In March-June 2008 “Women for Development” NGO and the National Institute of Education of RA Ministry of Education and Science organized “Peace and Conflict Resolution Education” trainings for more than 20 teachers from 10 beneficiary schools in Shirak along with seminars targeted at awareness raising for 15 social science and history teachers from 6 schools of the province and 11 specialists from Shirak Branch of the National Institute of Education.
Trainings and seminars were targeted at presenting the published handbook to the teachers, familiarizing them with the topics raised in the handbook and discussing the teaching methodology. Training-seminars served as a perfect opportunity for familiarizing teachers from various schools of the province with the activities implemented by WFD in the sphere of peace education as well as achieved results.
During all meetings tense discussions related to the following issues were taking place: is peace education necessary for Armenian schoolchildren, and how realistic is the mission of peace education? Meeting participants came to the conclusion that Peace and Conflict Resolution Education is extremely important not only for the pupils of middle and high school, but also elementary school. “In order to achieve success, it is necessary to begin peace culture education at an early age”. While stressing out the importance of such education for the schoolchildren, many teachers expressed their concerns with the fact that very often conflicts at schools are being caused by teachers, therefore “tolerance education should begin from a teacher, who, in turn, should become role model for the pupils”.
Participants highly valued “Peace and Conflict Resolution Education in Schools” handbook for teachers, which will significantly ease the process of organization of such education in schools.