1 00:00:00,240 --> 00:00:05,790 The paper will examine how the study of peace is pursued in education. 2 00:00:05,790 --> 00:00:16,140 It argues that existing curricula on peace education are limited and proposes that it is in the minds of of of man. 3 00:00:16,140 --> 00:00:27,750 If you forgive the phrase in inverted commas are that a more radical approach needs to needs to be thought of. 4 00:00:27,750 --> 00:00:31,880 If we are going to construct the psychological and physical defence force, 5 00:00:31,880 --> 00:00:38,820 a psychological and physical and physiological philosophical defences of of of peace, 6 00:00:38,820 --> 00:00:44,430 the paper builds a little bit on Harbourmaster's theory of communication and social action, 7 00:00:44,430 --> 00:00:54,480 although I won't delve too deeply into that and more recently available perspectives in social semiotics to engineer, I hope, 8 00:00:54,480 --> 00:01:03,390 a more distinct methodology based on the notions of designing and making this this this sort of model that I'll explore. 9 00:01:03,390 --> 00:01:08,940 But just in brief outline terms, I think is yet to be fully evaluated. 10 00:01:08,940 --> 00:01:11,130 But as this paper will show, 11 00:01:11,130 --> 00:01:22,650 I think there are many signs of promise when it was tested by myself some years ago now in South Africa amongst secondary secondary education, 12 00:01:22,650 --> 00:01:31,190 secondary education students. Now I am to look at higher education first. 13 00:01:31,190 --> 00:01:42,430 This certainly disturbingly recent examples of intolerance amongst insiders in South Africa and xenophobia towards outsiders. 14 00:01:42,430 --> 00:01:48,920 And this has begun to suggest to me that in terms of a search for peace. 15 00:01:48,920 --> 00:01:54,750 South Africa perhaps needs to go beyond the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. 16 00:01:54,750 --> 00:01:58,950 It's not difficult to see what motivates this this question. 17 00:01:58,950 --> 00:02:06,510 In 2008, there was a national outcry over video footage that came out of the University of the Free State. 18 00:02:06,510 --> 00:02:12,420 It showed black employees of the university being being being forced to kneel and eat food 19 00:02:12,420 --> 00:02:18,480 that had been urinated upon by a group of students who made the video a few months later. 20 00:02:18,480 --> 00:02:26,400 The University of Johannesburg, a local newspaper, reported that the rooms of black students were thrashed by groups of white students. 21 00:02:26,400 --> 00:02:38,460 And there were several assaults and several separate incidences of rather frightful name calling at North West University, 22 00:02:38,460 --> 00:02:42,450 which was the old University of of of Putschists Room. 23 00:02:42,450 --> 00:02:53,940 White students set up a face book group and on there, apart from racially abusive words and comments posted by members. 24 00:02:53,940 --> 00:03:04,530 The group also apparently posted a photograph of a white man holding a gun while posing over the trophy of a young black boy lying on the ground. 25 00:03:04,530 --> 00:03:13,470 This is not one sided. Black students, on the other hand, have been become increasingly more militant in a narrow nationalistic way. 26 00:03:13,470 --> 00:03:20,310 Africa for Africans, we see, sometimes remains a popular slogan. 27 00:03:20,310 --> 00:03:28,740 And this is illustrated by the fact that the forum for Black Student Journalists recently ejected a white colleague from a meeting. 28 00:03:28,740 --> 00:03:37,110 So all of this is disturbing and so disturbing that the Ministry of Education in South Africa set up a 29 00:03:37,110 --> 00:03:46,470 commission recently of enquiry to look at what is exactly going on in higher education institutions. 30 00:03:46,470 --> 00:03:52,830 So for me, this is of launches. Some questions fall for this paper. 31 00:03:52,830 --> 00:03:58,500 Contrary to expectations and hopes for a country free of intergroup conflict, 32 00:03:58,500 --> 00:04:02,850 these incidents at several South African universities highlight that the national 33 00:04:02,850 --> 00:04:09,240 capacity for forgiveness and acceptance has perhaps eroded over the years. 34 00:04:09,240 --> 00:04:16,020 Perhaps in some quarters, it has never been established. 35 00:04:16,020 --> 00:04:28,170 So the growing intolerance then of of different national groups in South Africa Festival exposes the question about how widespread, 36 00:04:28,170 --> 00:04:35,670 but also indeed how deep the attempts to achieve acceptance and to minimise 37 00:04:35,670 --> 00:04:41,950 intolerance that have been spearheaded by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission had 38 00:04:41,950 --> 00:04:48,750 had had had gone South Africa went to extraordinary lengths to establish restorative 39 00:04:48,750 --> 00:04:58,050 justice in an attempt to to draw a line under the atrocities of the past. 40 00:04:58,050 --> 00:05:09,720 We see the. That of recent social science research on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that explored whether, 41 00:05:09,720 --> 00:05:19,590 in fact, it is a sufficient basis for a lasting peace has come up with some quite interesting findings. 