Chapter 3: Identifying and Identifying With:A Critical Look into Student Interaction with Peace, Activism, Altruism, and Love in a Japanese University Setting

Quoting Mahatma Gandhi to start a chapter such as this could be perceived as somewhat of a cliché, yet the concise statements attributed to him express the desired message so well: “There is no path to peace. Peace is the path.” Or slightly paraphrased, “As the means, so the ends” (TEDx Talks, 2017). With this thought in mind, shouldn’t it be logical for formal education to explore the paths of peace? Our societies are full of platitudes meant to guide us through life with a sense of happiness: “Follow your heart,” “Find your passion,” “Practice what you preach,” are but a few examples. If we can accept that there is importance in investing and unleashing the potential underlying these statements, then we should be exploring the ways to bring these ideals to fruition. Yet, too often in the field of language acquisition, educators neglect the richness that might be found within the realms of positive peace and critical, shared understandings. What we are seeing in our exploratory action research (Smith, 2015) is that we need to identify crucial areas of concern before we can expect people to identify with them and commit themselves to action. Creating spaces to reflect about core concepts of peace, love, altruism, and activism (which many of our students superbly interconnect) created a foundation of respect and opportunities to allow their agency to be expressed.