MODULE 5

Peace education and Spirituality

Peace education is the process of acquiring the values, the knowledge and developing
the attitudes, skills, and behaviours to live in harmony with oneself, with others, and with the
natural environment.

Ian Harris and John Synott have described peace education: "teaching encounters" that draw
from people:

a).their desire for peace,

b). nonviolent alternatives for managing conflict, and

c). skills for critical analysis of structural arrangements that produce and legitimize injustice and
inequality

The greatest resource for building a culture of peace are the people themselves, for it is
through them that peaceful relationships are created.

Educating people toward becoming peace agents is central to the task of peace building. The
Philippines and the whole world are always confronted with many problems that arise from
many forms of violence.

An education that responds to these challenges should be encouraged and supported Peace
Education. A culture of peace must replace the current culture of violence if we and our
common home, planet Earth, are to survive.

Our young people in particular need new perspectives, skills and value orientations that will
enable them to build relationships and structures that lead to positive change and human well-
being

A Holistic Understanding of Peace

A new way of thinking about peace is important today.

Our ideas shape our feelings and our actions, influences how we live, and how we relate with
each other.

Early secular writings on the subject of peace indicate that peace was defined as merely the
absence of war or direct violence.

This negative formulation was first given by Hugo Grotius in 1625

The simplest and most widespread understanding of peace was that of absence of death and
destruction as a result of war and physical/direct violence.

An alternative view started to emerge, beginning with the late 1960s. Attention shifted from
direct to indirect or structural violence, i.e., ways in which people suffer from violence built into
society via its social, political and economic systems (Hicks,1987).

Structural violence also led to death and suffering because of the conditions that resulted from
it: extreme poverty, starvation, avoidable diseases, discrimination against minority groups and
denial of human rights.

It was further realized that a world marked by said conditions is a world devoid of peace and
human security; it breeds anger and generates tension leading to armed conflict and war.

Johann Galtung, a renowned peace theorist and researcher, argues that structural violence
occurs when the wealth of affluent nations, groups or individuals is based on the labor and the
essential resources drawn from nations, groups and individuals who, as a consequence, are
required to live diminished lives of deprivation (Monez,1973).

Johann Galtung explains that peace is the absence of violence, not only personal or direct, but
also structural or indirect.

The manifestations of structural violence are the highly uneven distribution of wealth and
resources as well as the uneven distribution of power to decide over the distribution of said
resources.

The meaning of peace can be captured by the idea of a negative peace and the idea of a
positive peace.

Negative peace refers to the absence of war or physical/direct violence,

While positive peace refers to the presence of just and non-exploitative relationships, as well as
human and ecological well-being, such that the root causes of conflict are diminished

A Holistic Understanding of Peace. Peace is both the absence of personal/direct violence, and
the

presence of social justice.

LEVELS OF PEACE

PEACE BETWEEN HUMANS AND THE EARTH AND BEYOND

1. GLOBAL PEACE

Respect for other

nations, Justice,Tolerance, Cooperation

2. INTERGROUP/SOCIAL PEACE

Respect for other groups within

nation, Justice, Tolerance, Cooperation

3. INTERPERSONAL PEACE

Respect for other persons,

Justice,Tolerance, Cooperation

4. PERSONAL PEACE

Self-respect, Inner resources: love, hope

Types of Violence

Betty Reardon, a peace educator who has made significant contributions to the field, defines
violence as “humanly inflicted harm” (Reardon, n.d.).

Peace Education as Transformative

In Education:

Peace education or an education that promotes a culture of peace, is essentially transformative.

It cultivates the knowledge base, skills, attitudes and values that seek to transform people’s
behaviors that, in the first place, have either created or exacerbated violent conflicts.

THE PEACEABLE TEACHINGLEARNING PROCESS

COGNITIVE PHASE

(Being aware,

Understanding

ACTIVE PHASE

(Taking AFFECTIVE PHASE

(Being concerned,

Responding, Valuing, practical action)

WHY EDUCATE FOR PEACE

It seeks to transform the present human condition by

“changing social structures and patterns of thought that have created it.”

Learning to Abolish War; Teaching toward a Culture of Peace (Reardon and Cabezudo, 2002),
the main purpose of peace education are the elimination of social injustice, the rejection of
violence and the abolition of war.

Educating for peace will give us in the long run the practical benefits that we seek. As stated
earlier it is expected to build a critical mass of people who will demand for and address the
needed personal and structural changes that will transform the many problems that relate to
peace into nonviolent, humane and ecological alternatives and solutions.

