Peace Studies (Fall 2013 syllabus)

Peace Studies

Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School

Fall Semester 2013

COURSE DESCRIPTION

Peace Studies, now in its 25th year, is a modest effort at offering a chance for students to break away from conventional thinking, worn-out politics, quick-fixes and slow progress and examine alternatives to violence. Whether it is domestic violence, economic violence, military violence, verbal violence, emotional violence, racial violence, homophobic violence, legal violence, illegal violence, verbal violence, environmental violence, structural violence, schoolyard violence, corporate violence, governmental violence or self-inflicted violence, alternatives exist. Whether through our own personal choices, or through what we learn in school theoretically or out of school experientially, everyone is involved with making choices that shape our lives

The course id discussion-based. Debate and dissent are welcomed. One skeptic enlivens that class more than a dozen passive agreers. Let’s be good listeners. Listening to others is an act of caring. If we don’t see eye with someone we can always talk heart to heart.

COURSE READINGS

Essays from “Solutions to Violence” and “Strength Through Peace: the Ideas and People of Nonviolence” are the main source of literature.

GUEST SPEAKERS

Since 1988, more than 400 peacemakers have spoken in the classes. They range from Lily Flores, one of B-CC’s leading educators, to Nobel Peace Prizes winners (Adolfo Perez Esquivel, Mairead Corrigan and

Muhammed Yunus), from former B-CC students who joined the Peace Corps, AmeriCorps or Marine Corps, to the sung and unsung in the global peace movement.

PARENTS AND GRANDPARENTS

All are welcomed to come to class anytime, whether to illuminate, speculate, agitate, cogitate but hopefully not to vegetate.