Learning Peace Through Nature, History, and the Classroom
How HWPL Is Training Educators to Teach Peace as a Way of Life
Around the world, educators are asking the same question:
How can we pass on a world with less violence to the next generation?
In response, Heavenly Culture, World Peace, Restoration of Light (HWPL) recently brought teachers from different countries together through an online Peace Educator Training Program, designed to help educators understand peace not only as a concept, but as a responsibility and a daily practice.
This session was part of HWPL’s internal Peace Educator Training Program, the second stage of its Vista–Phase peace educator curriculum. Teachers from diverse cultural and national backgrounds participated, reflecting on how peace education can move from theory into real classrooms.
Training Teachers to Become Peace Educators
The online training, held on November 15, gathered teachers via video conference from multiple countries. One participant, Andy Vermaut, joined from Brussels, Belgium, even after covering a national holiday event, explaining that peace education is inseparable from human rights.
HWPL’s education team emphasized that teachers are not simply transmitters of information. Instead, they must first reflect on their own attitudes, biases, and responsibilities toward peace before guiding students.
The training highlighted a central principle:
Peace education begins with the educator’s mindset.
A 12-Lesson Peace Education Curriculum
HWPL’s peace education curriculum consists of 12 structured lessons.
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Early lessons focus on the meaning and value of peace, and how war and structural violence affect individuals and societies.
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Later lessons address prejudice, discrimination, and nonviolent approaches to conflict resolution.
Rather than lecture-based instruction, the training modeled participatory education, repeatedly asking teachers to reflect, discuss, and connect peace concepts to lived experience.
Learning Peace from Nature
One of the most engaging parts of the session explored nature as a teacher of coexistence.
The program explained that approximately 8.7 million species exist on Earth, and that diversity itself is a condition for survival. Genetic and ecological diversity increase resilience and stability—an idea directly applicable to human societies.
A particularly impactful example was the “Wood Wide Web”, the underground fungal network through which trees share nutrients and information. Older trees support younger ones, and even dying trees contribute resources back to the ecosystem.
This invisible cooperation illustrated how communities survive through mutual support rather than competition alone.
Participants were encouraged to view nature not as a battlefield of winners and losers, but as an interconnected system of responsibility.
Teaching Respect and Embracing Difference
The session then connected natural examples to classroom practice.
The concept of respect was explored through its linguistic roots—meaning to “look again.” Respect, the training explained, begins with reexamining how we see others and ourselves.
Teachers were introduced to classroom activities such as:
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Observing similarities and differences among plants and animals
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Comparing cultural backgrounds in multicultural classrooms
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Using examples like orchestras or the Olympic Games to show harmony through diversity
These activities aim to help students understand that difference does not have to lead to conflict.
The training also addressed how ideas can be misused to justify violence, citing how Adolf Hitler distorted Darwin’s concept of “survival of the fittest” to legitimize racist ideology. This example underscored the danger of teaching knowledge without context or ethical grounding.
A key message resonated throughout the session:
“War begins in the human mind.”
Teaching the Value of Every Human Being
Another core theme was the inherent value of every person.
Using quotations from The Little Prince and Eleanor Roosevelt, the session discussed self-worth and identity. Teachers were asked to reflect on their own names—the meaning behind them, and how naming expresses value and responsibility.
This approach helps students understand that their worth is not defined by appearance, grades, or numbers, but by their existence and relationships.
Examples such as migrating birds flying in V-formation illustrated cooperation, while the “salad bowl” metaphor explained multicultural coexistence—different identities maintaining their uniqueness while forming one society.
Invisible Roles, Real Change
The training highlighted how seemingly small or invisible roles sustain entire systems.
Examples included:
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Paper made from elephant dung
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Microorganisms restoring ecosystems after the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill
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The Ringelmann effect, showing how shared responsibility affects group outcomes
These cases reinforced HWPL’s philosophy that peace grows through everyday choices, not dramatic gestures.
Participants shared that their understanding of peace had shifted. Andy Vermaut noted that the underground connections between trees changed how he viewed cooperation and responsibility.
Peace as a Shared Process
HWPL hopes this training helps educators see peace not as a topic to teach, but as a process to live and build together.
Teachers seeking Peace Educator certification will submit reflection reports across five sessions, focusing not on summaries, but on personal change and insight.
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