One month ago NAPF Peace Leadership Director Paul K. Chappell published his essay on “Why Our World Needs Peace Literacy.” His next step is the development of the NAPF Peace Literacy curriculum.
The mission statement for the Peace Literacy program is: Working to bring Peace Literacy education to schools and communities around the world. A peace literate world is a secure, just, and prosperous world.
Kate Towle, an equity and inclusion consultant who works with at-risk youth at Project S.T.A.R.T. Leadership in Minneapolis, said, “Paul reminds us that part of the problem is that we are pre-literate and nascent as a society when it comes to peace in part because we don’t understand why we readily turn to conflict and war.”
Chappell explains, “During an era when humanity has the technological capacity to destroy itself, peace literacy means survival literacy. As a child in school I spent many years learning to read and write, but I did not learn peace literacy skills . . . Peace Literacy educates us on solving the root causes of our problems rather than merely dealing with symptoms, which is another reason why the survival and wellbeing of our country and planet depend on peace literacy.”
Chappell’s framework includes seven forms of Peace Literacy: Literacy in Our Shared Humanity, Literacy in the Art of Living, Literacy in the Art of Waging Peace, Literacy in the Art of Listening, Literacy in the Nature of Reality, Literacy in Our Responsibility to Animals, and Literacy in Our Responsibility to Creation.
In the first form of Peace Literacy, Literacy in Our Shared Humanity, Chappell explains the aspects of our shared humanity that we all have in common, regardless of our race, nationality, gender, or religion. “As we gain literacy in our shared humanity, it becomes more difficult for us to dehumanize our fellow human beings, and it becomes more difficult for those in power to exploit our human vulnerabilities.”
Paul Chappell will introduce the new NAPF Peace Literacy curriculum at a one day workshop for educators on June 8, 2016, at the International Conference on Conflict Resolution Education (ICCRE) at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. His co-presenter will be Dayton International Peace Museum Board Member Katherine Rowell, who is Professor of Sociology at Sinclair Community College, Director of the Center for Teaching and Learning, and received the 2005 Outstanding Community College Professor of the Year award from the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. President Barack Obama’s sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, will be the keynote speaker at the ICCRE event.
The Peace Literacy curriculum, now under development, will be showcased at the NAPF website: PeaceLiteracy.org. It will offer schools and colleges the skills and information required to bring forth the just and peaceful world we need to avoid possible extinction.
