AS violent conflict surges around the globe, Quakers in Britain have produced a new free peace education pack to help secondary school teachers prepare learners to build peace, not war.
A sequel to the award-winning primary pack, Teach Peace Secondary provides fifty cross-curricular lessons categorised by inner, interpersonal and global peace.
Produced in partnership with the Peace Education Network, the lessons cover war and peacebuilding, violence and nonviolence, conflict resolution, identity and inclusion and much more.
The lessons, from organisations including Amnesty International UK, War Child, Peacemakers, Pax Christi and more, are free to download and are showcased in a brochure for teachers. Already downloaded 2,500 times, reaching 75,000 learners, the lessons link to the English, Welsh and Scottish curricula in subjects including English, STEM, art, drama, RE and wellbeing.
The Teach Peace Secondary pack includes lessons on the impact of knife crime from the Forgiveness Project, to nuclear weapons by Scientists for Global Responsibility.
Believing peace is built in day-to-day life, as well as on the global stage, Quaker peace educators work with teachers, children, and partners to build positive relationships at all levels.
Quakers, who co-chair the Peace Education Network with Pax Christi, were inspired to create the primary Teach Peace resource by a Quaker grandmother, Celia Davies. The increasing militarisation of education left Celia concerned that there was no room for peace at her granddaughter’s school. The resulting primary resource has been revised and reprinted several times and was a top five resource in the inaugural Global Dimension Awards 2022.
Celia Davies was involved in the all-women protests against nuclear weapons at Greenham Common in the 1980s. So it is fitting that a lesson from Greenham Women Everywhere features in the new secondary pack, including looking at news clips and artifacts from the time, and the history of protest.
Ellis Brooks, peace education co-ordinator for Quakers in Britain, said: “We’re grateful for so much great content. There’s a dizzying number of lessons on so many aspects of peace: conflict resolution and mediation, religion, inner peace, antiracism, equality, nonviolence, the arms trade.
“Any one of these topics could be the beginning a deep dive for teachers and learners. It shows the wealth of peace education alive in Britain today, even if it’s neglected by government.”
* The Teach Peace Secondary brochure to share in communities is available to order free of charge here.
* Download individual lessons, free of charge here.
* Source: Quakers in Britain