Cultivating a Spirit for Justice and Peace: Teaching Through Oral History

Abstract

How might educators teach for justice and peace in courses with diverse purposes and subjects? Is such teaching only approachable through courses with explicit justice and peace subject matter? If education has a major role in humanization and in contributing to a better world, then all courses should potentially contribute to justice and peace. We tested this possibility in a course called "Prophetic Pioneers in Religious Education"-a course designed to "explore religious education history, issues, and visions through life story, contextual analysis, and educational theories, practices, and cultural 'products.'" The subjects of this class were people who pioneered in religious education in the past century, along with three living women whom the class interviewed to gather their stories and draw upon their wisdom.The guiding thesis of this study is that teaching through oral history has potential to cultivate a spirit for justice and peace and to enlarge the pedagogical insights in current justice and peace literature. Such teaching can help students discover knowledge that informs and guides a just-peace spirit, develop skills that embody it, and prepare for the future. The claim here is not that oral history is the only way by which these goals can be met. We simply offer oral history as a distinctive educational approach that has value to equip people for life-giving relations with others, whether in education, ministry, public activism, or other vocations. To investigate this possibility, we analyze two sources that pertain to justice and peace -periodical literature focused explicitly on such education and a case study of the Prophetic Pioneers class. The hope is to discover pedagogical clues for teaching justice and peace that are more subtle and fulsome than those identified heretofore. LITERATURE: EDUCATING FOR JUSTICE AND PEACEWhat pedagogical practices are a part of education for justice, peace, and ecological well-being? We addressed this question in a periodical review of three major 1 We co-taught this course -the subject of our case study -at Candler School of Theology, Emory University. We thank the Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning Theology and Religion for generous support of the course and the Oral History Project, projects of Candler's Women in Theology and Ministry.

The Concept of Peace Education with Dialogic Teaching Approach in History Learning

“…It has carried out by several previous researchers, as like Paderangawho conducted research on the using of classroom video conferencing (CVC) as an instructional approach in teaching peace education, and it can increase the awareness level of the students [6]. Furthermore, the results of Arslan, Guncavardi, Polat's research revealed that peace education program (PEP) has a significant to student's intercultural sensitivity [7].Moreover, the research conducted by Claire Bischoff and Mary Elizabeth Mullino Moore concluded that oral history can cultivate the spirit of justice and peace to students [8]. Those studies show that thepeace education needs to be implemented in the context of education today and it requires a certain strategy so that peacebuilding goals can be conveyed.…”