers too expressed their surprise at students’ newly gained insights and their poetical expressions so beautiful. May be that the intensity of the experience led to the poetic utterances.

The above mentioned effects of the experience of peace, in children are confirmed by many teachers who have attempted the same. For instance a teacher named Stephanie Herzog in California has published her experience of teaching peace in a book called ‘Joy In the Classroom’ She conducted short peace evoking meditations in her a primary class. And found that the practice made profound changes in children’s thinking, attitudes, way of behaviour. To quote from her:

‘Meditation is not introspection or a kind of thinking process but is just learning to be still. In the stillness we are able to perceive what is normally covered up in the clamor and the bustle and conflict of life’.

Stephanie Herzog (Page 6)

Joy in the Classroom

Herzog finds meditation a means of listening to one’s own self.

‘We do not give children much opportunity in our schools to listen to themselves. We spend a lot of time talking to tem, leading discussions and creating numerous stimulating external learning situations… But children who learn to listen to themselves become more certain of themselves’ (.page 1)

She found a joyous and friendly atmosphere arising in the classroom as children practised inner peace activities. The relationship between the students as well as the students and teacher became warm. Sense of care, creativity, ability to relax, imagination and learning achievement increased as a result.

A common mistake prevailing about peace education is that it is often thought as peace studies. The latter studies about the conflicts affecting world peace with a view of finding political solutions, where as the former , namely peace education is concerned of sane and holistic development of the child through experiential learning of peace in its various dimensions, cognitive, affective, interpersonal, intrapersonal and environmental.

The UNESCO Teachers’ Guide for Peace Education

To implement Peace education first and foremost, one needs a model curriculum which is meaningful not only educationally but also nationally and globally. Various educators have independently proposed various models. In this context UNESCO New Delhi has offered a Peace Education model curriculum most appropriate to the present context of the Globe, especially to the Asian Region

In year 2001, UNESCO convened a seminar of peace educators from South Asian Region with the purpose of reaching consensus and drafting a common peace curriculum taking into accounts the educational and national needs of their countries. A Teacher Guide to Peace Education has been developed by the name ‘Learning the Way of Peace’ which is made available in the Internet by UNESCO New Delhi Documents and Publications. (http://unesdoc.unesco.org ).

This Guide, which is written in English has been translated into Hindi in India and into Sinhala and Tamil in Sri Lanka. The Guide prompted India to decide to make Peace Education a component in her general education. As I happened to be the writer of the Guide I base the present lecture on the approaches developed in it.

The Guide gives lot of suggestions how to convert the school into a peace school by creating a peaceful culture and atmosphere where the children can bloom as good, peace loving human beings. By introducing a school can reduce violence, invent creative teaching and learning methods, improve classroom management, improve discipline and develop teachers. The Teacher Guide discusses all these aspects. The approach maintains that every teacher needs be a peace teacher.

The peace curriculum introduced in the Guide is founded on ten core universal peace values, namely:

1. Think positive

2. Be compassionate and do no harm

3. Discover inner peace

4. Learn to live together

5. Respect human dignity.

6. Be your true self.

7. Think critically.

8. Resolve conflict nonviolently.

9. Build peace in the community

10. Care for the planet.

Let us take a close look at each value briefly. :

1. Think positive

This theme attempts to develop in children

· positive attitudes to life, learning , future, work

· self esteem

2. Be compassionate and do no harm

This theme attempts to help children to

• View human problems and practice love, kindness
• Listen with empathy to other and express empathy and warmth in relationship.
• Refrain from harmful thoughts and actions.
• Be kind to animals
• Practice forgiving

3. Discover inner peace

This theme attempts to help children to

• Be self disciplined
• Resolving inner conflicts
• Practice awareness and attention in daily activities
• Cultivate contended living
• Relax mentally and physically
• Discover inner peace through meditation

4. Learning to live together

This theme attempts to help children to

• Prefer cooperation rather than competition.
• Enjoy working together
• Share resources.
• Participate in democratic decision making
• Listen and respect others views and tolerate individual difference.

.

5. Respect for human dignity

This theme attempts to help children to

· Respect and be concerned for human rights.

