Teaching peace to children

Elise Boulding is a world-renowned sociologist, author, and activist who has done pineering work in the fields of women's studies, peace research, and futurism. She was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990. Her latest book, with an introduction by Federico Mayer, is Cultures of Peace: The Hidden Side of History (Syracuse University Press).

Staff writer Kim Shippey met her when she gave a talk to the Boston Clergy and Religious Leaders Group at the Boston Church of the New Jerusalem earlier this year. Together they discussed some of the ideas she shared then, and went on to explore several other issues relating to the achievement of peace in the world.

"We need to infuse the spirituality of peace in our education of children and young adults," says Ms. Boulding, "and bring it about in our worship. So many people do not know that peacemaking is one of our most essential activities as human beings. Many of us do know it, because it's part of our tradition. But the real challenge is how to continually infuse it in people in such a way that it becomes an instinctive response.

"I think spirituality comes in the centeredness that we bring to whatever situation we are in," she continues. "It isn't just in talking about spirituality, it is in acting from that deep center that is in all of us, and reaching out to the seed of the spriit in others. We don't have to use the language of religion in this kind of dialogue, but the words that we use can relate to respect and caring. It's possible to use terms that convey what we care about without shutting people's minds.

"We have to make visible all the hidden peacemaking that actually goes on every day. If you stop and think about it, probably the major part of our human interatction is peaceful. On the surface, we're constantly in conflict, because no two human beings are alike. So every one of us sees the world differently, and we experience the world differently. But we negotiate these differences. We give a little, take a little, we compromise and gradually solve our problems. Most human activity is like that. But what gets into the newspapers, what gets on TV, is the violence. So we're constantly fed back this false image, and the true image of peaceful negotiation is not made visible."

How does a peace culture work?

"To me," says Ms. Boulding, "it balance two very basic human needs. One is the need for bonding; we need one another. The other is the need for space. Because we're all different, we need enough space around us to be the autonomous person we were created to be. A peace culture balances these two things. It strives to be creative and inclusive in the face of differences."

Ms. Boulding recalls how much she learned from reading about the forest people of Burundi, Rwanda, and Zaire, known as the Batwa, or sometimes just "Twa" tribes.

"They teach their children to climb trees from a very young age, and the children sitting in the treetops soon become acquainted with all the life that goes on around them. They can look up into the sky, they can look up into the sky, they can look out from treetop to tree-top, and they can look down at the activities of grownups on the ground. That's how they learn.

That's their school. It's a time of observation and listening, skillfully blended with lots of loving and nurturing from the older folk. And often when they have a disagreement, they settle it with a tug of war. Eventually one side collapses, and then everybody collapses, and they all laugh and all eat together.

"I'd like to see every school in every country in the world focusing on peace education and nonviolence with a peace education program that literally begins in kindergarten. At the same time, I want to make it clear that simply saying, 'OK, now we're going to be peaceful' doesn't do it. There are so many skills involved in entering a tension-ridden situation and enabling people to tell their own stories, get things off their chest, and then, after listening, begin to develop a new perception of the situation.

"Conflict transformation takes a lot of skill. Often it involves reeducation focusing on developing the skills of non-violence—both the analytical skills and the ability to center together with others, feeling other people's center as well as one's own center. It calls for lots of empathy and compassion.

"All of us really need to think of all the ways we can develop these kinds of things. Every college and every faith community should be taking teenagers and training them—sponsoring peace study programs.

"For example, a peace project I'm involved in at the moment is to develop a worldwide program for young people called 'Making Peace Where I Live.' The children are taught how to interview the local peacemakers in the town they live in and to present their findings in their own voice—from their own perspective. After doing this, they are asked to look at different cultures around the world and try to find out what their tradition of peacemaking is.

"We often underestimate what goes on in the minds of children. When I taught a course in the sociology of the family, I asked my students to recall times in their childhood when they had helped their father or a father-figure, or their mother or a mother-figure, through a crisis—one a memory from before they were nine years old, and the other a memory from their junior-high or high-school years.

"I was astounded at the answers I got—at what those young people remembered. And some of the memories went back to four years of age—of being with a parent they knew was hurting. Very often it was the death of the parents' parent that would create the crisis—especially for mothers.

"I vividly remember one child's recollection about a father who had lost his job in the Depression in the 1930s and was terribly upset—personally depressed. His daughter had said, 'Father, please go roller-skating with me in the morning.' She was no more than seven years old, and she took him along. And they roller-skated him out of his depression. I think we continually underestimate the level of understanding—even emotional maturity—of children like that. So paying attention to that is really important.'

How did Ms. Boulding keep peace in the home while raising five children of her own?

"I was very conscious they would fight among one another, and so I gave a lot of thought to what the ways are that children can learn to listen to each other. Our yard was the place where the neighborhood children liked to play, so I got to listen a lot to how they talk and behave among themselves, and that gave me clues as to what was going on with them. I think it's so important that adults spend time doing this—not teaching them, not organizing them, not doing stuff for them or with them, but just listening.

"In this new millennium, we will all need to listen more, and learn how to live in peace with all living things. And there is no better time to start practicing than at Christmas.

"Christmas, like the new millennium, is about new beginnings. When Jesus was born to Mary, hope was once again reborn for humankind, as he taught us how to live with one another in peace and love across all the differences that divide us around the world. Building a peace culture out of these differences requires a lifetime of practive. What better time to start than with babies and toddlers?"

And all thy children shall be taught of the Lord;
and great shall be the peace of thy children.

Isaiah 54: 13