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Principles and practices of peace education
Principles and practices of peace education

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2.2 School aspirations and pupil responsibility

Figure 2 There are no limits to what children can achieve

Successful mediation helps all participants to move forward and encourages them to make commitments that will enable them to manage conflict effectively in the future (Peace at the Heart, 2022). In this sense it can support children and young people’s development of personal capacities to interact peacefully with themselves, their communities and the wider world. As peer mediator Kezia Herzog explains:

Mediation is a core part of our school… we value it so much and all the teachers are on board… Mediation should be implemented into schools and education because you’re educating a whole generation of people who don’t go straight to fighting….

Kezia Herzog quoted in Peace at the Heart (2022, p. 19)

Elizabeth James, former Director of the Sixth Form at Bacon’s College, notes the school considers there to be ‘no limits’ to what the students can achieve. In the long term and as part of a whole school strategy, Peer Mediation might be seen as building peace by supporting the aspirations of schools for their pupils and students to lead peaceful lives both within and beyond the school.

Activity 4 Being a peer mediator

Timing: Allow approximately 10 minutes for this activity

Watch this video where former Bacon’s College peer mediator Kezia Herzog talks about her role and the impact it has had on her life beyond school. As you watch make notes on:

  • How young people learn to support each other through peer mediation.
  • The impact peer mediation has had on Kezia’s life beyond school.
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Kezia describes how there is ‘power in peer work’. She describes how the young people took responsibility for training the new peer mediators, adding further to their experience and developing the empowered activities of the pupils at the school.

Kezia describes how her skills in peer mediation were used both within Bacon’s College and beyond, helping the school community engage with the community around them. Kezia also talks about how she took the skills she learned into her personal and professional life after school, establishing a peer mediation scheme in the school she now works in as a teacher.