Teaching Peace: A Challenge to Teacher Education

EDUCATION, 17 Nov 2025

Surya Nath Prasad - TRANSCEND Media Service

15 Nov 2025 – No magic formula, no password, no political device can lead us to peace. A famous church father in the Middle Ages, Bernard¹ of Clairvaux, in a Latin hymn, asks, “Who will achieve universal peace?” And he himself answers, “The disciplined, the dedicated, the pure in heart and the gentle in spirit.” But this answer is incomplete because it fails to lead us to give clue to be disciplined, dedicated, pure in heart and gentle in spirit. His answer might be extended to peace education which can enable us to realize the truth that we are members one of another and also enable us to reach a unity of spirit before we can get together for political unity. Because it will be foolish to talk world unity without attaining world peace, and it will be more foolish to talk world peace without attaining peace at individual level. It means, if we can set right the man or individual, we can set right the whole world. And it is easy to set right the man or individual, rather than the whole world, and there is a possibility, if a man or individual is set right, the world will automatically be set right.

But we see everywhere misbehavior, indiscipline, violence and agitation in homes, schools, religious institutions and states. If sons and daughters misbehave with their parents, students are undisciplined towards their teachers, youth laugh at preachers and agitate against rulers or leaders, we must have doubt on faulty character of these elders, rather than youngsters. Youngers’ reactions are reflection of elders’ actions.

Parents who are fore-runners of preservative society are conservatives. Preachers are also conservatives, dogmatic and orthodox. Leaders or rulers are also aligned with parents and preachers. Certainly there are a few leaders or rulers who are radicals and they can bring immediate change in the society for which masses are not ready to accept Hence many disorders in the society may occur.

Thus only teachers who are expected to be progressive can lead the younger generation along with adults. So the destiny of the nations cannot be saved only within the class-room but outside of four-walls also. Hence the nations of the world need to have teachers for schools and out-of-schools both. If war is to be won in battle fields, peace must be defended in schools and out-of- schools (in learning society) by the trained teachers where doctrine of non-violence can be inculcated in the minds and hearts of younger and adult generation.

However, if the teachers themselves are conservative, dogmatic, orthodox, and happen to be neurotic, aggressive and authoritarian, children and masses can also be the same the builders of the nation and the world then become the means of destruction of the nation and the world. Thus the real problem is the teacher. This happens due to lack of proper training and education for peace to the teacher. We have education for doctors, engineers, lawyers and for teachers also, but we have no education for the people or teachers who want to become experts in the problems of peace.

The teachers could be the best men to be trained in peace education to perpetuate their peaceful temperament in the students and masses. So the teachers must be properly trained in it. Paul VI² said in his message, “To reach peace, teach peace,” But we may say, “Before to teach peace, learn peace, and to learn peace teachers must be trained for peace. Hence there is a great challenge to teacher education to frame courses on world peace for teachers, so that the training colleges, where the nation builders of the future are built, can make them radical, healthy and peace-minded to germinate their temperament of peace in younger and adult generation when they would be full-fledged teachers for schools and out-of-schools (us adult educators). Because peace is the product of education, so the training colleges must be the laboratories of the spirit of world peace.

The children of today will be the architects and engineers of the new civilizations, and the quality of that civilization will depend upon the values of peace embodied in its foundation. If we want peace, unity and progress for all the people, then our children must be taught for peace. Albert Einstein³ also says, “Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.” And this understanding can be inculcated in the minds of children in schools, colleges, universities and also in out-of-educational institutional boundaries. If the children are educated for wars, then why not can they be trained for peace? If the institutions of education serve the interest of war plans, then why not do they serve for peace plans? This was why the then Prime Minister of India Mrs. Indira Gandhi suggested, “Education for peace must be spread in schools and colleges.”⁴ “Peace studies in universities are welcome, even if their reach would be limited.”⁵

Education for Peace

Education for peace or Peace Education is the science of peace. It is a discipline which will study the problems of war and peace. Peace education always aims at peace. Educationally, perpetual peace is possible because the principles on which it can be maintained are already present in the inner consciousness of man. It is peace education that can ensure permanent peace. The chief thing that such an education will teach is that the first and fore-most condition such a peace is a fundamental psychological change, a radical change in human consciousness (Prasad) ⁶.

