Planet Earth - Education for peace



Planet

Aim: Stimulate reflection about what characterises a society with a culture of peace versus a society with a culture of violence. The exercise will lead to a discussion about what the concept of peace really contains.

Equipment: Pen and paper – this is a brainstorming exercise – and flip-over.

Time: Part 1: 25 minutes, part 2 (general discussion) 15 minutes

Level: Middle and upper school and adults.

Content:

Part 1:

Divide the participants into groups of 4 -6 members.

Tell the participants that they are travelling around the universe in a space ship. They themselves are from a planet without war, and where conflicts are managed without violence, so that for them war and violence are unknown within their own society.

Tell them that they are to land on a hitherto unvisited planet with a complex social structure. Their task is to find out whether the society they have landed in is a peaceful society. They have the ability to disguise themselves so that they can wander around the streets without being noted but they cannot speak the language. They can only look for visual signs.

Ask them to list what signs they will look for. Give them 15 minutes.

Presentation and Reflection:

After 15 minutes ask each group to present their signs to the other groups, explaining why they have chosen them.

Are most of the signs they are looking for "absence of ..." signs (absence of weapons, police etc.)? If this is the case, make another list, with signs that show the visitors that it is a violent society. Ask them why it is so much easier to find visual signs of violence than visual signs of peace?

The facilitator may lead some discussion on the following points:

Is it a peaceful society if:

▪ the society has destroyed the planet ecologically and now lives off artificially produced food, but now lives completely in peace with each other?

▪ the members of one group of people in the society (for example those with green skin, those who speak differently) appear to be consistently of lower status and have more menial jobs than other groups, and yet appear to be content.

▪ the different genders (there may be more than two distinguishable genders) in the society appear to have little to do with each other socially.

▪ generations appear to have little social contact other than the minders and teachers of the younger generation.

Part 2: General discussion

Relevant questions as a starting point to the discussion:

- What are the characteristics of a culture of peace?

- What are the characteristics of a culture of violence?

- What is peace? Sometimes peace will mean absence of war, other people would use human rights as a measurement for peace. Is it possible to reach an agreement in the class on a common definition of peace?

- Can a country of conflicts be called a country of peace culture? Are there positive conflicts? In that case, in which way are these conflicts positive?

If you have time, you can look at which of the characteristics of peace culture that exist in your own society.

Source: The idea is from the book by Erik Cleven called: “Human rights – an introduction. Teacher manual.” Humanist Forlag 2000.

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