From 2nd Elementary School of Paleo Faliro. GREECE.
Proposed by Mary Frentzou
marifrent@yahoo.com

NON VIOLENCE IN SCHOOL AND EVERYDAY LIFE

"The life of the people and, perhaps, the progress or the extinction of our civilization depends on peace".

Maria Montessori

 "Teach your children in brotherhood and in peace and keep them away from the tenebrous paths of hate and violence".

"The Truth is One, but its forms are infinite and its names are innumerable. Look for your inner Light and follow it to the end, because in this inner Light you will find your personal form of the Only, Infinite and Eternal Truth".

From  "Pequeño libro de un solitario" ("The Small Book of a Solitary Man")

As a consequence of the thought and actions of some great educators of modern times, Mahatma Gandhi, Rabindranath Tagore, Maria Montessori, Paulus Geheeb, Pierre Bovet, Martin Luther King, John XXIII, etc., a new course in the pluralist view of world pedagogy has been  emerging: Non-violent and Pacifying Education. It is not  -as some could think due to the presently dominating methodology-  from a purely didactic direction, but rather it rises with some aspirations and a projection which are much greater, since that  -as a consequence of its historic period in which it has been conceived-  the Non-violence and Peace Pedagogy presents itself to us "like an ideal inspiration that aspires to shape all of humanity's educational duties and that, in its theoretical aspect, is integrated into General Pedagogy as a fundamental chapter of the same and in close relationship and interdependence with religious, moral and social education"

Although the "School Day of Non-violence and Peace" is celebrated on a specific date (January 30th or around that date), its message must endure every day. It must shape all of our education and must guide all of our lives through our thoughts, our desires, our words and our actions, because the message of the "School Day of Non-violence and Peace", freely assumed according to the personal style of life of each person, can be a means for freeing man from the selfish slavery (environmental, corporal and mental) and a path for one's progressive self-realization in an outlook of universal brotherhood. For this reason, the message of the "School Day of Non-violence and Peace" is a simple one that must reach all educational centers throughout the world.

The Rumanian writer Eugen Relgis, in his book "Pages of my calendar" considers the "School Day of Non-violence and Peace" as "a glimmering hopeful freeing light in a cloudy sky". The universal Italian Lanza del Vasto, a follower of Gandhi, said in an interview: "So be it in all your schools. Establish a day dedicated to non-violence". Dr. Franz Rauhut, Professor of Romanic Philology in the University of Würzburg (Germany), in an article published in the magazine "Pacifistische Rundschau" affirms that the "School Day of Non-violence and Peace" must be made a custom in all schools throughout the world". And a Professor Eulogio Díaz del Corral (Mallorca), in his article titled "El Día Escolar de la No-violencia y la Paz no ha terminado" ("The School Day of Non-violence and Peace has not ended"), published in "Ponent", adds that we have to try to have its message "like an objective tendency during the entire school year".

As it has been said in the final conclusion of the "Fundamentación de una Pedagogía de la No-violencia y la Paz" ("Basis of a Pedagogy of Non-violence and Peace"): "The pedagogy of non-violence and peace  -that in regards to general principle goes beyond the reach of all the concrete pedagogical systems that up until now have been inspired by it- can be a fundamental educational factor in our time on which hatred, violence and wars between men and between peoples are eliminated  -or avoiding the temptation of a utopia-  reducing them to a minimum so that every day, more and more brotherhood, non-violence and peace prevail. To deprive students of this or invoking an attitude of pacifist or pedagogical skepticism or in the name of any theory more or less aggressive, nationalistic or imperialistic is a deception to the present and coming living together of humanity"

The planting of the seed is in our hands, we the educators... It is in God's hands to make it grow...

 Llorenç Vidal