peace education colloquia series
spring 2008

Click here to download the report in its entirety

Introduction

This spring, the Peace Education Center at Teachers College hosted a colloquia series entitled: 21st Century Peace Education: Discourses, Dilemmas, Practices.  Each colloquium was envisioned as a dialectical space for the intersections of disciplines and approaches to peace education practices. Each offered a provocative and rigorous look at the ways that people are bridging theory and practice in peace education to address the problems we are collectively confronting as a global community.

The twelve colloquia speakers in nine events addressed a range of topics from feminist perspectives to contemplative practices, grassroots activism to academic engagement, and environmental sustainability to public communication. Fostering fresh voices, unique practices and transnational awareness, the Peace Education Center sought to support the community in moving towards a culture of peace. The pedagogies and the presenters reflected the core values of peace education including planetary stewardship, humane relationships, and global citizenship. 

The presenters themselves hailed from Australia, Argentina, Norway, Spain, Turkey, Greece, San Francisco, various Northeastern US locations, and at home here in New York City, each shedding light on a particular region, history, and practice.

This Peace Education Center series was motivated by such questions as: Where does peace learning take place? Who is doing it? How are movements towards peace gaining momentum and affecting change? And what role can we play in the process?  Through activities such as these colloquia, the Peace Education Center functions as connecting hub, a point where these diverse networks of people can engage in the exchange of knowledge and discourse. Our spring colloquia provided specific opportunities for experts and students, the Teachers College community and the general public to interact with this knowledge relevant to current discourses in comprehensive and global peace education.

Enthused by the possibility of building coalitions of peace practices, the Peace Education Center Spring 2008 Colloquia Series was organized by Janet Gerson, the Co-Director of the Peace Education Center with the assistance of Marielle Amrhein, Colloquia Co-Coordinator and a Teachers College peace education graduate student.

Speakers and titles in the series included:

The Story of the Earth Charter: Connecting global and local action for a more just, sustainable and peaceful world
Dr. Brendan Mackey: Professor of Environmental Science, Australian National University

Seeds of New World Growing all Around Us: Radical Approaches to Grassroots Activist Learning
Chris Carlsson: Executive Director of Shaping San Francisco, writer, publisher, editor, and community organizer, Co-founder of Processed World magazine, Co-Initiator of Critical Mass bicycling movement.
>> Click here to access an audio recording of Carlsson’s talk on iTunesU!

Bullets into Blogs, Swords into Power Points: Old and New Media in the Quest for Peace
Dr. Dee Dee Halleck; Co-Founder of Paper Tiger Television and the Deep Dish Satellite Network; Professor Emeritus, Department of Communication, University of San Diego

Public Communication, Peace Culture and Discourse: Towards an educative efficacy
Eloísa Nos Aldás; Director, International Master in Peace, Conflict and Development Studies at Universitat Jaume I, Castellón, Spain

World Tribunal on Iraq: International Lawyers Meet Anti-War Activists
John Burroughs: Executive Director, Lawyer’s Committee on Nuclear Policy and Adjunct Professor of International Law, Rutgers Law School
Ayça Çubukçu: Co-founder of the WTI, PhD. 2008 from Columbia University

Building Culture of Peace from the Roots: Engaging Latin American Public Policies & University Programs as Platforms for change
Alicia Cabezudo (Argentina): Professor at University of Rosario, Argentina and the University of Peace in Costa Rica                                
David Adams (USA): independent scholar, former Director of the Unit for the International Year for the Culture of Peace (IYCP) in UNESCO                              
Magnus Haavelsrud (Norway): Professor of Education at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, Norway                                    

Efforts in Cyprus for Peace and Peace Education
Dr. Areti Demosthenous:  Lecturer, University of Athens; Director of the Institute of Historical Research for Peace; Member, Central Committee, Nicosia, Cyprus, Greece

The Missing Peace: How Contemplative Teaching is Changing American Education
Mirabai Bush: Executive Director, Center for Contemplative Mind in Society

The Complementarity of Female and Male Energies for the Skillful Means of Peacemaking
Joan Campbell Whitacre: Executive Director, Whole Women Healing and a teacher of the Shambala Buddhist tradition