Teaching Peace: Proven Ways to Create a Culture of Tolerance in Your Classroom

With recent acts of terrorism heightening tensions on a global scale, creating a culture of peace in the classroom is an important yet difficult task. Use these tactics to remain grounded and to teach the importance of peace and tolerance to your students.

Promote Social and Emotional Skills

According to The New York Times, one of the best ways to encourage a culture of peace in the classroom is by emphasizing teaching social and emotional skills. 

Decades of research compiled from the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning have resulted in the creation of five goals that can encourage SEL learning in students.

• Promoting self-awareness for all students to create the ability for each individual to reflect on their personal feelings and thoughts.
• Encouraging self-management. On that same note, encouraging self-control and self-accountability for these emotions and consequential actions is important.
• Prompting social awareness. Building on being self-aware, a student becomes well-rounded when they are taught to empathize with others and be conscious of differing views, beliefs and cultures.
• Developing relationship skills. Once these three phases of awareness are learned, students should then learn how to develop relationship skills that help them communicate with peers.
• Instructing responsible decision making. Teaching accountability and how to make healthy choices help students manage their own behavior in one of the best ways possible.
•  

Hold Annual Events Where Peace is the Theme

Montessori for Everyone encourages teachers to host an annual event where peace is the theme to fully engage students by getting them together.

"Challenge the children to find stories, poems, and songs about peace. They may also want to draw or paint pictures of “peace” and what it means to them. Again, much insight can be gained by looking into their responses.”

Uphold a Firm “No Bullying” Policy

Especially applicable for younger grades, teaching students how to verbally solve their conflicts is important for creating a culture of peace.

Even despite school wide policies for preventing bullying, it’s crucial in having a firm stance against it in the class.

"Verbally redirect children who might need extra help and guidance in this area. Nurture a healthy environment that promotes conflict resolution skills, which in turn help increase the child’s listening, communication, and problem solving skills,” Healthy Beginnings Montessori says. Teach students to be tolerate and to embrace their peers; be vigilante when they do not. 

Respect the Space

Says one first grade teacher, one of the most important steps to setting up a peaceful classroom is making sure that both you and the students respect the space.

"Share the responsibility of keeping your classroom neat and organized. In my classroom, every item has a specific place. I teach my students where things belong and how to care for the objects in the classroom. I also don’t have specific jobs for individual students. Instead, everyone is responsible,” she said.

Compiled by Nicole Gorman, Education World Contributor