Teaching peace by using nonviolent communication for difficult conversations in the college classroom

Having empathy and respect for oneself and others when engaging in difficult dialogue is an essential part of peace education. Gandhi emphasized that involving emotions was more transformative than purely intellectual approaches to education. Nonviolent communication (NVC), as developed by Marshall Rosenberg, is a tool for fostering empathy and building connection across difference. Using NVC for difficult conversations in any college classroom is a way of mainstreaming peace education across the curriculum. Though there is literature on difficult conversations in the college classroom, and on the effectiveness of NVC in general and in K-12 classrooms, there is very little on NVC in college spaces, and none on NVC for difficult conversations. In this primarily qualitative study college students were asked to use NVC to discuss controversial nonviolent actions. We found that even when both professor and students were NVC beginners, students were able to use it to discuss polarizing protests in a class with a diversity of views and needs for respect were overwhelmingly met. NVC was also useful for deepening analysis of the effectiveness of nonviolent actions, and could serve as a tool of emotional regulation for nonviolent action, or a modern day sort of purification for satyagraha.

The Analysis of Peace Teaching Practices at the University Level in Pakistan

The peaceful coexistence among people is the key to a stable and progressing world. The focus of the study was to examine the desired and existing level of peace teaching practices at the university level. Convergent mixed methods design was considered best fit, using qualitative and quantitative methods. Respondents of the study were all administrators, the teachers, and BS students at the universities of Pakistan. Multistage sampling techniques were used for the selection of the respondents. Three instruments were used in this study; first and second instruments were self-developed questionnaires consisting of 50 items both for teachers and students used to collect quantitative data. The reliability of questionnaires was computed after pilot testing applying Cronbach’s Alpha (0.92). The third instrument i.e. interview schedule consisted of (5) questions, was used to collect qualitative data. The analysis of data revealed that the desired level for peace teaching practices and its subsidiary values is significantly greater than the existing level of peace teaching practices. It leads to the conclusion that there is more need for teaching peace and its subsidiary values to university students. Higher Education Commission (HEC) of Pakistan may suggest a separate course on peace in its policy guidelines for the universities under its auspices.