42 00:05:19,590 --> 00:05:27,540 Political scientist Wilson conducted an extensive fieldwork amongst African urban communities and argues that 43 00:05:27,540 --> 00:05:36,840 the Truth and Reconciliation Commission had little effect on on popular ideas of justice as retribution. 44 00:05:36,840 --> 00:05:46,320 Wilson looked at the religious redemptive model and how that was received in townships in around Johannesburg, particularly in Sharpeville, 45 00:05:46,320 --> 00:05:53,970 the very famous sharbel where massacres took place on the 21st of March in nineteen sixteen, 46 00:05:53,970 --> 00:06:02,040 which launched some of the more pop popular resistance by the ANC and the Pan Africanist Congress at the time. 47 00:06:02,040 --> 00:06:10,620 He argues that people came forward less as a deep commitment to reconciliation and nation building, but more for practical reasons, 48 00:06:10,620 --> 00:06:15,960 such as the restoration of relationships between victims, 49 00:06:15,960 --> 00:06:22,940 where suspicion and stigma had wrongly been attached to one person or to a family in communities. 50 00:06:22,940 --> 00:06:32,100 That reconciliation through truth rarely prompted victims and perpetrators to actually come together. 51 00:06:32,100 --> 00:06:36,930 Wilson found that a strong desire for revenge continue to persist in South Africa, 52 00:06:36,930 --> 00:06:47,100 despite the efforts of the TIAR see the TLC version of human rights as reconciliation did little to challenge the 53 00:06:47,100 --> 00:06:58,230 prevalence of revenge in townships and because it could not meaningfully engage with a punitive view of justice. 54 00:06:58,230 --> 00:07:06,480 Again, the word examinations of more diversion paths to retributive justice in neighbouring townships of Charleville boy bettong. 55 00:07:06,480 --> 00:07:13,650 And despite the rhetoric from political leaders and the press, that widely condemned retribution, 56 00:07:13,650 --> 00:07:23,280 Wilson found is inconsistent with feelings amongst much of the public, especially as crime continued to become a highly salient issue. 57 00:07:23,280 --> 00:07:25,560 So while this institution, TLC, 58 00:07:25,560 --> 00:07:34,800 was widely praised abroad and in international conferences on post-conflict reconstruction and reconciliation around the globe, 59 00:07:34,800 --> 00:07:45,090 it remained largely peripheral to the lives of those living in townships that were that were wracked by by revenge killings. 60 00:07:45,090 --> 00:07:54,880 So many, I think, in South Africa believe that the process remains in complete. 61 00:07:54,880 --> 00:08:05,940 I just want to to skip really I don't want to spend a huge amount of time on this. 62 00:08:05,940 --> 00:08:16,530 So that that raises the question about the breadth and indeed the depth of a process that South Africa undertook, but is a similar similar process. 63 00:08:16,530 --> 00:08:21,990 The processes have been undertaken, of course, in Rwanda, in Sierra Leone, etc., 64 00:08:21,990 --> 00:08:42,550 and a lot of a lot of faith invested in in the impact of of such reconciliation, truth and reconciliation, redemptive processes. 65 00:08:42,550 --> 00:08:54,420 For me, however, the question remains one that really begs deeper questions about all, 66 00:08:54,420 --> 00:09:08,460 I suppose that really argues for an approach to building peace that starts much earlier and that is much more sustained. 67 00:09:08,460 --> 00:09:13,920 I did some studies of various studies in schools in South Africa, 68 00:09:13,920 --> 00:09:26,490 and particularly I looked at recently the processes of D racial de racialisation and citizen ship formation in South African schools. 69 00:09:26,490 --> 00:09:36,120 Some schools have formally catered exclusively for white Africans speaking communities merely accommodated other national groups. 70 00:09:36,120 --> 00:09:45,600 They complied with provisions under the Constitution that access may not be denied on grounds of race, status or religion. 71 00:09:45,600 --> 00:09:50,610 But rather than encouraging a curriculum that encouraged diversity, 72 00:09:50,610 --> 00:09:59,920 they created parallel streams of of learning so that there were virtually two schools on one site. 73 00:09:59,920 --> 00:10:05,350 One school, the teachers, the curriculum in English to predominantly black students, 74 00:10:05,350 --> 00:10:14,980 while the other teachers are virtually the same curriculum to almost exclusively white Afrikaans speaking students. 75 00:10:14,980 --> 00:10:23,110 For me, this was excuse me, a hugely important insight that although on the face of it, 76 00:10:23,110 --> 00:10:31,000 South Africa had begun to be racialized its institutions, its schools. 77 00:10:31,000 --> 00:10:43,250 The reality was that many of these schools were not really stretching to a curriculum that encouraged positive diversity. 