Educating Toward a Culture of Peace Trough an Innovative Teaching Method

This contribution agrees to idea that a peace-oriented culture aims is to teach its citizens conflict resolution through dialogue, mediation and acknowledgement of others as having equal rights, responsibilities, gender equality and freedom of thought. So all persons and their communities can assure the peaceful development and well-being of new generations. A peace-oriented culture is built on values, attitudes, and behaviors that respect the human potential and every kind and aspect of life on our planet. Finding personal peace provides the strength to defend and uphold human rights, freedom of choice, the ability to listen and appreciate others, and the willingness to share. The above introduced is the principal references on which the action research experience here presented, has been built. The chapter describes an innovative model of cooperation and peer education that involved more than 70 students in a high school in Florence, Italy during the 2016-2017 school year. The program was established through a local partnership coordinated by the Department of Education and Psychology of the University of Florence, in collaboration with the Florence UNESCO Centre, integrated with the Peace Education Program of The Prem Rawat Foundation. The teaching method of peer education, was characterized by the significative relationship between young interns and high school students which actively participated in the proposed program. Some interns, selected by the Department of UNIFI and UNESCO Center, participated in an intensive training in peace education. Every intern has worked with about 20-25 students of high school, for two hours a week for five months. The students were involved with personal experiences, proposing a lot of reflexions on the key words of peace education and producing their project of peace to develop in their life contexts. The project concluded with different presentations of the results of the experience and with the evaluation of the learnings.