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 Chapter 15
Attributes of a peace educator
The phrase, "the medium is the message", used in
a school setting, suggests to us that teachers have
the power to affect the lives of children and youth.
Students often remember the informal and
"hidden" lessons, not from the overt or stated
curriculum, but from the attitudes, values and
actions of the teachers themselves within and
outside of the classroom. We now know that to be
more effective, the medium must match the
message.
Indeed, peace educators must serve as models for
the qualities and skills they are helping young
people to develop in the peaceable class- room
and school.
Lantieri and Patti (1996) remind us that as
teachers we have to transform ourselves before we
can expect to see changes in the learners. For
instance, in order to help young people confront
their prejudices, we have to confront our own and
commit to changing our negative attitudes.
 What attributes, capacities and skills must a
teacher of peace develop to enable her/him to be
an effective medium of the peace message? The
following attributes are culled from the work of
Betty Reardon (2001), a globally renowned peace
educator:
Sample Footer Text 01/22/2025 6
The teacher of peace is a responsible global
citizen, an intentional agent of a culture of peace,
a person of vision, capable of hope and the
imaging of positive change. S/he understands that
education should be a means toward constructive
change.
S/he is motivated by service and is actively
involved in the com- munity. A teacher of peace
sees himself/herself as a person responsible to
society.
S/he is a lifelong learner, one who continues to
improve one's own learning abilities and to keep
abreast of the field.

S/he is both a transmitter and transformer of

cultures. While transmitting one's traditional
culture, the teacher also has to be critical and
reflective so s/he can also be an effective agent of
social and cultural transformation.
S/he is a seeker of mutually enhancing
relationships that nurture peace and a sense of
community: For example, respect for hu- man
dignity and human rights should guide teacher-
student relationships and the learning processes.

S/he is gender sensitive and alert to any possibility

of gender bias in self or students. S/he helps both
male and female learners to form positive
identification for themselves and to develop
gender sensitivity and gender responsibility toward
others.
A teacher of peace is constructively critical. S/he
offers criticism not to wound or harm, but to elicit
constructive change.

A teacher of peace intentionally develops the

capacity to care by knowing the learners in their
charge as individuals. This enables the teacher to
respond to the differences in students' learning
styles as positively as s/he is expected to respond
to other human differences. The skill of caring is
integral to the peace education process. Caring
and supportive behavior from teachers lets the
students know they are valued.
S/he is an inquirer. S/he poses instructive questions
into the conditions that impede and those that
enhance possibilities for achieving a culture of
peace. To be able to conduct an inquiry into the
many issues and goals of peace education, a
teacher of peace needs the skills of elicitation to
draw from the students their own visions and
ideas, to make them delve deeper into their own
knowledge and imagination, and to seek new
knowledge. The teacher then is more a raiser of
questions than a giver of answers.
S/he has the skills of reflective learning through
which he ap plies what is learned from teaching to
deepen his/her own under- standing of the
students and the learning processes. This includes
reflection on or assessment of one's own abilities
by posing some fundamental questions such as:
How effective are our teaching- learning
interactions in achieving our goals? What
indicators do I have that students are finding
satisfaction and meaning in their learning?
A teacher of peace has the skills of communication
and conflict resolution. These are essential skills
for building community and peace-making (These
skills are explained in an earlier chapter.)

S/he practices cooperative learning by encouraging

cooperative learning tasks and discouraging
negative competition or in-group -out-group
behavior (exclusion) among students.
A teacher of peace inspires understanding of
alternative possibilities for the future and for a
culture of peace. S/he helps students to plan and
act to achieve such a culture. The core questions s/
he asks are: What kind of world do we want? What
changes need to be made to achieve it? What are
our special responsibilities to carry out the
transformational process?
In the teacher-training workshops that the Center
for Peace Edu- cation has conducted over the last
several years in the Philippines, the teacher-
participants were asked to identify the attributes of
someone they have considered as a teacher of
peace. The qualities that were most frequently
mentioned were:
Passionate for peace
Compassionate, concerned, kind
Caring, encouraging, understanding
Respects other people
Gentle and non-threatening
Fair, impartial
Has faith in God, inspired by his/her spirituality
Facilitators of learning, rather than sources of
authority
Tolerant, open, respectful of the ideas of others
Sensitive to diversity in the classroom, accepts
learners as they are
Open to sharing relevant personal stories
Skilled in eliciting thoughts and posing reflective
questions
Motivated, enthusiastic, inspiring
Joyful, not wanting in humor Bearers of hope rather
than despair
From the foregoing discussion on the attributes of
a peace teacher, we can glean many similarities
between those that are given by Betty Reardon, an
expert and experienced peace educator, and
Filipino teachers who are just beginning in their
peace education journey. It indicates that although
we may have different backgrounds, there are
principles and values that we hold in common
when conceptualizing the attributes of a peace
teacher.
It is notable how Filipino teachers have often
referred to someone "who has faith in God" or
"who is inspired by her/his spiritual tradition" as an
attribute of a peace teacher. There is also a
preponderance of personal qualities listed by
Filipino teachers. These features are indicative of
the culture within which the Filipino teachers live.
Despite many difficulties and challenges, Filipinos
generally keep a hopeful disposition anchored in
their trust in God. They also highly value
interpersonal relationships.
The attributes that we have included in this essay
are neither exhaustive nor definitive. The list can
and will grow as other groups delve deeper into
their own concepts of peace, peace education and
a peace teacher.
The important thing for us to remember, as
mentioned when we started this chapter, is that it
is best that we begin our journey as a peace
educator with our own personal or inner
transformation. As we mani- fest the attributes,
capacities and skills that mark a teacher of peace,
we will find that the young people in our care will
also learn the skills and behaviors modeled by us.
Surely, there are other influences in their lives and
there are times when perhaps we feel that teacher-
modeling does not work, but the prospect of not
doing what we preach is definitely not a better
option. Young people are particularly in search of
teachers who have integrity and credibility. On this
we can only agree with Mahatma Gandhi when I
said, "Be the change that you wish to see in the
world".