A few moments ago I was watching an item on the news about taking young people to the places where World War 1 was waged in Europe. When I was a young boy history was my favourite topic and I learned a great deal from it. Learning about history can help us understand about our past, about ourselves and potentially about others. It can – if taught well – also make us empathetic to others and learn from history. All that said I would love for us to start to teach about peace and humanity.
It’s an interesting thought isn’t to teach about peace and humanity. Here in the UK we even call a range of topics that range from social studies, philosophy and psychology as humanities. I’m fairly sure that history may even be put in that basket along with others. But are we really teaching about humanity when we speak of humanities.
If we are really serious about peace, if we are really serious about our future generations then we really need to learn to teach peace as much as we study historical wars. There is an opportunity to do so. Sometimes when young people study humanities – indeed often – then a sense of empathy, humanity and justice does emerge. We need to really enable this to blossom. I’d love for us to teach about some many of the human qualities: communication, appreciation, relationships, self knowledge. We do very little of this especially in the key schooling years.
Have a peaceful day.
Recent Comments