· Develop tolerant behaviours towards diversity of views, cultures religions and political beliefs.

· Perform one’s duty appropriately

· Be empathetic to others needs and feelings

6. Be your True Self

This theme attempts to help children to

• Stand for one’s rights
• Stand for justice.
• Know one’s personal rights
• Learn effective ways of asserting oneself.
• Be truthful and honest.
• Develop will

7. Think critically.

This theme attempts to help children to

· Develop

o Skills in critical thinking

o Skills in questioning and probing into issues concerned

o Skills in analysis

· Practise self criticism and self refection

· Use basic tools in decision making

8. Resolve conflict nonviolently.

This theme attempts to help children to

· develop

o Skills in conflict resolution

o Skill in mediation

9. Build peace in the community .

This theme attempts to help children to

· Study contemporary local and global issues

· Explain one’s responsibility towards human society

· Participate in community development activities

· Develop to be responsible and productive citizen.

· Care for the planet.

10. Care for the planet.

This theme attempts to help children to

· Develop affectionate attitudes towards the Earth and nature.

· Explain the types of environmental crisis

· Refrain from polluting and destroying nature.

· Value reusing , repairing and recycling natural recourses

· Participate in environmental saving activities

· Values simple living

· Appreciate peace with nature

· Relate to Nature spiritually

The above themes touch the most essential aspects of good education. They adhere to the four pillars of education as proposed in the Dello reports, namely: Learning to know, Learning to do, Learning to live together and Learning to be. They also touch the essence of sustainable development.

Methodology

Peace Education basically uses learning through activity method, which is also called experiential learning method. The Teacher Guide provides a large number of types of game like learning activities such as: group discussion, debating, colloquy, fishbowl discussions, values clarification, case studies, brainstorming, puzzles, creative self expression, story telling, drawing, drama, role play, simulation, meditation, visualization, cooperative games and problem solving activities.

Integration into subject teaching

Should peace education be made into a subject? Some countries, including Sri Lanka have done it under different names. However, more than a subject, it is an approach to school education. Its significant features are affective approach to learning, experiential learning, aiming at holistic development of the child.

You can call any educational approach, peace education if it uses a peace perspective to what is being taught, leading to the expansion of peace consciousness of students. Any lesson can be presented through a peace perspective, be it history, geography, social studies language and so on. The above mentioned ten core values can be easily integrated into almost any lesson. In the context of the lesson the teacher can bring in activities to develop skills such as empathetic listening, assertive behavour, critical thinking, caring for the planet.

As Somfay-Stitz points out

‘Peace remains hidden in education literature rather than practiced’’

What is expected of teachers is to bring out the peace values, attitudes, concepts and skills laid hidden in the curricular materials. The above ten themes provides a guide for identifying peace values in the curriculum.

Implementation.

Initiative for peace education can be taken by

1. Individual teachers.
2. Individual principals
3. Local or provincial education authorities
4. National or central education authorities

It all depends on the teachers’ capacity to identify peace values and present them meaningfully within the context of the lesson. Therefore first step would be developing teachers to be peace educators through in-services training or school based staff development. Our motto is : Every teacher has to be a peace teacher.

Evaluation

For peace education to be a success, schools need to develop a good evaluation system.

The guide suggests a system with the following steps:

1. Identify learning needs and set a programme goals
2. Select peace concepts, themes, and values from the curriculum can meet the identified learning needs.
3. Plan a programme within a set period of time.
4. Implement the programme
5. Prepare a suitable tool for evaluation (Some tools have been given in the Guide)
6. Evaluate
7. Revise or improve the programme from assessment.

The Guide discusses the above issues in detail

Talk was given at the international conference on sustainable development held at Mount Lavinia Hotel in Sri Lanka organized by UNESCO and APCEIU on the 4^th of September 2008

Inspirational Poems by A.S.Balasooriya

• Dance of fireflies

adores the moonlit night

• The cranes roosting on the wild tree by the river,

keep watching the moon’s reflection

on the running water.

• The hungry man’s legs could

standing no more

when he smelled a roasting food

in a wayside house.

• Butterfly:

The world is full of flowers

Bee:

The world is full of honey

The fly:

The world is of full of filth.

