Left at the Center -- Experiential Learning and Peace Education

Left at the Center

By Colman McCarthy

In 25 years of teaching courses on nonviolence, one educational truth has emerged: some of the purest learning happens outside the classroom. I’ve taken students to death row cellblocks, midwife birthing centers, hospital emergency rooms, courtrooms, homeless shelters, congressional offices, as well as peace rallies and antiwar demonstrations.

The result is experiential knowledge, not theoretical. Battered by tests and excessive homework, students often leave school idea rich but experience poor. Many schools process students, as if they are slabs of cheese going to Velveeta High on the way to Cheddar U and Mozzarella Grad School.

After the field trips, it is crucial to come back to the classroom to figure out which government policies allow tax loopholes for corporations to widen while job programs for the poor narrow. Which political decisions direct the federal budget to lavish money on military programs meant to kill rather than to social programs meant to heal. How does legislation get through Congress sanctioning ROTC in high schools and colleges while no federal money goes to peace studies programs in schools. Who is behind federal policies that currently sanction spending $1.3 billion a day on military programs while everyday more than 35,000 people around the world are dying from hunger or preventable diseases.

That’s the hard part for both teachers and students: making the connections between the reality of experiential learning and the reality of politics, and then getting the skills to keep working at both.