Agnieszka Piejka

The article presents the philosophies of John Amos Comenius, Immanuel Kant and Maria Montessori. It focuses on problem areas that are particularly inspiring for modern thinking about peace and education for peace and points out a broad definition of peace provided by each of the above philosophers. Their theories go far beyond identifying peace with the absence of war and they consider peace to be a process that requires building and strengthening as well as the participation of all people, not only politicians. From this perspective, peace building becomes an important educational task. The basic goal is to ensure that individuals have the feeling of authorship and responsibility for peaceful coexistence among people. Only a combination of peace-reinforcing political initiatives with daily activities supported by education and aimed at promoting peace provides real chances to make the world a better place.

The reflections undertaken in this article focus on the role that civic education plays in education for peace. Certainly these two areas of educational activity are not the same; Education for Peace is a much broader and more complex process, requiring the involvement of all teachers. However, the knowledge, competences and motivations that should be developed as preparation for responsible civic participation are very important for building a peaceful order. I begin my reflections with a brief discussion of the most important issues related to contemporary perception of peace. Next, I refer to the terms "citizen", "citizenship", to highlight their meaning and in this context to reflect on the most important areas of civic education. This is the starting point for showing the tasks included in civic education as essential in the process of building peaceful coexistence of people. These tasks concern different areas of civic education: cognitive, competence, affe...