Objective of Education for Peace

Before discussing the curriculum of education for peace, objectives of this discipline are given below:

1. To acquaint student-teachers with the new emerging concepts like peace studies, pedagogy of peace, peace and conflict, and also with the establishment of the United Nations University for Peace in Costa Rica (Central America), Pence institutes and colleges of different countries of the world, and Gandhi and Peace Studies in different Indian Universities.
2. To educate student-teachers for disarmament. The United Nations Disarmament Educational Kit should be discussed in the classroom.
3. To help student-teachers learn how to maintain their mental health, prevent mental ailments and cure mental disorders.
4. To provide knowledge to the student-teachers about Panchsheel.
5. To make the student-teachers familiar with the teaching and ideals of altruists.
6. To teach the student-teachers the principles of democracy and help them to practice these values.
7. To acquaint the student-teachers with world history, world geography and world literature.
8. To make the student-teachers aware of natural resources, scientific and technological development, modern transportation and communication, and their effects on life.
9. To teach the student-teachers Human Rights, United Nations and its specialized Agencies, Non-governmental organizations and general International Law.
10. To prepare the student-teachers for treating each other as equals, expressing their differences freely dealing with fraternity, being just and doing justice, giving respect to the differences of others, and living with cooperation.
11. To help the student-teachers in the preparation of instructional materials.
12. To encourage the student-teachers for dialogue in their learning and creative work.
13. To stimulate the student-teachers to do research in the area of peace and non-violence.

Curriculum of Education for Pence

The curriculum can be formulated in the following areas:

1. Theory Programmes
2. Mental Hygiene
3. Peace Studies
4. Pedagogy of Peace
5. Peace and Conflict
6. Disarmament
7. Panchsheel
8. Human Rights
9. Democracy
10. United Nations and its Specialized Agencies
11. Non-governmental Organizations
12. International Law
13. Teachings of Altruists
14. World History, Geography and Literature
15. Natural Resources and Quality of Life
16. Scientific and Technological Transfer
17. Instructional Materials
18. Practicum In Peace Education

Actual practice should be made by the student-teachers in promoting peace. The feeling of mutual respect should be inculcated in the minds of the student-teachers through spot visits and meetings with the people of different areas of the nation. For this the student-teachers should be sent on field trips under the supervision of the teacher-educators to know and understand the language, customs, traditions and over-all culture of the people of different areas of the country. After coming back to their institutions, field reports along with the experiences should be submitted. This will lead them to be tolerant towards the people of other nations also. The value of peace can be promoted by these trained teachers and they can perpetuate the idea of peace in younger generation.

1. Project Work

Project work should be assigned to the student-teachers individually or in group. The theme of a project should be related to maintaining or bringing about peace in any unit of the society of their own region where institutions are situated or out of those regions also. After the completion of the work of the project report should be submitted to their respective institutions.

1. Peace Research

Factual research work should be done by the student-teachers. The student-teachers should be motivated to conduct research on peace. They should be encouraged to construct and standardize scales on World-mindedness and attitude towards peace (and on other similar themes) to measure the attitude of teachers and students towards world-mindedness and peace. Peace research reports should be submitted along with suggestions for maintaining these attitudes if the results are favourable, or for bringing desirable change in them if the results are unfavorable.

1. Student-teacher Self-government

Student-teacher self-government should be encouraged and formed in every teacher training college. This will help them learn the values and principles of democracy. Students’ programmes and activities be planned, arranged and executed by self-managed government of the student-teachers.

Methods of Teaching Peace

The problem-posing method will be useful, beneficial and effective for teaching peace to the student-teachers. It affirms men being in the process of becoming unfinished, uncompleted beings in and with a likewise unfinished reality. UNESCO⁷ also observes that man is obliged to learn unceasingly in order to survive and evolve. As a contemporary psychologist Georges Lapassade⁸ puts it, the human being is born prematurely… the individual is compelled to evolve. Essentially, therefore he can be educated. In fact he never ceases to “enter life”, to be born in human form (Fromm) ⁹. However, men know themselves to be unfinished. They are aware of their incompleteness. That is why Hadfield¹⁰ also says that every organism is impelled to move towards its own completeness. Fullness of life is the goal of life, the urge to completeness is the most compelling motive of life. There is no motive of life so persistent as this hunger for fulfillment whether for the needs of our body or for our soul, which impels us to be ever moving onward till we find. Hunger material or spiritual is the feeling of incompleteness. In this incompleteness and this awareness lie the very roots of education as an exclusively human manifestation, i.e., peace. The unfinished character of men and the transformational character of reality necessitate that education can be ongoing activity.

To teach peace through dialogue, the teacher-of-the-students and the students-of-the-teacher cease to exist, and a new term emerges; teacher-students with students-teachers. The teacher is no longer merely the one who teaches, but the one who is himself taught in dialogue with the students, who in their turn while being taught also teach. They become jointly responsible for a process in which both grow. Here, no one teaches another, nor is anyone self-taught. But men teach each other. This is nothing but the Socratic dialogue which gives full freedom to both to be manifested. This method of teaching is also supported and suggested by Freire¹¹ to be introduced and practiced in schools, colleges and universities.

In practice the above-mentioned method is seen neither in schools nor in teacher training colleges. Hence it is also a challenge to teacher education to accept this method because it is based upon the principle that educational instruction should be in harmony with the idea of peace. This means that the teacher and the students should be equal partners in the education process. The teacher should be in dialogue with the students about a problem which interests both the parties. The teacher does not necessarily have to be an expert who knows all about the problem. But in dialogue with the students, to know the problem becomes easy for both even in its solution also which gives fulfillment to both.

Thus teacher education for peace involves the principles of problem-posing curriculum and dialogical form of participatory decision-making. The teachers trained for peace will certainly be expected to practice problem-posing contents and dialogical decision-making in teaching peace to the students within the school and the adult population outside the school. However, unless the teachers are trained for peace, it is a challenge to teacher-education.

REFERENCES:

1. Bernard, Quoted in. S. Radhakrishnan, Education, Politics and War, Poona: International Book Service, 1944, p. 131.
2. Pope Paul VI, To Reach Peace, Teach Peace, World Goodwill Commentary (London), No. 13, August, 1979, p. 6.
3. Albert Einstein, Quoted in Disarmament in Attitude and Action, World Goodwill Commentary (London), No. 11, March, 1978, p. 1.
4. Gandhi, Indira, Peace Studies for School, National Herald, Sept. 20, 1981.
5. Inaugural Address, in the UNESCO Expert Meeting on the Role of Women in the Education of Young People for Peace, Mutual Understanding of Human Rights, December 7, 1981, Vigyan Bhagwan., New Delhi.
6. S.N. Prasad, Pease Education: An Alternative to War Education, Peace Progress – A Journal IAEWP Pedagogy of Oppressed Pedagogy of Oppressed (Japan), Vol. I. No. 3, p. 52
7. UNESCO, Learning to Be. The World of Education Today and Tomorrow, Paris: UNESCO, 1972, p. 157.
8. Georges Lapassade, Essays on Man’s Unfinished State, Paris Editions De Minuit, 1963.
9. Eric, Fromm, ‘Le Drame Fundamental de 1’ Homme Nature a Humain in UNESCO, Learning to Be, Paris: UNESCO, 1972, р. 158.
10. J. A. Hadfield, Psychology and Morals, London: Mathuen & Co. Ltd., 1925, p. 72.
11. Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, England: Penguin Books, 1972.

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This article is based on the paper: “Peace Education: A Challenge to Teacher Education” published in Journal of Indian Education – a Journal of National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), New Delhi, Vol. XII, No. 4, November 1986.

Dr. Surya Nath Prasad, Former President of the International Association of Educators for World Peace (IAEWP), Retired Professor of Education (India), Former Visiting Professor at Graduate Institute of Peace Studies, Kyung Hee University, Republic of Korea, Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Peace Education: An International Journal. dr_suryanathprasad@yahoo.co.in

This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 17 Nov 2025.

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