• The child sends his kite

to the dream world

of the future.

• Standing by the pond in silence

A stream of joy rising within.

I don’t want to inquire why.

• A priest is in a jet.

But his belief is

in a bullock cart.

• Never ask a bird

Why and to whom

you are singing.

• To the dead peacock:

When you were dancing

there wasn’t a clue of death.

• The man who incessantly

talked is now silent.

This is the moment of repentance.

• A wave of fragrance of jasmine flowers

Sweeping through the sermon hall.

Even the preacher stops for a moment to breathe it.

• Whenever I cross the river

It is always new water.

• I returned to the old village of my youthful days

after thirty five years.

Where are the dear fellows

then known to me!

• A recluse lying down

under a tree in the grove.

‘Any place is home.

to me who has renounced my home’

• The ugly faced man who married

a beautiful lady

has never said to her: ‘You are beautiful’

• O! Food!

I bear up all the hardship

of the world because of you.

• The priest in the temple

who was has been calling God

for half a century

missed to make out Him

when He appeared at last.

• The distant dangers

Are closer than they appear to be.

• Only when I rested away from

the game I had been playing

I happened to know

what it was really!

Now I play it knowingly.

• When the doer ceases to be

Action blooms like a flower.

Excerpts from A.S.Balasooriya’s Book of Poetry: Dew Drops on the Lotus.( Script )

The Cure of Love

This is a story of a miracle of love.
A beggar in ragged clothes was laying on a payment
of a dusty street road. Middle-aged he seemed dissolute and helpless.
His eyes kept watching on passers by
for any help but no one even cared to look at him.

He was ill and so weak even to stretch out a hand to beg.
Add to the insult he was starving for he hasn’t eaten for several days.
So desperate he murmured painfully and said.
‘What is the use of this living. O! Death take me away from this unkind world’
Then he heard soft foot steps of someone approaching him

Opening eyes he saw a young lady with a grace of a goddess
standing in front of him. She asked ‘Are you ill, father’
The voice was so sweet, so kind.

She gracefully bent down over him and laid her hand
on his forehead and exclaimed ‘O dear!High fever’
No one had spoken to him with such kindness.,
No one had touched him with such a tender hand.
He said ‘Yes, my daughter,I am sick and let me die.’
She said ‘Oh! No. Please wait a minute’ and went away.

After a few minute a car arrived and she got out of it with a young man.
She pleaded the young man,“Priyantha, Let us help his man.
He is sick to the bone
Let us take him to hospital’
Both of them carried him into the car.

On the way he uttered in hunger " For days I didn’t eat anything’
The car stopped in front of a way side hotel.
She went out and brought a glass of soup and a pizza.’.

He swallowed them as if he has never seem such delicious food.
She asked ‘ What else do you want to eat’ he said: 'Enough! Thank God!'
While driving she said to the young man ‘Priyantha, he looks like my father. Isn’t he’?
Priyantha joked ‘I know, for you , every one on the roads looks like your father, mother, sister or brother’
They laughed heartily and the man in the back seat also could not help but join the laughter''

They admitted the sick man to the hospital and accompanied him to the bed in the ward
When he lay comfortably she touched his forehead again and said softly
'You will be O.K very soon.
'You will be care of. Don’t worry'

On the departure biding good bye she kept an folded envelop on his palm .
When they left the ward he slowly opened the envelop
and found a one thousand rupee note.

Never he has had such on in his hand.
He cried and shedding tears.
He couldn’t believe that there was such love,
warmth and kindness on earth.
He sobbed and sobbed. .

The love was healing his the suffering and hurt as an divine elixir.
He heart began to throb with new life.
He was coming back to life.

He said to himself: ‘Living is beautiful’.
Never had he felt that way.
With overflowing joy he opened his eyes and looked around.
He saw the patients lying around in him

He felt compassion for them.
It was also for the first time in life.

A soothing sleep came over him as a caring angel from heaven.
Even in sleep he felt that joy was throbbing deep within
On the following day being awake he found a new life
as fresh as blooming rose in a morning.
Happiness has come back to him.

Upon complete recovery and stepped out of the hospital.
Thereafter he was never found again begging on the street.

This is a story of a miracle of love.

