Peace education in Israel : encounter and dialogue

Abstract

On the background of deep feelings of animosity, fear and distrust between Jews and Arabs a number of educational projects are sponsored in Israel aimed at furthering co-existence and peace. This paper is a report of one such project - Children Teaching Children (CTC). The CTC Project is based on a series of face-to-face encounters between two parallel junior high school classes - one from an Arab school, the other from a Jewish school, stretching over a period of two years. The project is based on principles of humanistic education, stressing inter-personal dialogue, experiential learning on affective as well as cognitive levels,furthering values of empathy, acceptance, pluralism and democracy. Some of the outcomes of CTC are described, both on the basis of pre/post measurements, as well as participant observation methods. These outcomes point to considerable changes of attitude in both groups, such as a decrease in feelings of mutual strangeness, alienation and hatred, a better understanding of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the paid it inflicts on both sides, an intensification of feelings of similarity between children and of optimism for the future.