ABSTRACT
Peace education hopes to create in the human consciousness a commitment to the ways of peace. Just as a doctor learns in medical school how to minister to the sick, students in peace education classes learn how to solve problems caused by violence. Social violence and warfare can be described as forms of pathology, diseases that threaten the safety and security of the human organism. Peace education tries to inoculate students against the evil effects of violence by teaching skills to manage conflicts nonviolently and by creating a desire to choose peaceful solutions when faced with conflict. Societies spend money and resources training doctors to heal the ill. Why should they not also educate their citizens to conduct affairs nonviolently in order to provide security? Peace educators use their skills as teachers by developing in their students a peace consciousness that can provide the basis for a just and sustainable future.
