Demonstration of Mastery:

Independent Peace Education Project

In order to successfully complete this program and receive your Certificate of Teaching
Mastery in Peace Education, you are required to demonstrate your mastery of the material
covered in the preceding units. This is an opportunity for you to think critically about how
you can most effectively bring peace education into your classroom or community, and
then develop a practical resource that will help you achieve this goal.

Instead of asking you to develop a specific kind of resource (such as a lesson plan) we want
this to be a chance for you to think about the context where you work as an educator – your
community, your school, and your classroom – and then decide how you can most
effectively and in the most meaningful way bring the knowledge and skills you have
acquired in this program into that context. In other words, you are the expert in that
context – you know your students and your community best – and this will help you decide
what kind of resource or approach would be most appropriate and effective. We look
forward to learning with and from you as you complete this demonstration of mastery
requirement. Do not hesitate to suggest to your facilitator or instructor a project that may
seem unconventional. If you believe that it can effectively support Peace Education in your
context, we would be happy to support your efforts and ensure that this independent
project is as valuable to you and your community as possible.

The process of completing this project is divided into three steps, designed to guide you
through the task of developing a specific Peace Education resource for your classroom or
community. Please read the steps below carefully and follow the instructions to start
generating the materials you will need to submit in order to show your mastery as peace
educator.

1. Reflect
Take a moment to review the contents of this Peace Education program and ask yourself
the following questions:

1. Are there any specific definitions of Peace Education that I value above others?
2. Are there any key thinkers whose ideas should provide the foundation for my work
as a peace educator?
3. Are there any specific core concepts of Peace Education (Unit 1), such as
transformative practice, nonviolent resistance, or establishing a culture of peace
that I would like to incorporate into my classroom/community work and my
independent mastery project?
4. What are some key fields in the wide scope of Peace Education (Unit 2) that I am
most interested in addressing? (Select one or two that would be of benefit if

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 incorporated into your existing classroom practice). Why are they important in my
context? Why are they more important than others?
5. What are some of the specific teaching approaches or aspects of Peace Education as
Pedagogy (Unit 3) that I am most interested in using to show my mastery as peace
educator?
6. What elements need to be present in order for this resource to be considered “peace
education”?

Take the time you need to think carefully about the above questions. When you have
arrived at your answers, write them down – you will need to submit them along with your
final project.

Then, continue to the next step.

2. Brainstorm and Plan

How will all of the decisions you reached in the first step of this process come together into
a coherent approach and a practical resource that will help you bring Peace Education into
your classroom or community? How can all these ingredients be combined into a practical
resource and teaching approach?

Consider the following questions:

1. How can I most effectively engage my students in Peace Education?

2. Will I incorporate aspects of Peace Education to enrich existing curriculum or create
new curriculum?
3. Should I develop a stand-alone unit of study? A set of individual lesson plans? A
collection of classroom activities? What exactly will this look like?
4. How will this affect the form, content, and structure of my classroom practice (Unit
3, Section 1)? How can I take my audience and venue into account?
5. What changes in classroom practice will this require of me? How will I grow
professionally as a result of developing this resource and implementing it?
6. What is my plan for successful development and implementation, a step-by-step
process for translating my reflections and brainstorming into reality?
7. How much time do I have? Will I need additional resources or support of my
colleagues or mentors? What are the steps required to make this project a success
and demonstrate my mastery as peace educator?

Once you’ve had enough time to address the above questions, write down your responses.
You will have to submit them along with the finished independent mastery project.

Then, move on to the next stage.

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3. Create
You have already spent quite a bit of time reflecting on the content of this program and
thinking about how the knowledge and insights you’ve acquired can be transformed into a
practical resource. At the end of the second step in this process, you created a plan. It is
now time to implement that plan and develop your independent project to demonstrate
your mastery. In this final step you will focus on creating your peace education resource.
Keep in mind that the time you have to accomplish this task is limited (determined by your
facilitator), but you can count on our support. Your facilitator will be happy to offer
guidance and connect you with experienced peace educators in your area or via the
Internet (depending on location) who can serve as volunteer mentors.

Project Criteria
Your final project submission to demonstrate mastery as peace educator needs to meet the
following criteria:

1. Include written responses to Steps 1 and 2 above.

2. Be a practical educational resource that successfully applies the contents of this
professional development program, connecting peace education theory to practice.
3. Be creative and comprehensive.
4. Be easy to use and follow, so that it can be implemented by another teacher, not just
yourself.
5. Include a brief reflection that addresses the following questions:
a. How will this resource contribute to peace education in my community?
b. How has the experience of developing this resource enriched me as a peace
educator?
c. How does this demonstrate my mastery as peace educator?

