- Equipping the New African Peacebuilder: A Peacebuilder’s Curriculum (Equipping), 2012, Titus K. Oyeyemi, Nappanee, IN: Evangel Press, 281 pages
- Evaluating Peace Education: A Study of Nigerian Jr. Secondary Schools (Evaluating), 2012, Titus K. Oyeyemi, LAP LAMBERT Academic Publishing: Germany, 160 pages
Joseph and Efron (2005) encourage peace educators to use peace education as means to connect young people to a vision of peace, harmony and earth stewardship, noting that this goal can be achieved by integrating peace education curriculum to cover all disciplines, including science, language and history (Evaluating, p. 109).
This resonates with the thought of Bernard Haring (1986) in Equipping, pp. 36 ff, that “the dimension for peace belongs to all parts of social ethics, medical ethics, ecological responsibility, social economic life, and particularly to the ethics of politics, the goal of which is a truthful politics of peace, of cooperation for a healthy public opinion, and indeed to all facets of human life” (Equipping, p. 80, from The Healing Power of Peace and Nonviolence, New York, NY: Paulist Press, p. 8).
Another favorite passage is in Evaluating where Ashton (2007) and Duckworth (2008) are cited: “The desire to make peace education produce change could result in the implicit pedagogy rather than in both implicit and explicit pedagogy” (Evaluating, p. 61).
Implicit pedagogy means that a certain activity or indoctrination of a certain discipline will result in some specific behavioral modification or change to be demonstrated by the subject of the activity or indoctrination.
For example, consider the result of “wokeism” of Black Lives Matter or the protestations of President Trump followers on January 6, 2021.
According to Duckworth (2008), “Moving implicit peace education pedagogy to explicit peace pedagogy could prevent humanity from reverting to bellicosity by becoming empowered to eliminate war once and for all; without explicit and intentional moral and spiritual education, mankind would inevitably revert to its habit of war” (Duckworth, 2008, paragraph 4, Evaluating, p. 61). She continues: “Being too implicit may lead to peace education curriculum being too narrow and parochial, thus omitting vital issues such as spirituality and ethics of virtue.”
This makes me agree with Porter (2007; see Evaluating, p. 52) that “Thinking of conflict resolution and peace education in the abstract is not enough to create specific needs and goals of the students and the society.”
Peace education can be structured by classifying the topics, themes and concepts to coincide with the systemic and structural violence that is prevalent, common or peculiar to a community, a society, a people or a nation.
This evokes another part of Evaluating where Page (2004, 2008) mentions the five ethical philosophies of peace education: virtue, consequentiality, aesthetics, conservative politics and care. Page emphasizes that “virtue ethics implies that human beings are moral agents and should demonstrate the ethics of virtue through character development and harmonious co-operative relationships.”
Returning to Equipping, pp. 80–81: “There are some realities of our lives that can be overcome only by the larger truth of our existence. We may not look alike, our colors may not be the same, we may speak different languages, but the truth is that we are all human beings. We are created in the image of God. We are assigned to live together on earth. We have common blood flowing through our veins. We feel pain in the same way—that is, universally.”
Luke says this in the Book of Acts: “God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands … And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation …” Acts 17:24, 26.
We conclude with the Apostle Paul: “For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of sons [children] of God. For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope, because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Romans 8:19–21).
And who are the children of God? The answer is found in the words of Jesus in Matthew 5:9: “Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.” So, you are a child of God if you teach and learn and practice peace education!
Bibliography
Ashton, C. V. (2007, Fall). Using theory of change to enhance peace education. Conflict Resolution Quarterly, 25, 39–53.
Duckworth, C. L. (2008). Maria Montessori’s contribution to peace education. Cited in Encyclopedia of Peace Education.
Haring, Bernard. (1986). The Healing Power of Peace and Nonviolence. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press.
Joseph, P. B., & Efron, S. (2005). Seven worlds of moral education. Phi Delta Kappan, 86, 525–533.
Page, J. S. (2004, 2008). Peace education: Exploring some philosophical foundations. International Review of Education, 50(1), 3–15.
Porter, E. J. (2007). Peacebuilding: Women in International Perspectives. New York, NY: Routledge.
Rev. Dr. Titus K. Oyeyemi, Founder and CEO (titusoye71@gmail.com)
African Projects for Peace and Love Initiatives (U.S.)
and
African Foundation for Peace and Love Initiatives (Nigeria)