Course on Peace Education

Hola,

This is a post for those interested in undertaking a course on Peace Education.  I took an online course with the United Nations-mandated University for Peace in Costa Rica that lasted almost three months.  It was a very enriching learning experience.  I have been working in the field of peace education - especially human rights, intercultural/interreligious education and global education - during the last 11 years and have taken other courses in peace education before.  This course was a very interesting opportunity to learn further information about the theoretical foundations of the field, the different challenges, approaches, linkages and possibilities, and challenge my perspectives of peace education and my own understandings.  It deepened my knowledge of the field and broadened my views. 

The course was facilitated by two very experienced peace educators: Virginia Cawagas from the Philippines and Toh Swee-Hin from Australia and Canada who was awarded in 2000 the UNESCO Prize for Peace Education.  Both of them with ample experience in the field in developed and developing countries. 

The course aimed to provide a critical overview of key ideas, concepts and analytical perspectives on peace education that have been manifested in diverse institutional, community, and grassroots initiatives and programs in both North and South contexts. More specifically, through a facilitative process, learners will see how education for various dimensions of a culture of peace, including disarmament and nonviolence, local and global justice, human rights, intercultural understanding, sustainable futures and cultivating inner peace, can be synergized and integrated into the urgent challenge of building a peaceful, just and sustainable world.

I have previously taken other online courses, and I must say that this one is very well structured and organized.  The format is very conducive to learning with videos, presentations, active and well administered forums, clear guidelines and assignments.  The participants also contributed a lot to the learning process through active participation and challenging questions and comments on the relations between theory and practice. We had interactive assignments, group work and were encouraged to look at peace education from several areas of application in a holistic way.  I would have liked to get more perspectives from many more authors and challenged more what has been done in the field from a critical perspective, but this space was not really provided.  I believe the course gives the possibility to learn what is already there but not much to develop or construct new approaches, which is a pity.  That would add a very strong dimension to this course and make it more aligned to the real purpose of peace education: develop critical thinking to contribute to peace building. 

Now when I am assessing the learning I got through this course, I can say that: 1) I gained a solid theoretical understanding of the field and got a compelling vision of where it could be heading to, and 2) Made me reflect a lot about the need to develop more theoretical frameworks on peace education and to strengthen the field as a contribution to affect structural violence and not only to avoid direct violence in the future.  

This course also gave me a lot of thought for reflection to enrich my Masters thesis which was on Peace Education in Colombia, and that I will write about later.  So, if you are interested to learn more about the field, whether you are a practitioner with no prior academic knowledge on the area, or someone who has studied peace, or want to get into this field, this course is very well recommended and I am sure it will help you get a more sound understanding of what it is about.  Just to warn you, the course requires a considerable amount of time for reading every week, constant contributions in the forums, weekly assignments and two written papers.  Therefore, make sure that if you take it, you have enough time to dedicate and to take advantage of all the learning space provided.  If you are looking for something more practical, this course is not the right choice, though it may provide a good venue for discussion about practical approaches.

You can have a look at the UPeace courses in the following link:  

http://www.upeace.org/academic/distance/courses/schedule.cfm#PET

Peace,

Malu