… A time to be silent and time to speak;

A time to love and a time to hate;

A time for war and a time for peace. (Kohelet 3:7-8)

War invites us to rethink many ideas about our existence, the nature of man, and the limits of morality. Furthermore, it exacerbates the uncertainty of the future. The current crisis in the Middle East has sparked a wide range of reactions and reports, and a huge wave of media activity. However, the conflict and its ramifications should not remain merely political, geographical, economic or even humanitarian; it is important to reflect also on educational approaches arising from war.

It is too early to research the impact of the current war between Israel and Hamas on education, but we cannot deny that the war has greatly influenced daily school life. The teacher has become a figure who regulates the media information to which students have access and who tries to clarify the conflict through reliable sources, but also who contains the students emotionally. In addition, this conflict invites teachers to rethink many questions about educational practice, among them: how does education contribute to nurturing a culture of peace?

María Montessori, one of the most influential educators of the 20th century, considered this same question during the interwar period. Her criticism of the failures and ineffectiveness of the educational model of her time invited her to develop her own method. One of the pillars of its pedagogy is peace education. Montessori and her ideas are a product of their historical context, and in her educational philosophy each stage of schooling (or stage of development, to use her term) contributes in a different way to this central objective. In her book, Education and Peace (1934), she sets forth a series of pedagogical proposals that contribute to creating a culture of peace. We may benefit from reviewing them in our present context and embracing some of them in our teaching practice.

The first proposal concerns respect for individuality. For the author, students must be respected and valued for their individuality, in every realm from areas of interest to learning rate. This practice serves to foster a respect for oneself and for others. Respecting individuality also means valuing diversity. There are many different applications of this concept in the classroom setting, including knowing each student’s learning style, as well as diversified teaching. This diversified education promotes a metacognitive awareness among students that each person learns according to his or her needs and that we must give value to each person's work.

The next proposal focuses on the development of self-discipline and self-regulation. Montessori consistently maintained that education should focus on students developing these skills. She believed that when a child learns to control his impulses and emotions, he can learn how to resolve conflicts peacefully. She also advocated teaching conflict resolution skills from an early age. She saw it as a necessity that students learn to communicate effectively and resolve their conflicts through dialogue and a search for solutions. In the long term, this will help lead not only to the prevention of violence and/or hate speech; but also to the creation of a society based on dialogue and not conflict.

Another proposal focuses on values-based education. Montessori considered that education should focus not only on academic knowledge, but also on the formation of human beings with values. Respect, empathy, solidarity, and cooperation are fundamental values for developing a culture of peace and are also a central part of María Montessori's pedagogical project. To give a concrete example, in the adolescent development stage, Montessori proposes creating a supportive community, based on equality, inclusion and social justice. The community of Montessori adolescents is a microcosm of society, in which students build their identity, based on contact with the environment and the guide or role model (today we would say ‘teacher’). In this microcosm, values are fundamental, since the student, through experience, comes to realize that man is a social being who lives in a community, and therefore his decisions affect others. This automatically promotes the practice of the aforementioned values, along with responsibility for others and the environment in which we live.

A final proposal concerns the suspension of competitiveness. For Montessori, the traditional educational system is one of the main culprits in nurturing a culture of war and not peace, since it is based on competition, instead of collaboration. In her words: “Everyone talks about peace, but no one educates for peace. People educate to compete and this is the beginning of any war. When we educate to cooperate and be in solidarity with each other, that day we will be educating for peace.” (Montessori, M., 1934) For her, collaborative work is a fundamental mindset without which a society cannot function, which is why students must learn through practice to collaborate and cooperate.

Montessori was a pioneer in talking about peace arising from pedagogy. She viewed peace not as the absence of conflict, but rather as “a positive concept of social and moral and constructive reform” that is achieved by profoundly restructuring teaching and learning methods (Montessori, M. , 1934).

The above is intended to encourage educational institutions to rethink teaching practice in the contemporary era, especially at this time of war. It is worth considering ways in which we can integrate and implement the proposals of an educational visionary who wrote and created a pedagogical model for children who lived through a period of war, while reflecting on how our pedagogic practice contributes to the creation of peace. Today more than ever, let us not stop asking ourselves: how can education contribute to the creation of a culture of peace?

Sources consulted:

Montessori, M. (1934). Education for peace . Hightide .

Ivonne is a Melton Master's student and teacher at Maguen David School in Mexico City.