We also encourage you to consult Carter’s Standards for Teacher Trainers in Peace
Education (included below) prior to beginning your work and to ensure that your finished
resource meets at least some of these standards. In addition, you may wish to consult
Reardon’s Ten Question Guide to Constructing Your Own Peace Lessons (also included
below), which can help guide the process of creating your lesson.

After you submit your resource, your facilitator will review it with you and make
suggestions for any changes or additions that would strengthen the resource. Upon
successful approval, your resource will be added to the TWB website where it will be
available for other community members, serve as a model peace education resource, and
contribute to the greater field of peace education.

Please note that you authorship will be acknowledged and your work will be licensed
under Creative Commons and distributed as an Open Educational Resource.

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Standards for Teacher Trainers in Peace Education
The following list of peace education standards for teacher educators can help guide you in
designing your training (Carter, 2006):

1. Include peace education standards in course syllabi and content to clarify

instructional goals.
2. Provide opportunities for pre-service teachers to identify, then examine, their
awareness, views and biases.
3. Legitimize diverse viewpoints and enable students to express their own to develop
their civil courage and public voices.
4. Build teachers-in-training’s self-respect along with positive regard for diverse
others as they develop their peace-building knowledge, skills and dispositions.
5. Study, model and teach alternative positions before taking a stance on an issue.
6. Facilitate and use lateral, creative and critical thinking processes.
7. Teach how to obtain information about, and then analyze, power relations that are
evident in local to global interactions, including analysis of international relations
as outcomes of economic systems and political domination, such as capitalism and
imperialism.
8. Teach about how social structures and institutions that perpetuate systemic
violence and societal conflicts such as poverty, racism, sexism and homophobia.
9. Make oppression evident to students, and denounce it.
10. Teach about multiple aspects of democratic citizenship including social,
environmental, economic and political responsibilities for participation in a
democracy.
11. Make clear the distinction between democracy and capitalism.
12. Illustrate how consumption practices and international policies affect human
relations and the environment.
13. Develop the capacity to learn about and facilitate pro-active responses to conflicts,
including contentious issues.
14. Develop tolerance for uncertainty with open processes, thereby allowing students to
explore multiple ways of approaching tasks, including conflict resolution.
15. Encourage students to create social and environmental action projects in response
to community, national and global conflicts.
16. Provide examples of and model proactive responses to conflict (e.g. be able to
understand/legitimate other points of view with which you don’t agree; decallage,
uncertainty.)
17. Emphasize responsibility for peacebuilding and nonviolence in all settings by
proactively addressing intrapersonal, interpersonal and systemic problems.
18. Persistently address the unresolved learning issues of teacher candidates, including
use of positive conflict-management skills.
19. Recognize and affirm the use of peacebuilding and peacemaking strategies in the
classes, field experiences and internships of a teacher-training program.

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 20. Extend support for teacher development, within and beyond initial credential
training, through individual as well as group reflection and research.
21. Document, evaluate and professionally share the successes and challenges of peace-
focused teacher education.
22. Revise teacher-training approaches in response to examination of their outcomes.

A Ten-Question Guide to Constructing Your Own Peace Lessons

The following ten questions are intended to guide your construction process in creating
your own peace education lessons (Reardon, 2006):

1. How might this material be relevant to my students or some particular aspect of the
curriculum I intend to teach?
2. What is the central peace concept in this material?
3. Does this concept relate to any aspect of the Hague Agenda for Peace in the 21st
Century or to any other proposals for peace about which my students should be
informed?
4. Is the concept related to a step toward peace, an obstacle to peace, or a particular
proposal for resolution of a problem?
5. How can I articulate this core concept – and the step toward or obstacle to peace it
represents – into a key question in which I can construct my inquiry?
6. What subsidiary questions could illuminate those aspects of the inquiry I want my
students to understand?
7. What is the objective of this lesson? What do I want my students to know,
understand, and accomplish at its conclusion?
8. What exercises and what process – and in what sequence – might I develop to help
students function as responsible global citizens, and/or work for peace?
9. What methods of assessment will enable me to determine if, and to what extent, the
learning objectives have been achieved?
10. What kind of lessons or learning exercises could illuminate the relationships
between my lesson and concepts in the Hague Agenda or other peace documents?
How might I develop these relationships into a learning sequence on this topic?

References
Carter, C. (2006). Standards for Peace Education. A Florida Center for Public and
International Policy Paper. Florida: University of North Florida. Retrieved from
http://www.unf.edu/thefloridacenter/PeaceEdStdsForWebsite.pdf

Reardon, B. A. (2006). A Ten-Question Guide to Constructing Your Own Peace Lessons. In A.

S. Labresco & J. Balantic (eds.), Peace Lessons From Around the World. New York:
Hague Appeal for Peace, p. 138.