(pdf edition)
Author: William M. Timpson, Ph.D.
What would the world be like if we each personally experienced peaceful alternatives to violence and conflict? How can we take practical steps to set a foundation of lasting, active peace beneath a society riddled with violence?
Such a foundation is the first goal in the ambitious structure Timpson builds to provide models, tools, and techniques for pursuing a new culture of peace through classroom teaching. In Teaching and Learning Peace, Timpson connects the pursuit of peace to the individual, the classroom, the home, the workplace, and the world.
The Introduction describes the burden of the book and the questions it strives to answer: How do we teach about peace? … How does an educator or anyone in a leadership role who is committed to the ideals of a sustainable peace open a meaningful dialogue about alternatives to violence?
Timpson addresses these questions in two parts. Part I lays the groundwork by pointing out where violent behavior originates and offering alternatives on a level familiar to both teachers and students. The chapters in Part I offer practical approaches to understanding how things like the desire for revenge manifest themselves on both the world stage and in the classroom. Part II connects the values and models of Part I with specific classroom teaching strategies, methods, and approaches.
Timpson asks: “how do we judge an optimism that is grounded in possibility, articulating an achievable, though distant, goal and energizing others through difficult times?” Teaching and Learning Peace judges such optimism to be a cornerstone for creating a new culture of peace.
About the Author
Dr. William M. Timpson is a professor in the School of Education at Colorado State University. After receiving his Bachelor’s degree in American History from Harvard University, he went on to teach junior and senior high school in the inner city of Cleveland, Ohio before completing his Ph.D. in educational psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Along with numerous articles, chapters and grants, he has written or co-authored nineteen books including several that address issues of peace and reconciliation, sustainability and diversity. From 1981-1984 he was the recipient of a Kellogg National Fellowship to explore educational issues internationally including extended visits to Brazil, Nicaragua and Cuba (literacy), Asia and Scandinavia (educational change), and Eastern Europe (war, persecution, peace and reconciliation). In 2006 he served as a Fulbright Specialist in peace and reconciliation studies at the University of Ulster’s UNESCO Centre in Northern Ireland and again in 2011 at the University of Ngozi in Burundi, East Africa where he continues to work with Rotary International Global Grants to infuse sustainable peace studies into the academic programs of the University of Ngozi, the area schools and church communities. In Spring 2014 he served as a Fulbright Teaching Scholar at Kyung Hee’s Graduate Institute of Peace Studies in South Korea. In February 2018 he served as an evaluator for the Rotary Peace Center at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia.