Twenty-first Century School for Nonviolence

EDUCATION, 26 Jan 2026

Surya Nath Prasad - TRANSCEND Media Service

Education is not animal training. The education of man is human awakening. In the past schools were meant for privileged people of every society of the world. The greatest problem facing the world as a whole today is how to educate all so that the society is get rid of exploitation, oppression and violence. In this article, the author makes a fervent appeal to usher in a new era in schooling by making education more humanistic and universal, thereby leading the society to non-violence and world peace.

“One who opens a school, closes a prison,” said Victor Hugo.

But school, from its very inception, has been creating and promoting violence throughout the history of human civilization. Throughout existence, human beings have been violent and continue to be violent. People have been tortured, burned, killed, exploited and oppressed. Intellectuals have also not been spared. They had to face brutal torture, exploitation and humiliation, and even death. From the commoners a few great men who lost their lives or suffered oppression are Christ who was crucified, John Huss who was burned at the stake, Socrates who was poisoned to death, Plato who was thrown into prison, Bruno who was burnt, Galileo who was forced to recant. In the present century the Dalai Lama of Tibet, Solzhenitsyn of the former USSR and Ms Rigoberta Menchu of Guatemala were exiled. Ms Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar has been kept under house arrest. And the lives of common people of their nations and the rest of the nations are not free and at ease. Because belief was more important than truth, dogma was more vital than direct perception; and these beliefs and dogmas have been giving comfort, security and a sense of permanency to the possessed and to those who have been in power and authority.

Schools were meant for privileged people of every society of the world in the past. Children of all and sundry were not in schools. Prospective rulers were educated but the rest of the people were both kept illiterate or merely informed and trained to be obedient towards the rulers. However, school education had within itself a destructive element. Thus, school had promoted exploitation and oppression in every society of the world. Schooling for a few privileged could not eliminate or even reduce wars. There have been 15,000 wars in 5,000 years! Pitirim A. Sorokin says that neither the growth of school education nor multiplication of technological inventions and scientific discoveries has led to a decline of wars and revolutions. As a matter of fact, they have been attended by an enormous increase in war and revolution during the most literal and scientific century of ail history. The figures shown below given by Pitirim A. Sorokin in his book: The Reconstruction of Humanity summarizes the relationship between wars, revolutions, scientific discoveries and technological inventions during the centuries in question.

The dates shown below shows constant multiplication of scientific discoveries and inventions from century to century, a fairly steady growth of the institutions of higher learning founded in each century, and a rapid and uninterrupted increase in the number of such institutions. The nineteenth and twentieth centuries break all records for the number of inventions and discoveries and the founding of institutions of higher learning.

The data also demonstrates that wars have not declined but, with some fluctuations, have sharply increased as we move from the twelfth to the twentieth century. The index for this century covers only the first quarter. If the wars between 1925 and 1947 were included, the index for the first half of this century would soar into the stratosphere, exceeding all the indices of wars for all the preceding centuries taken together.

Revolutions and other major internal disturbances have moved more erratically. After the high level of the twelfth to the fifteenth century inclusive, they underwent a notable decline between the sixteenth and the eighteenth century. In the nineteenth century they again flared up, and in the first quarter of the twentieth century reached an unprecedentedly high level. If all the important domestic disturbances that occurred in the subsequent period of 1926-47 were included, the first half of this century would give an index exceeding that for any whole century preceding.

Robert M. Hutchins finds that all countries everywhere contemplate a certain number of university students but they would have shuddered to think of the present number only a generation ago. In the United States, the number has doubled in ten years. The American system is so diversified, with 50 states, 40,000 school boards and more than 2,000 colleges and universities. England, which had 35,000 university places before the Second World War, is now talking of 600,000. The UNESCO World Education Report 1991 reveals that more and more time in peoples’ lives is being devoted to education. A quarter of the world’s adults are still illiterate, but their number is starting to fall. Nearly one out of five persons alive today is either a pupil or a teacher in a formal educational institution. However, school had done little good to the pupils but harmed them a lot. A British scholar wrote in 1964: “It seems appropriate that we should call out schools and universities to account for the enormous time and energy they now consume. My own guess is that the first fifteen years of an Englishman’s education does little for him …. Most of his education will have been custodial-it will have served merely to keep him off the streets.”

One may find that the increase in the number of schools, colleges and universities has not minimized the incidence of violence. This fact is established with an increase during recent years of expression of violence, of xenophobia, intolerance and conflict in different parts of the world. Thus the violence, exploitation and oppression of man by man have been created by school. And where there are no schools, the institutions which take the responsibility of imparting education are doing the same job of violence.

Nevertheless, the present school system does not help the students and masses in making them aware but it serves the purpose of oppressors. The major thrust of Paulo Freire’s criticism of the educational system is that the whole educational system is one of the major instruments for the maintenance of the ‘culture of silence’. He describes the life of the poor as the ‘culture of silence’ of the dispossessed. In the culture of silence the masses are ‘mute’, that is, they are prohibited from creatively taking part in the transformation of their society and, therefore, prohibited from being. Johan Galtung says: “Only rarely is education nowadays sold with direct violence; the days of colonialism and corporal punishment are more or less gone. But vertical division of labour which in this case it expresses in one-way communication… and if in addition the content of education is included, the structural violence becomes even more apparent.” While Christoph Wulf comprehends undesirable conditions within society which foster violence even including elements of violence in the family and the school system. Paul Goodman observes that schools are losing the beautiful academic and community-functions that by nature they do possess. He observes that a major pressing problem of our society is the defective structure of the economy that advantages the upper middle class and excludes the lower class. John Holt finds that schools and school people, even those who do not dislike poor kids, discriminate against them in another way, more kindly, less contemptuous, but probably more destructive. Further, he says that schools do not have the power of life and death over children. But they do have power to cause mental and physical pain, to threaten, frighten and humiliate them and destroy their future lives. Hence Everett Reimer considers school as dead. He says that most of the children are not in school. While children who never go to school are most deprived, economically and politically, they probably suffer the least psychological pain. Peter Buckman says that school perpetuates the social barriers the deprived seek to cross. This is why Ivan Illich wants to deschool the society and abolish compulsory schooling altogether and the monopoly of knowledge by educational institutions and to devote the vast funds thereby released to a true education for every citizen that would last from the cradle to the grave. This is the reason Paulo Freire criticizes all aspects of the educational system of oppressive society.

The basic reason for exploitation and oppression is that to some extent we are all illiterates. It is a matter degree. Some are most, some are more, some are much and some are less literate. And many are illiterates. Some are literate in one field of knowledge and some are in another. And each one of them exploits each other’s ignorance. This is why doctors exploit patients, lawyers exploit clients, teachers exploit students, producers and manufacturers exploit consumers, and other professionals exploit the persons who come under their dealings. And common illiterate masses are exploited by all types of literates. But the managers of schools are the greatest exploiters in the society. They generate exploitation within and out-of-campuses. They are poor trustees of educational trusts. They exploit teachers, students and their guardians. In return, to recover their losses, these people exploit others who come in their contact to seek their advice. Thus partial schooling promotes oppression, exploitation and violence. And hence, we are all oppressed, exploited and victims of violence. Therefore, we need schooling which for the oppressed means perpetual schooling for all and in all.

Philosophy of Non-violence

The etymological meaning of Ahimsa (Non-violence) is not ‘non-killing’, but physical ‘non-injury’. The first reference to ahimsa as a noun in Vedic literature is found in the Taittiriya-Samhita in which ahimsa is used in the sense of non-injury to the sacrifice himself. In the Satpatha Brahmana, ahimsa is used as a noun, and it is said, ‘the womb does not injure the child and the womb remains uninjured (ahimsa). Thomas William Rhys Davids claims that ahimsa is used for the first time as a noun in the Chandogya Upanishad. Ahimsa seems to have been used in the Chandogya Upnishad in a moral sense, i.e. being extended to all living beings (Sarvabhuta) with certain exceptions. The first reference to ahimsa in a moral sense may be found in Kapisthala Katha-Samhita. Medhatithi, commenting on Manu, refers to ahimsa as ‘non-beating’ of a student by a teacher. Kulluka explains in the same context that ahimsa means ‘non-tying of a student by a rope’ and ‘non-beating by a bamboo’. The Vedic conception of non-violence also appears in Shanti-Parva of Mahabharata: the violence done to an evil-doer (asadhuhimsa) for maintaining worldly affairs (loka-yatra) is ahimsa. This means that ‘violence to an evil-doer’ is considered as ahimsa. According to Vyas, the yogic ahimsa means absence of oppression (anabhidroha) towards all living beings (Sarvabhuta) in all respects (Sarvatha) and for all times (Sarvada). Jainism, Buddhism and Schweitzer treat non-injury to all living beings as ahimsa (non-violence). Therefore, ahimsa must be tempered with justice and a sense of reality.

One could find the act of non-violence in T’ai Wang Shan Fu of China, who when attacked by barbarians, tried to pacify them by ransom. But he did not succeed because they wanted his territory. Not willing to injure any lives, he left his territory and went away. The people streamed after him and founded a new state elsewhere. On this principle of non-violence, in 1940 Mahatma Gandhi advised Britain to lay down her arms, and allow Hitler and Mussolini to take what they wanted, except their (Britons’) souls and minds. According to Gandhi, a truely non-violent man never retaliates, and has no malice towards those who bring disorder.

An extreme example of non-violence could be seen in Socrates of Greece, who willingly died for the cause of the freedom for speculation. The effects of the death of Socrates were lasting in history.

Another supreme example of non-violence is that of Jesus Christ. Along with Jesus, the Romans crucified two robbers, one on either side of him. In their agony the other two cursed Jesus, but he forgave them. Jesus translated passive justice into active love.

John Huss and Giordano Bruno refused to recant their views which they had expressed. Hence, John Huss refused to sign a prepared statement that he had preached errors and that he was now willing to be corrected and preferred to be burned at a stake rather than to recant, he prayed for his detractors, “Forgive them, Father, they know not what they do!” His revolt was non-violent. Bruno also willingly went to the stake and was burnt for not withdrawing his views regarding the naturalistic conception of God tending towards pantheism and monadism. His revolt was non-violent against religious bigotry.

More than three hundred years ago wars and all forms of violence were unqualifiedly rejected for the first time by an organized group of men-The Society of Friends (Quakers) in 1960. It was again in the eighteenth century the Quakers led the movement for the emancipation of slaves. John Woolman perceived that to own human beings and buy and sell them was grossly evil. Another great Quaker, Thomas Garrett, was convicted and fined for his activities in the emancipation of slaves. The fine ruined him financially, but still Garrett told the judge : “Judge, thou hast left me not a dollar, but I wish to say to thee and to all in this courtroom that if anyone knows a fugitive who wants to shelter and a friend, send him to Thomas Garrett and he will befriend him.” Really these were great examples of non-violent resistance of evil.

The ancient Indians, Chinese, the Jews, Christians and Quakers followed the conception of non-violent resistance to evil. Quakers went further and repudiated all wars and physical strife. Tolstoy and Gandhi went still further and held that unearned income and living on the physical labour of others is also a form of violence. Gandhi said: “A truly non-violent man will refuse to be party to any kind of exploitation”. The duties of a perfectly non-violent man are to live by one’s own labour as far as possible, not to be dependent on others and to reduce one’s wants to the minimum. And Confucius advised: “Repay evil neither with goodness nor with evil but with justice”. This was why Gandhi had said: “The first condition of non-violence is justice all around in every department of life. Peace is non-violence restored with justice and equity.”

21^st Century School for Non-violence

Twenty-first century school will certainly be non-violent. The future school will not be confined within four walls. It will cater to everyone for one’s proper development and awareness towards his total environment which will help him in becoming human. As Jacques Maritain put it : “Education is not animal training. The education of man is a human awakening.” This is why Comenius expressed his two wishes regarding education of man, and he said, in The Great Didactic:

“Our first wish is that all men should be educated fully to full humanity, not any one individual, nor a few nor even many, but all men together and singly, young and old, rich and poor, of high and lowly birth, men and women-in a word all whose fate it is to be born human beings; so that at last the whole of the human race may become educated, men of all ages, all conditions, both sexes and all nations.

Our second wish is that every man should be wholly educated, rightly formed not only in one single matter or in a few or even in many but in all things which perfect human nature…”

In the light of the above definition of Comenius, Robert M. Hutchins, the author of the famous book The Learning Society, considers all educational systems of the past and present as, to some extent, inhuman, non-human and anti-human. Hence, he says, “unless everybody can be educated, democratic aspirations will shortly seem naive, and man must renounce his claim to be called a political animal. He will be ruled by a bureaucracy, which may guarantee him certain rights, but not the right to achieve full humanity through political participation. The lot of people will be bread and circuses.”

Therefore, schools “for all the children of all the people” will be a slogan for the 21st Century School. The term ‘school’ is derived from the Greek word Schole which means Leisure. The individuals with leisure became ‘schoolmen’- knowledge-seekers and then teachers. They took upon themselves the mission of providing the light of knowledge to all children and ‘lift them to the level of adults”. “All intellectual improvement arises from leisure, all leisure arises from one working for another,” said Dr. Johnson.

In a democracy, all are rulers; hence all deserve to be educated, because everybody is entitled to have the chance to be human. Huxley’s cry of a hundred years ago rings round the world today.

“The politicians tell us ‘You must educate the masses because they are going to be masters’, … And a few voices are lifted up in favour of the doctrine that the masses should be educated because they are men and women with unlimited capacity of being, doing, and suffering, and that it is as true now, as ever it was, that the people perish for lack of knowledge.”

This was why more than 45 years ago, on 10 December 1948, the nations of the world, speaking through the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, agreed that “everyone has a right to education”. However, despite considerable efforts by countries around the world to ensure this right by expanding educational services, there are 960 million illiterate people (over 15 years old) among the world’s population of four billion. In 1990, Asia and Pacific countries counted nearly three-quarters of the world’s illiterate adults and over half of its out-of-school children.

Thus, the greatest problem facing the world as a whole today is how to educate all. In modern times machines can do for every man to have leisure what slavery did for the fortunate few in Athens. Machines can assist very nicely, effectively and successfully to solve the problem of Education for All, including the oppressed. For authentic learning a dialogue between pupil and teacher is essential. Now this dialogue is shifted to between pupil and computer or the machine. Also in UNESCO’s Learning to Be, has been observed that the dialogue between pupil and computer creates conditions for efficient and rapid learning. The computer will assuredly be called on to play an important part in lifelong education which is the base of awareness and perpetual peace. Teaching machines will not eliminate the need for teachers or reduce their status. On the contrary, they will enable the teacher to save time and labour while taking on a vastly greater assignment. Even the machines available today free the teacher for more creative classroom functions than that of a drill master. In assigning certain mechanizable functions to machines, the teacher will emerge in his proper role as an indispensable human being. One teacher can teach all the chemistry courses of a country and he/she will never have to appear physically in person before any student. The teacher (computer or machine) may be at Delhi or Surat or Bombay or Calcutta or even in Peking or Moscow or Washington or in any other city of the world, but the blackboard (the screen of T.V.) will be in every home. No doubt, machines (technology-ET) will free educational systems from limitations of space, staff and time. And a time will come soon when every home will be a school for continuing learning to be human which will lead to non-violence.

Therefore, schooling for the oppressed and exploited, as we are all, would be humanist and libertarian through which the oppressed and the exploited will be able to unveil the world of oppression and exploitation. The practice of total schooling, in the sense of conscientization about total surroundings, will certainly transform the world of oppression and exploitation. Hence, the 21st Century School will facilitate perpetual schooling for and in all for non-violence which would lead to all peace.

And thus the 21st Century Schools will consider every human life as precious, and assure the peoples of the world that no more Christ will be crucified, no more Socrates will be poisoned to death, no more Huss will be burned at the stake, no more Bruno will be burnt, no more Galileo will be forced to recant, no more Dalai Lama, Solzhenitsyn and Menchu will be exiled; no more Aung San Suu Kyi will be kept under arrest, and there will be no genocide, no exploitation of any individual and people. And the school of the forthcoming century will be meant for non-violence.

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This article is based on the paper Twenty-first Century School for Non-violence presented in

The Seventh World Congress of the International Association of Educators for World Peace held at Saint Petersburg State University of Pedagogical Art, Saint Petersburg, Russia from 22 to 27 May 1994, and published in the Proceedings of the Congress, and also in Journal of Indian Education – (A Journal of National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT, New Delhi, India),    Vol. XX, Number 3, September 1994.

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 26 Jan 2026.

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