A PEACE CURRICULUM FOR OUR SCHOOLS
A “STEM” curriculum has served America well in building our capability to explore space. Adopting a “PEACE” curriculum for our schools could help us to live better together here on earth.
Like many Americans, on February 18, 2021, I cheered when I saw the first images of the NASA space probe “Perseverance” executing its flawless soft landing on Mars some 35 million away. NASA overcame lean budgets, shifting political support, and many scientific hurdles to achieve an extremely challenging technological goal. With the aptly titled Perseverance mission, the US cemented its status as the world's leading space explorer.
The groundwork for the successful Mars mission, however, began some decades earlier when many of the mission control center staff and technicians and those who designed and built the Perseverance module, took part in STEM - Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics - training that equipped them for their careers at NASA and many of the private firms engaged in the space program. In the 1980s, the National Science Foundation fostered a government, private sector and academia partnership, that introduced a STEM curriculum into primary and secondary schools and into college and advanced degree programs.
Another historic event in 2021 preceded the Mars landing: the January 6 storming of the US Capitol building by an angry and unruly mob. In disbelief, I watched the media images of rioters forcing their way into the building’s halls, chambers and offices as they attempted to do damage to a system of government that, I suspect, few well understood how it functions or how it serves and benefits them.
Unlike NASA scientists and engineers cheering their technological achievements, the US Capitol mob was protesting what many believed was a stolen election in a democracy that was failing them. This time I did not cheer. Instead, I hung my head in dismay.
I sensed that January 6 Capitol riots were in part the violent manifestation of a festering frustration of many in our country at trying to survive in a changing economy and society. The 2020/22 COVID pandemic widened the gap between the well-off and well-educated and the poor and poorly trained. I suppose it should be no surprise that these growing income and wealth disparities are now putting our democratic institutions under stress and provoking violent demonstrations like that of January 6.
There are many suggestions for how to reduce our political divisions and rebuild trust in our democratic system of government. Some advocate taxing the wealthy to fund programs aimed at improving education, healthcare, and housing for vulnerable populations. Others suggest that market deregulation will spur innovation, investment, and job creation for those affected by foreign competition and domestic technological progress.
These suggestions warrant consideration, but even together they are insufficient. Needed also is better equipping of future generations to work together to achieve a prosperity in which all can more fully take part and benefit.
That’s where my “PEACE” curriculum for our schools comes in. Like the STEM curriculum, PEACE is an acronym for five areas of learning which, recent political turmoil reveals, need greater emphasis in our nation’s schools and colleges. The letters stand for Political Science, Economics, Athletics & The Arts, Civics and Ethics. Here’s a brief case for why each of these academic areas warrants more attention today in America’s educational system.
POLITICAL SCIENCE. Events of January 6, 2021 reveal that too many Americans understand too little about how a representational democracy works, how it can work for them and how they can work best within it. Among the topics that a political science course should teach are how our American form of democratic government:
Defends human rights (particularly the right to petition government over grievances);
Allows our voices to be heard through the elected representatives who craft our laws;
Applies checks and balances across the three branches of our national government to protect against political abuse;
Safeguards state and local government autonomy in a federalist system of shared political power.
No high school senior should graduate without demonstrating an understanding of these and other basic principles and institutions of a functioning democracy.
ECONOMICS. Determining how to allocate scarce resources to meet multiple objectives and preferences over time is a challenge for even the most experienced and well-educated. A place to start is in our primary and secondary schools. A grasp of basic economics helps students distinguish between needs and wants and then how to budget within realistic expectations and timelines for meeting those needs and moderating those wants. It means teaching good money management skills so that students learn to be regular savers and savvy spenders. Instilling money management disciple early reduces the likelihood later of unmanageable indebtedness that too often results in voters taking out their frustrations on the political party in power, or in storming our nation’s capitol building.
ATHLETICS AND THE ARTS. Yes, sports, in particular organized sports. Aside from helping establish healthy regimens of physical and mental exercise to sustain a sound body and mind, participation in athletics produces other valuable dividends. Competitive sports teach that playing by the rules and practicing to become a better player improves the chances of winning in whatever one chooses to excel. Also, that every player, regardless of their position on the team, contributes to a winning outcome. Participation in athletic programs highlights the importance of showing up on time for practice with teammates, a self-discipline that in itself will emerge as a critical job requirement once out of school.
Of course, there are those students for whom sports is not an attraction or may not be physically possible. Participation in the arts, in particular the performing arts, provides similar opportunities to learn to prize responsible engagement and sustained support for other members of the band, orchestra, choir, or theatrical production. Again, the lessons and goals are the same as in athletics. Showing up on time, being a supportive participant, practicing to improve and playing by the rules are all ingredients to a successful performance … in life, as well as in athletics and the arts.
CIVICS. The rules by which society works echo many of the principles and rules that apply in individual athletic and artistic performance. Most importantly, a PEACE curriculum emphasizes citizen responsibilities that accompany civil rights: the responsibility to be an informed voter before going to the polls, then going to the polls; the responsibility of the media to report impartially rather than be advocating for any political party, group of people, or political demagogue; and the responsibility of citizens to hold political and media leaders accountable when they fall short in their performance. I’m heartened when the media reports how more and more student activists are showing these civic responsibilities in advocating for greater social justice and better environmental stewardship. A PEACE curriculum would reinforce these and other responsible student initiatives.
ETHICS. The focus of civics is on how we interact with those around us. Ethics focuses on how we practice the values instilled within us. I believe we can live better lives in community with others when we strive to live better and feel better about ourselves by being our own moral enforcers. For many youths whose parents have instilled values early in their lives, ethical behavior may occur with little thought or premeditation. Others may need more help to address the internal demons which they are struggling to control. School classrooms are places where moral behavior can help those most in need of it, as much by listening to instructors as by observing the constructive conduct of fellow students.
This PEACE curriculum, I contend, need not place new demands on instructors nor require additional days of classroom study or homework. It does not involve taking away classroom hours from other study subjects. Rather, it weaves PEACE principles into all academic programs. This should make budget-conscious school administrators and over-worked classroom teachers happy.
So how can we advance and apply a PEACE curriculum for our schools in a way that generates the same excitement that comes from placing a piece of electronic equipment on a distant planet? Where should leadership reside in fostering and adopting a PEACE curriculum?
I advocate that a PEACE curriculum might best be led and supported by those who have the greatest stake in its outcomes: students themselves. A good place to start is with student-led extracurricular activities.
Student government and student newspapers (or their media equivalents in today’s digital world), intramural sports, debate teams, and service clubs are among the PEACE activities that school administrators, teachers and parents should embrace and integrate within the formal education system. These and other extracurricular activities are often what students sign up for most willingly.
School faculty can build on student interest and enthusiasm to instill PEACE principles. There’s also scope for engaging parents as well in a school’s PEACE program. The partnering of teachers, administrators and parents can reinforce the messages that a PEACE curriculum offers their students both on and off the school grounds.
The benefits of adopting a proposed PEACE curriculum will never be as spectacular as landing a human on the moon or placing a robotic probe on Mars. What it will achieve is more subtle. Its dividends are manifested in the mundane practice of living and working harmoniously together, in the classroom, the community, and the country. Still, I argue that such an outcome should be as worthy of cheering supporters as any breakthrough in space exploration. ###