Jozeph Mazloum, a public-school teacher in the Lebanese town of Broummana (East of Beirut), is confronted with violent behavior by his students every day: "I often see students acting out their domestic violent influences at school by fighting with their classmates.” He is sure: The way people act at school has an impact on society and vice versa. Of course – the environment in which young people grow up, shapes them for the rest of their lives.

As Jozeph points out family power relations between adults and children, where children are disciplined with direct violence, often have a direct impact on violent behavior in schools. Furthermore, violence in society at large is very present – first among Lebanese themselves based on sectarian identity and political affiliations and secondly against refugees and migrant workers.

"Violence is deeply rooted in Lebanese culture - you have to get to the root cause," Grace Arail Al Najjar is certain. The psychologist and educator has worked in a school, an orphanage and is now active in the educational technology sector. Education provides the decisive leverage for long-term change for society in the future. Grace Arail Al Najjar is certain about the cause: "Gender, origin, religion -it's always about identity." She adds: "When young people come to terms with themselves, where they come from and their fellow human beings, we will then have peace." Sounds simple - but how can teachers put this into practice?

Combining Non-Violence and Regular Learning Goals

One way of implementing the high goal of peace is by Social Emotional learning concepts suggestes Grace Arail Al Najjar. That means learning content is adapted so that it depicts the desired society and thus encourages pupils to reflect on their own identity. She explains: "When we show images of a Lebanese society where co-existence is vividly lived, the image of a normal society is assigned. This is the basic level of learning content.” If extended, this method could be integrated into the curriculum. In fact, peace education combines the non-violence objective with the regular learning objectives. 

Nizar Rammal, a Peace Education Consultant and Community Development Expert, suggests to do some twisting with the school curricula to achieve peace education. He gives as an example the combination of the tax system with social justice: “By doing that, the teacher can reach his learning objective about explaining the tax system and at the same time promoting a peace culture through linking it to social justice”, he notes. The danger lies in conceptualising non-violence as something that can be learnt by heart, in which students are tested: "Students will start to hate it, it rather has to fit into everyday school life interactively, so it can also be fun”, says Nizar.

The Violence Free School Initiative

An approach that the peace educator developed himself as part of the UNDP initiative called "The Violence Free School Initiative". Since its launch in 2014, 56 public middle schools across Lebanon have participated in the initiative, with the aim of developing a more peaceful culture in schools. The projects assumes that "when school-level stakeholders - students, parents, teachers, headmasters - are supported to collectively recognise and address violence, they can create a sustainable school culture that promotes a safe and empowering educational climate."

The results of the UNDP initiative show that the approach is having an impact: Greater self-awareness, self-confidence, knowledge, assertiveness and tolerance of disruptive behaviour, a more positive attitude towards school through new activities are just some of the positive developments for the schools. Mostly relying on personal testimonies of principals, teachers, kids and parents. As one student describes it: “When someone comes aggressively, I don’t give and take I have more confident now”, or to highlight a testimonial of a father of six: “I used to hit my kids; but now I only shout.” 

Parents need guidelines

For Joseph Mazloum, as a public school teacher, such concepts only work if teachers are given the right conditions. Creating good preconditions is therefore crucial. According to Joseph, the cornerstone of a "Violence Free School" is providing the youth with opportunities to express themselves through sport, music and art. This prevents excess energy from building up and ultimately being released in violent behaviour, as he points out. However, it doesn't stop there. As per the school teacher, no matter how good the classes are, without supportive parenting at home, progress at school will be reversed. He continues: "Parents need guidelines on how to behave in certain situations and how to support learning goals at school. This takes the pressure off parents and teachers".

Nizar Rammal also highlights that the work should not be all down to the teacher. He believes that the entire administrative process of a school needs to be rethought, starting with the relationship between teachers and parents: "It always sounds easier to target the teacher as the weakest link in the chain before we implement structural reform, but we need to give more power to parent committees. I would highly recommend that", he says.Teachers and parents can thus jointly shape and influence the school curriculum: Decision making and even decision taking.

The inclusive participatory structure

The inclusive approach is also a core driver of change in the Violence Free School Initiative (VFS). According to the VFS’s concluding report: "One of the strengths of the VFS initiative lies in its inclusive and dialogue-based participatory structures in initiating the phases aimed at empowering teachers, parents, school leaders and students in building a school culture of zero tolerance of violence."

However, institutionalizing improvements remain a challenge. Nizar Rammal names the “Lebanese Ministry of Education's Guidance and Counselling Department”, which, as a ministerial department, overlooks the curriculum and the teaching principles of schools: “As Peace Consultants of the UNDP we trained and informed them on how to improve the school system all over Lebanon. They should do the work as part of a routine”, says Nizar, but because of lacking funds, they can’t continue.  This way, non-violence in education could be sustainable.  

One might ask why to rely on ministerial guidance in a country where institutions are underfunded and -staffed? Can't the approaches of the UNDP VFS be transferred with less resources and more efficient? What if a group of students could tour the country like ambassadors of the initiative and "spread the word"?

Motivation through Entrepreneurship

For Grace Arail Al Najjar, it’s doable if motivational factors are included: "For some, non-violence itself isn’t motivating enough, but everyone needs motivation", she states. With an entrepreneurial approach, students could be motivated to work together with municipalities and local communities. "Getting the community involved has a strong leverage, and by thinking entrepreneurial, you think with incentives and gains”, explains Grace. She continues: “If a specific entrepreneurial project- like painting a school- offers a gain for students, communities, municipalities and schools will be motivated to join and contribute by this, to building a culture of non-violence.” If then, additionally technological distribution methods are used to show the success as a best-practice example to a broader audience, other communities, schools or students could be inspired to copy the ideas.

Hence digital literacy is an integral part of non-violence to use the potential of the internet by showing the best-practice examples to the whole country. Like this the message which underlies every non-violent activity can be spread, which Joseph Mazloum tells his fighting students every day: “Respect each other – we are all human beings.”