BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF INTERNATIONAL CURRICULAR PEACE THREAD

WEAVING AN INTERNATIONAL CURRICULAR PEACE THREAD A group of American citizens and educators, having spent much of our lives either living in or teaching about other parts of the world, have proposed an international curricular peace thread as a means of bringing peace education to schools around the world. Known as CRAGI (Conflict Resolution and Global Interdependence), our group of volunteers has been working both locally and globally by teaching peace education and conflict resolution skills to young people and adults in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, as well as offering workshops in mediation and conflict resolution to educators and development workers in India. But we believe that it is children whom we need to reach, everywhere in the world, and so we propose a series of brief curricular strands that will, through education, change the global response to conflict at all levels.

As we envision it, a particular topic would be studied each year, from preschool through college and university. Every country and school system are different, so each strand would be "tailored" to the local situation. Yet the same essential topic will be taught at each age level around the world. The content of these strands , however, will be developed by small teams of educators from various countries, working together to create pieces of the "thread." It is essential that the thread be composed of ideas originating in many different countries, and that the "spinning" of it be collaborative. Global communication technologies make such a project feasible. Posters and projects would be ideal ways of presenting topics, as these tools are easily replicated.

A curricular thread may best be understood as a collection of 18 brief strands which run like webs through existing curricula in various countries. Such units should involve ways of thinking about the earth, its people, and how we encounter each other. Topics should address such issues as the relation between development and indigenous cultures; interaction between ethnic, religious, or racial groups; inequalities between the rich and the poor; international control of resources and the environment. Conflict is endemic to these concerns and to the modern world in general. Yet the curricular thread would introduce a positive approach. The search for common ground is central to the concept of an international peace thread, as are the skills of mediation and conciliation. At the core of this idea is the assumption that peace is preferable to war, hatred, or oppression of one group by another.

In many countries, various individuals or organizations have already created pedagogical tools to deal with hatred, violence, and oppression. There, the task will be one of winnowing materials to find those which show the best potential for "export." In other places, the idea of spending valuable class time on non-academic matters will be resisted, and it may take time for educators to realize that peacemaking skills are as valuable as the skills of reading, writing, and mathematics. Young people do not always have the courage to resist the negative behavior of their peers, but they can learn positive ways of responding to bad situations. Everyone can benefit by knowing how to listen to the concerns and needs put forward by parties to a conflict.Global citizens can grow in wisdom by learning how to respect differences, be they individual, inter-group, or international.

Finding someone to coordinate this project remains a major concern, but persons interested in working on pieces of the thread should contact or write to Patricia Pitney, Box 408, Gettysburg College, Gettysburg, PA 17325 USA.