Abode of Pure Living

Abode of Pure Living

Life is a mansion with two stories; a basement and upper floor.

But we live only in the basement not knowing the other. It is the abode of hope and despair, pleasure and pain, sorrow and happiness. It is a maze of thoughts.

The other floor is the realm of pure living beyond thoughts and time.
No thought can touch it; no event can affect it. Living there is only in here and now.

One who has not discovered it, is a prisoner of the dark basement of life. His is a victim of his own thoughts.

He struggles for living but never really lives.

Discover the abode of pure living.

(Excerpt from A.S.Balasooriya’s “Joys of the liberated mind”.(2007))

Consciousness and Mind: What is the Difference?

A Discussion with A.S. Balasooriya

Questioner: What is the difference between the consciousness and the mind? Are they same or different?

Balasooriya: These words as popularly used have no distinct definitions. Some use them in the same sense as synonyms, interchangeably. However, here we can attempt at coming to a clear understanding of the two phenomena.

What is mind? Is there such a thing called mind at all? Of course there is thought. You experience it. You experience it arising, running, changing directions, going from one to another. Mind is a projection of thoughts like the apparent circle of fire when you are rotating a glowing stick in a dark night. What you have really is the movement. The quick succession of movements creates the illusion of a circle of fire. Likewise the quick arising and falling of thoughts create the illusion of mind.

Q: You mean : No thought no mind!

B: Right!

Q: Then what is consciousness?

B: Consciousness is also such a projection arising from a group of thoughts.

Q: Explain it.

B:. People speak of consciousness as it is something static, permanent. There is no permanent consciousness. It changes from situation to situation, act to act. For example when you are watching a cinema you are in a different consciousness. Then you are in the consciousness of a spectator. When the show is over you came back to the normal consciousness.

Q: You said early that consciousness arises from a group of thoughts

B: I meant a that consciousness is a product of a particular programme of thoughts. A thought does not arise in isolation. It is a response of mental programme. Take a practical example: What is your response when you hear the word: ‘money’? The responding thought arises from the programme of thoughts, concepts, fears, egoistic motives. You have developed over the past. One thought is connected to a series of thoughts.

Q: Who is the programmer?

B: You are your own programmer! There is no God to decide on your fate. You programme life through your choices of attitudes, values, actions. You choose by your past, cultural, religious and idiosyncratic learning. Isn't a person but a collection of scripts conditioned by the society at large. Is there thinking apart from the stuff stored in the store house of the consciousness?

Q: Yes. Each believer is thinking along the path conditioned by his religion.

B: You see that all organized religions prohibits free thinking. Because such thinking poses a threat to their establishments.

Q: Each religion builds a particular consciousness in its believers.: The Muslim consciousness, Christian consciousness and soon.

B: Consciousness is like a big city with thousands of different stores. In close analysis your consciousness is made of many, many fragmented consciousnesses; small consciousnesses. At a given moment there is the never ending struggle within to surge up one over another. The mind is always in a conflict within itself between different consciousnesses.

Q: You are right when you say that no thought is arise by itself.

B: That is why it is difficult for a person to change, let go the whole of him but even a single thought, attitude or values. All of them are intertwined together as network.. Other supporting thoughts do not allow changing one thought. Here I mean deep changes within, not accommodations, assimilations, shaping and adjustment etc. They are superficial. How much you adjust superficially inwardly you are same. Aren't you?

Q: Can a person change deeply?

B: To explore it we have to find out what is awareness. What is awareness? Again it is a broad concept with a variety of levels of meaning. The consciousness and awareness differ from each other in that the consciousness is a personal construction where as awareness is an intrinsic faculty.

Q: You mean to say that consciousness is constructed while awareness is natural.

B: True. Let’s see go into what is awareness. There is general awareness going all the time. That you have cognition of where you are, what you are doing and with whom you are and so on. With more attention it can be made clearer. This state of cognition can be marred by the thoughts and emotions arising within you.

Q: How the awareness relates to consciousness?

B: The consciousness is like the colour in a glass. On the other hand awareness is spotless. It sees the reality as it is. We were discussing what true change in man is. The true change is awakening from consciousness to awareness. In the light of awareness man changes.