Heritage

26 heritage for peace and reconciliation | manual for teacherContentsThis was an ordinary conversation in a teacher’s lounge that could be the beginning ofan amazing project for the school. Suppose Brenda contacted the education departmentof the local museum, and convinced her colleagues that it was to the benefit ofthe students and the whole school to engage in an interdisciplinary project on peaceeducation based on the example of underwater cultural heritage.As Hugo, the maths teacher, later told a journalist from the local newspaper: ‘In thebeginning I was sceptical, but suddenly there was the insight that maths provides toolsthat can be used to solve problems in our world. Problem-solving is an important partof mathematics pedagogy.’!During the centenary, the teaching community will be challenged to payattention to these different aspects of the First World War. They will feelmore inclined to focus on peace education. However, peace education requiresspecific knowledge – knowledge to implement projects that will besuccessful and have a sound basis. In this chapter, we offer a frameworkwhich can help in this regard. While it is not the only possibility, it is intendedto offer initial guidance.Framework for a project on peace education based on heritage understanding:1. Legitimation: what is the motive for the project?2. Teaching objective: what do we wish to accomplish?3. Teaching project: how can we achieve our objective(s)?a) Knowledge: what knowledge should we transmit?b) Attitude: what values should we transmit?c) Skills: what skills should we teach?4. Perspectives: what positive perspectives can we offer?LegitimationBefore starting a project, the teachers must first identify why the project is needed,and in what way a focus on heritage may be useful. The answer to that question willdiffer from school to school. In one example, the school decided to legitimize theproject in response to several incidents that had to do with bullying. A temporaryexhibition on a local First World War incident was the underlying reason to turn tohistory to learn about how a community responds to conflict.The themes that present themselves and the way in which they can be handled aresituational and differ from school to school, from neighbourhood to neighbourhood,