SKILLS AND KNOWLEDGE NEEDED FOR LEARNERS TO EMBRACE, PROMOTE AND FOSTER PEACE

For a genuine culture of peace to be achieved, the current reality must be questioned, and sober reflection carried out on the discovery (ies) so that effective steps for transformation can be deduced and acted upon.

Critical pedagogy’s aim of empowering learners with the skills and capacity to critically examine realities makes it an important tool in Peace education.

Without being guided to acquire the skills and desire to question realities, learners will find it hard to make discoveries on their realities and their causes; and thereby be able to come up with possible solutions that could be used to effect transformation of the realities.

Though I basically teach Computer Application packages, it is very possible to integrate critical pedagogy into my class room practice by basing my learning activities on themes on our local reality which the learners will be guided to research and come up with data/information about how they came into being and their effects on our reality.

Further leaning activities could be fashioned out to guide the learners to use dialectic process critically examine the results of their researches from different angles, and come up with possible means of effecting changes in the context of existing mechanisms or mechanisms that could be created.

A good example will be a set of learning activities to guide students to research into statutory spending on the defence sector vis-à-vis the education or health sector, and then allow the learners reflect on the findings along two different propositions, e.g. The necessity for spending on defence to ensure territorial security, and the need to give education a higher priority to ensure the growth of more a enlightened populace that is more disposed to peaceful conflict resolution.