What is "peace literacy"?

Did you know that there is a peace curriculum available to all ages starting K-12? What if we were to teach our children about nonviolence and peace making skills?

This week I speak with Paul Chappell, an international peace educator and founder of Peace Literacy. A former military captain, he realized that we all need is to be as well-trained in waging peace as soldiers are in waging war, so he created Peace Literacy to help students and adults from all backgrounds work toward their full potential and a more peaceful world.

Paul is the author of a six books: Will War Ever End?; The End of War; Peaceful Revolution; The Art of Waging Peace; The Cosmic Ocean; and Soldiers of Peace.

He focuses on three questions:

1. What if people were as well trained in waging peace as soldiers are in waging war?
2. What if people were trained to address root causes of problems rather than symptoms?
3. What if we taught peace as a skill set, as a life-saving literacy, with as much rigor as we teach reading and writing?

“Humans have a natural aversion against hurting and killing others,” he says.

He explains that history shows us what the military does to keep the mind from feeling guilty or remorseful. And that nonviolence refutes all the stereotypes of dehumanization.

"{At Peace Literacy} we try to help re-humanize people with social interaction, storytelling and art, and nonviolence skills. We offer new curriculums about peace for every grade; skills to teach peace by our example; and how to use one’s culture to create a new culture of peace and nonviolence."

“People don't know the basic skills of nonviolence that will help them in their daily lives--at work, home, school, with addiction, and every other situation. If we don't teach people peace literacy and nonviolence, then we're actively teaching people the opposite."

“The idea that peace is inevitable is dangerous,” he adds. “We have to do something to help push humanity in that direction. Teaching peace is necessary for human survival. The education and practice of nonviolence has to involve a deeper knowing, a deep knowing down to our bones, and that process takes a lot of effort."

Paul explains why he thinks there are “explainable causes for why we're doing what we're doing and that there is a path that can lead us out of that."

How different would our world be if we can teach the building blocks of peace to young children, and help people internalize peace and nonviolence and live the ideals of peace?

It is possible and there is a foundation dedicated to teaching peace and nonviolence!

Listen in to this true peace educator, and be inspired:

Check out www.peaceliteracy.org

beatitudescenter.org