Chapter 5: Peace Education Aimed at Children Everywhere in The World: An Experimental Project Implementing a Peace Education Curriculum for Fifth Graders

In a world filled with violence and a mounting capacity for destruction, it becomes increasingly important that people recognize alternatives to violence. Team PEACE (Peace Education Aimed at Children Everywhere) addressed the problematic proliferation of violence in our world by examining peaceful messages currently taught in schools, particularly in social studies courses. A study by Finley (2003) found that an average history textbook has approximately 89 pages citing sources related to war while only containing 5 pages citing sources related to peace. Furthermore, textbooks have an average of 4.88 whole chapters concerning war compared to a mere 0.24 chapters concerning peace. These numbers show that students are learning very little about the history of peace, though they learn a great deal about wars and other forms of violence throughout history. In order to use nonviolent methods to resolve conflicts, one must know they exist, what they are, and preferably, that they can be successful. By incorporating peace history into education, students can learn that it is possible to solve problems without resorting to violence.