Attitudes/Values that is important:

 Self-respect
 Respect for others
 Respect for Life/Nonviolence
 Gender Equality
 Compassion
 Skills

Some of the skills that need to be developed are:

 Reflection
 Critical Thinking and Analysis
 Decision-making
 Imagination
 Communication
 Conflict Resolution
 Empathy
 Group Building

A holistic understanding of peace is needed for all of us and be educated with the different
facets of peace…for us to live happily and peacefully…be able to establish peaceful relationships
with one another and probably….this can prevent the increasing the number of victims affected
by violence of various kinds.

SPIRITUALITY

The quality of being concerned with the human spirit or soul as opposed to material or physical
things.

Spirituality is a worldview and a way of life based on the belief that there is more to life than
what meets the senses, more to the universe than just purposeless mechanics, more to
consciousness than electrical impulses in the brain, and more to our existence than the body
and its needs.

Why Is Spirituality Important

 PURPOSE / DIRECTION
 ONENESS / LOVE / CONNECTION.
 GROWTH
 ANSWERS / TRUTH
 HAPPINESS / PEACE / OVERCOME SUFFERING
 TRANSCENDENCE / ENLIGHTENMENT
 EXPLORATION / MYSTERY

Summative assessment

Read the article bellow and write a 1,000 word essay on peace, charity, and forgiveness

**** Abnoramal and Absurd Worry*****

One of the rewarding things about being a Priest is that people often come to you with their
troubles. Over the years I have discovered the most people come to me because they worried
over something. Worry is a disheartening and unrewarding habit of many good people. It
destroy our initiative, paralyzes achievement and rob us of peace. All of us worry from time to
time, but some of us are perpetual worries. It’s as though we were born with worry in our
hearts. I am worrier, “ a teenager from Zamboaga told me the other day. “I inherited it form
my Mom. She worries all the time and she hardly ever smile.” A very wonderful wife told me a
couple of years ago: “ I don’t worry on purpose. I worry simply because I can’t help it, It is my
nature to worry.”

There are, of course, situations and events which cause legitimate concern and uneasiness in
our lives. But when we talk about worry , we are not referring to the wise and natural concern
which all reasonable men and women experience in the face of serious problems. Here we are
concerned with the wearisome and depressing habit of irrational worry, which is abnormal,
inordinate and absurd.

What do we worry about? Recently over 100 psychologist were asked to list what they
considered the primary worries besetting men and women. Their list were very different, of
course, but in general they all agree on a lot of things that people worried about. People worry,
they said, especially when they are young, about personal development and growth, about their
physical appearance. We know how often teenagers are hassled about pimples, the texture of
their skin, the bigness of their nose, or their crooked teeth. They worry about being attractive
and popular. How often I have heard teenagers say: I don’t have any friends. Nobody likes
me.” Later the worry about having or not having a boyfriend or grielfriend, about getting a
husband or a wife or about not being married at all. When they go get a mate they worry that
they have chosen badly. Teenagers are often the worst worries of all.

As they grow older, lots of people get themselves into a turmoil over moral lapses and entertain
scruples abut past sins. They get panicky when they contemplate the future and get upset
about their lack of success and financial security. They worry about their health, their families,
their children, their relatives and their friends. They feel despondent over failures, or imagined
failures, they become morbidly preoccupied with thoughts of death. I have talked with many
people who get upset about our country, about politics, and about the distressing state of the
world. All they talked about is what they read in the newspapers about the latest kidnapping or
murder, or what their favorite columnist said about how terrible things are. (Sometimes I think
our columnist are even worst worries than teenagers! Maybe that is why they are columnist).

One of my favorite books is titled “How To Stop Worrying and Start Living.” How de we stop
worrying and really start to live our lives in happiness and in peace? The psychologist have lots
of suggestions on how to banish habitual worry from our lives. The most fundamental solution,
they say, is to cultivate a healthy sense of reality. Our worries are seldom real. They come
largely because we will not face facts. They are often based on unreality or distorted sense of
values. I may have a crooked nose, but that doesn’t mean I have a crooked heart. Most of
these worries disappear when we face reality. St. Theresain her autobiography said: My soul
can only free on truth. Every day I ask God that I may see things as they truly are, and that I
may not be misled by error.
 Pampanga State Agricultural University
Magalang, Pampanga

COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES

MODULE
ON
VALUES EDUCATION

Prepared by:

Clemente Jr. O. Boleche

Faculty

Noted by:

Ella M. Roque
Head, Human Science