The Peaceful

Classroom
Lagrisola, Renz Michael L
• The camegie coural or Adolescent Development hold
that mutually respectful relations are imperative for
intellectual development and growth (1989) cited in
Goodnow, (1992). Goodnow likewise posits that
belonging and acceptance are potentially important
factors of learning.

• Lantieri and Patti (1996) put forward that there are

relationship between distress, anxiety and 5the ability of
our memory to work.
• Schwitzer, et al. (1999) write that one of
the vital tasks related to a successful
academic experience is being able to
establish successful interpersonal
relationships in the campus.
WHAT IS

CLASSROOM ?
• The concept was first coined by William
Kreidler, an elementary school teacher
and conflict expert who saw that conflict in
the classroom was caused by many
factors such as miscommunication,
exclusion, the inability to express feelings
appropriately, and the lack of care and
respect for each other.
• A peaceable classroom is characterized
by affirmation, cooperation,
communication, appreciation for diversity,
appropriate expression of feelings and
peaceful conflict resolution.
• Damaged self-esteem is one of the known
effects of bullying. Students, guidance
counselors and teachers interviewed from
different secondary schools in Manila
confined that victims of bullying withdraw
or keep themselves frequently from class
and some drop out. Grades are also
reportedly affected.
• Creating a peaceable classrooms is a way
to help students respect and appreciate
each other regardless of differences.

Here are some ways to help create that

atmosphere of love and acceptance in our
classrooms:
• Declare your classroom a zone of peace
and establish rules to achieve it.

• As the teacher, let this peace begin with

you

• Affirm your students

• Express feelings appropriately and
encourage students to do so

• Encourage respect and for acceptance of

differences

• Employ more cooperative than

competitive activities.
• Teach students how to resolve conflicts
peacefully and constructively

• Practice students’ skills communication

• A peaceable classroom is where students
feel safe and secure. It is a place where
they grow as persons without threats of
being ridiculed, marginalized or hurt.
Teachers can help build these kinds of
classrooms.
• If the principles of peace are taught and
lived in the classroom, it will be easier for
learners to carry on these values and skills
to their other spheres of interaction. The
peace teacher should then be happy that
s/he has done his/her share in building a
society where new norms are peaceable.
Teaching-Learning Approaches
and Strategies in Peace Education
• The “how” is as “important” as the “what”.
Hence, teaching-learning approaches that
are compatible with the goals of peace
education are holistic, participatory,
cooperative, experiential and humanist.
• Holistic education does not confine itself
to the parameters of facts and concepts.
Instead, it promotes cognitive, affective
and behavioural goals of learning. Often,
the focus of learning is the transmission of
concepts.
• In peace education, the goals are three-
fold.
• First, building of awareness on the
realities, roots and concepts of violence,
and the building of awareness on the roots
of peace.
• Second, building of concern and the
development of values and empathy
compassion, hope and social responsibility.

Third, is the call to action beginning with the

resolve to change with personal mindsets
and attitudes and doing something
concrete about situations of violence.
• Participatory Education means allowing
learners to inquire, share and collaborate.
It allows learners to engage in dialogue
with the teacher or with their fellow
learners.
• Cooperative Learning means giving
opportunities for participants to work
together and learn, rather that compete
with each other.
• Experiential Education means learning
not through didactic means but through
the processing of one’s experience from
activities instead initiated in the classroom.
• Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow, are
proponents of a type of education that is
humanist.
• A humanist classroom emphasizes the
social, personal and affective growth of
the learners.
• In a humanistic classroom, individuals are
accepted for what they are. It develops the
notion of the self to promote a sense of
self-esteem.
• There are many teaching learning
strategies that are compatible with the
approaches to peace education described
above. They are as follows:
• There are many teaching learning
strategies that are compatible with the
approaches to peace education described
above. They are as follows:
• Use of films and photographs
• Telling stories
• Song/Poem analysis
• Sentence Completion
• Journal writing/Individual Reflection
• Go-round
• Teachable Moments
• Interviews/Research
• Expert Resources
• Reciprocal Teaching
• Twinning Project
• Dialogues
• Exposure trips
• Use of Globes and Maps
• Brainstorming
• Reading quotations
• Use of Charts and Graphs
• Case Studies
• Collage-making
• Show and Tell
• These approaches and strategies are
important tools toward the development of
the students’ intellect, attitudes and spirit
that may be inspired to work for peace.
• In deciding what strategy or approach to
take, the particular lesson/session
objectives have to be considered.
• Which strategies would be most
appropriate and effective in achieving the
latter? As we use the foregoing tools, let
us always be mindful of our goal, which is
to facilitate learning that is holistic,
participatory collaborative, experiential
and humanist.
Attributes of a Peace Educator

the phrase, ‘the medium is the message”,

used in a school setting, suggests to us
that the teachers have the power to affect
the lives of children and youth.
• Students often remember that informal
and “hidden” lessons, not from the overt or
stated curriculum, but from the attitudes,
values and actions of the teachers
themselves within outside of the
classroom.
• Peace Educators must serve as a models
for the qualities and skills they are helping
young people to develop in the peaceable
classroom and school. This means, first
and foremost and there is a need for
teachers to take the challenge of personal
transformation so they can credible agents
of the peace message.
• What attributes, capacities and skills must
a teacher of peace develop to enable
him/her to be an effective medium of the
peace message?
• The teacher of peace is a responsible
citizen, an intentional agent of a culture of
peace, a person of vision capable of hope
and the imaging of the positive change.
• S/he is motivated by service and is
actively involved in the community.
• s/he is a life long learner, one who
continues to improve one’s ownlearning
• s/he is both a transmitter and a
transformer of cultures.
• s/he is a seeker of mutually enhancing
relationship.
• s/he is gender sensitive and alert to any
possibility of gender bias in self students.
• A teacher of peace intentionally develops
the capacity care by knowing the learners
in their charge as individuals.
• s/he is an inquirer. S/he possess
questions into the conditions that impede
and those that enhance possibilities for
achieving a culture of peace.
• S/he has the skills of reflective learning
through which s/he applies what is learned
from teaching to deepen his/her own
understanding of the students and the
learning processes.
• A teacher of peace has the skills of
communication and conflict resolution.
• S/he practices cooperative learning by
encouraging cooperative learning tasks
and discouraging negative competition.
• A teacher of peace inspires understanding
and alternative possibilities for the future
and for a culture and peace.
Toward a Whole School Approach

To be more effective in infusing peace

ideas, perspective and values into the life
of the whole school and even beyond, it is
suggested that a whole school approach
be adopted.
• In a whole school approach, we try to
engage all the learning areas, all the
members of the school community and the
wider community. The approach also
includes other aspects of school life such
as teaching practices and methods ,
students’ activities, administrative policies,
school structures and relationships, as
well as social action for and with the larger
community.