78 00:10:43,250 --> 00:10:54,370 Rather, it was very much acting by the Constitution, providing and not denying access, 79 00:10:54,370 --> 00:11:10,660 but not doing very much in in in curriculum sense to encourage a to encourage a a way in which students 80 00:11:10,660 --> 00:11:23,080 could learn about each other through working together on on on on certain aspects of their schooling, 81 00:11:23,080 --> 00:11:33,610 I suppose, in that paper. And now I think I'm I'm still very wary about the effects of the so-called equal status contact hypothesis. 82 00:11:33,610 --> 00:11:39,280 I don't think it's enough to put people together in the same environment, the same institution, 83 00:11:39,280 --> 00:11:51,550 if they aren't really coming together to struggle over some particularly important and meaningful issue. 84 00:11:51,550 --> 00:11:57,540 And so, really, without going into I mean, I can can describe the sort of model and so on. 85 00:11:57,540 --> 00:12:06,490 I don't think I'll do that. I might leave that to come up in questions. But I suppose what I'm really arguing for is a very simple notion. 86 00:12:06,490 --> 00:12:14,320 The notion is not so much the study of peace in schools, but this. 87 00:12:14,320 --> 00:12:26,920 But a curriculum method that encourages students to design together their social futures. 88 00:12:26,920 --> 00:12:30,130 By this, I mean that we cannot take out of the curriculum. 89 00:12:30,130 --> 00:12:41,960 It should be a clear curriculum is important in that it should deal with questions relevant to any society's attempt at chance, 90 00:12:41,960 --> 00:12:54,970 at transition and transformation. Take on board the important questions about employment, about social issues, health, water, sanitation and so on. 91 00:12:54,970 --> 00:13:04,810 Unless those those things are that that a curriculum focuses on and a study, studies of peace very often become adjunct. 92 00:13:04,810 --> 00:13:07,000 They become additional models. 93 00:13:07,000 --> 00:13:15,610 They're quickly forgotten about when the mathematics curriculum demands a test or the history curriculum demands a test. 94 00:13:15,610 --> 00:13:22,120 And so really, the model I'm arguing for is one in which. 95 00:13:22,120 --> 00:13:27,520 Drawing on these available theories of social hermeneutics, 96 00:13:27,520 --> 00:13:31,630 action and so on is to allow students and I and I will expand on this in 97 00:13:31,630 --> 00:13:37,630 questions if it does come up to allow students to work together on design tasks. 98 00:13:37,630 --> 00:13:44,050 Design is an important aspect of the curriculum in the UK, for example. 99 00:13:44,050 --> 00:13:52,850 It was introduced in 1990, in the 1990s and just one newspaper article in the year, 100 00:13:52,850 --> 00:13:59,790 a year or so after it had been introduced read The Sky's the Limit for Children at a Lancashire primary school, 101 00:13:59,790 --> 00:14:05,140 for they are designing an airliner with the help of British Aerospace. 102 00:14:05,140 --> 00:14:09,730 The eight and nine year olds have used computers and other high tech equipment provided by 103 00:14:09,730 --> 00:14:18,430 the giant plane maker to plan a supersonic jet capable of carrying a thousand passengers. 104 00:14:18,430 --> 00:14:23,020 One of the teachers say that ideas can be very difficult but joyfully difficult. 105 00:14:23,020 --> 00:14:28,480 They want to be able to fly thousand passengers to Australia in a few hours using solar power. 106 00:14:28,480 --> 00:14:35,740 And we let their fertile little minds run riot. I would love to find an airliner which does not pollute the atmosphere. 107 00:14:35,740 --> 00:14:39,640 And it's interesting how they picked up on that in designing the airliner. 108 00:14:39,640 --> 00:14:44,650 The children have come up with some spectacularly new ideas. 109 00:14:44,650 --> 00:14:49,750 They've learnt about the principles of flight of lift, the weight of thrust of drag. 110 00:14:49,750 --> 00:15:01,390 And I've come up with a design that is 130 metres long and weighs twice as much as a jumbo, etc. And it was these ideas that I found fascinating. 111 00:15:01,390 --> 00:15:09,280 And in the little project I tried in South Africa, it was precisely that that I introduced a design task into the curriculum, 112 00:15:09,280 --> 00:15:21,160 which was about an important issue at the time in the rural school to try and find a design for for a a low a low cost water filtration system. 113 00:15:21,160 --> 00:15:28,780 And this allowed students who for the first time have come together in a non-racial sort of way, 114 00:15:28,780 --> 00:15:37,180 but have come together also with very different modes of meaning, making not only language, 115 00:15:37,180 --> 00:15:48,160 but ways in which meaning was made through through spatial awareness or ways in which meaning was made clearly through linguistic awareness, 116 00:15:48,160 --> 00:15:55,900 but auditory awareness, etc. And the study very much looked at how these students engage and gauged around the task. 117 00:15:55,900 --> 00:16:07,030 That was a vital task for the vital for societal transformation. 118 00:16:07,030 --> 00:16:18,760 But it was in that I felt that a study of peaceful social futures had become embedded rather than a model in which the 119 00:16:18,760 --> 00:16:30,223 study of peace was adjunct and additional to quite important issues that a curriculum in any country were to deal with.