Assessment of Education for peace and ethical learning at school

This article discusses Education for Peace based on Aristotelian virtues with children in situation of risk. The problem of the research is violence at school and the necessity of building peace there. The Hypothesis is the possibility of Education for Peace at areas of risk. The objective is that 4 th grader students can learn and practice the virtue of Friendship. The locus of the research is a public Elementary School in an area of risk in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The Living Peace project is the core concept for this research on Education for Peace. We concluded that the practice of Ethics and Education for Peace through Virtue is possible if the students learn to practice virtues as the basis of a Culture of Peace.


Introduction
This article discusses the pertinence of Education for Peace through virtues with students attending school at risk.The virtue Friendship was selected as the specific focus of this research.MacIntyre (2021), a scholar of the Aristotelian perspective of virtues, provides the philosophical bases.The author emphasizes the absence of the practice of virtues and the presence of Emotivism in Modernity.The concept of Emotivism already exists in Philosophy before this philosopher, but it is taken up by him.It is the emotional attitude over the subject that MacIntyre Assessment of Education for peace and ethical learning at school (2021) emphasizes.It is acting without ethical criteria but guided by merely personal opinions.
The research highlighted the experience of the Living Peace project in a class of the 4th grader of elementary school in a public school, located in a risk area.Interviews with the class and their families and the records of the intervention workshops were part of the analysis material.Education for Peace, in this research, is based on the thinking of Lubich (2017), who proposes an Education based on love and dialogue.This conception inspires the Living Peace project.This is a Project of international scope, officially started in 2013, in Egypt, with the objective of cooperating for a Culture of Peace (Palma, 2018).One of the pedagogical instruments used in the project is the Dice of Peace game.It is a dice on which sentences are written describing attitudes of peace.The goal is to exercise listening, empathy and forgiveness.
Is it possible to speak about Peace and learn to live Peace in places where violence reigns?This question prompted us to start the research.
Between the years 2012 and 2017, there are more than 25,000 studies published in Brazil discussing violence.Research founded (Brino;Sousa, 2016;Gräff;Lopes, 2023;Carro Olvera;Lima Gutierres, 2020;Rodas, 2022) analyze, describe and quantify the types, causes and subjects of violent acts, however, there are not, in the same proportion, studies looking for ways (Cunha Filha;Silva, 2022) to solve the problem of violence.
There is no lack of laws to combat social inequality, bullying, drug use, violence against women or racism.However, the increasing rate of violence (IPEA, 2020), a problem that affects schools, seems to deny the effectiveness of such measures.The Education Guidelines and Bases Law (LDB) No. 9,394, of December 20, 1996(Brasil, 1996) indicated the need to fight violence and was modified in 2018 to include the Culture of Peace as a responsibility of educational establishments.Also in 1996, the Brazilian Federal Government approved the National Human Rights Plan (PNDH) which promotes Education in Human Rights (Brasil, 2006), of a permanent nature, based on values.One of the goals of the National Education Plan (Brasil, 2014), LAW No. 13,005/2014, provides for the promotion of a Culture of Peace at school, however, there is no apparatus that guarantees the sustainability of the project or its effectiveness.
All the above documents were not enough for Brazil to remain outside the statistics of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) regarding school violence.In 2013, in the report of that organization, composed of 37 countries, Brazil occupied the sad 1st place in terms of school violence.In the result of the International Research on Teaching and Learning (Thalis, 2013), carried out by the OECD, the teachers interviewed say they spend more than 20% of their class time with interventions to put order in the classroom.According to OECD research, time dedicated to order in the classroom includes conflict resolution, restraint of fights and reciprocal aggression between peers.We believe it is desirable that in the classroom not so much time is spent on containment measures.We start from the premise that ethical learning is one of the possibilities for preventing the problem of violence.To offer space for dialogue contributes to the positive resolution of the conflict and generates greater cooperation.
The increase in violence in society (IPEA, 2020)  Ethics has been discussed over the centuries and there are countless philosophers who have dedicated themselves to the subject, mentioned here not in the original work, but according to the publication dates of those consulted, such as Husserl (2020), Heidegger (2020), Kant (2018), Scheler (1957) and Spinoza (2021), standing out from classical antiquity to modernity and our days.The present research is based on the Aristotelian Ethics of Virtues and proceeds according to the thought of MacIntyre (2021).We start from the idea supported by Lind (2015) that Ethics can be learned and is teachable.
It is known that there is no ethical subject without the practice of the virtues.What are the virtues?MacIntyre (2021, p. 282) says that "virtue is an acquired human quality, the possession and exercise of which usually enable us to attain those goods that are internal to practices and the absence of which in fact prevents us from attaining any of those goods".The author's concept allows us to infer that virtues are qualities learned by the person.When practiced, they underpin the subject's actions and constitute a good for himself and for the community in which he lives.In this perspective, the association of living the virtues with an ordered life realizes the person.It means to say that the absence of the experience of the virtues distances the man from the end to which he proposes and causes disorder.The author defines moral disorder as a contemporary catastrophe derived from the absence of the practice of virtues.
Friendship, in the Aristotelian perspective, unites who is in search of the common good.Kristjánsson (2020) argues that it is a central topic to the Greek philosopher.In this search, the bond takes place on three levels.The first is based on mutual utility, the second on reciprocal affinities, and the third encompasses the previous two and surpasses them, as it is based on the virtues.This last level is, in this view, the ideal type of relationship in the polis.
It is not possible to refer to a virtue in isolation.Both Aristotle (2020) and MacIntyre (2021) say that one virtue is linked to the other.Courage, for instance, is a virtue associated with Friendship.The brave is a friend who can be trusted.There are two human attitudes that depend on Courage, explains MacIntyre (2021).Concern and care for the other.A coward will hardly outbrave a risk to take care of his friend.Other virtues are associated with Friendship.Loyalty, Honesty, Sincerity, Trust and Patience are among the closest.

Methodology and research's subject
The present qualitative research followed, partially, the action-research Methodology based on Barbier's (2002) ideas.The main methodology is the Sucupira-Lins' (2015) Action-research with greater commitment.In this method, the research is at the service of the whole development of the subject.Workshops were designed, applied, and analyzed according to Bardin's (2016) categorization framework.In the research, the telos of Education is present.
Observation in locus, interviews to the kid and their parents, researcher field diary and the result of workshops were the tools for this research.The research involved the dynamics of the Living Peace project with its method in the class under study.
Participants of this action-research were 29 4th grader students from a public school in one suburb located in the of Rio de Janeiro.Participation of the 14 boys, 15 girls and their respective families was voluntary and consented.The research was approved by the Brazilian ethical committee.To preserve the children's identity, they are mentioned in the text with the name of an Amazonian bird.The literary metaphor of the flight of birds associated with the idea of freedom, which is the purpose of Education, has motivated the choice.

Glaucya Maria Lopes Lino e Maria Judith Sucupira da Costa Lins
The purpose of the research was to observe, register, analyze and reflect on the character formation of a group of children during a school year.
When researching the characteristics of the age group under study, we found in Erikson (1976) that children between 9 and 10 years old are at an age in which the subject is open to lay the foundations of character construction.In this stage, as stated by the author, that the child turns from purpose to perseverance and starts to have an interest in the future; thus, he begins to look at the possibility that there are long-term returns.
When there was conflict in the class, the students were irritated by the invitation to stop and reflect.Several times they verbalized that they preferred punishment.It was explained that, unlike punishments, the resolution of the conflict, based on dialogue, contributes to the understanding of why to act in a certain way and to identify what drives the choices.Thinking after action, as argue Dewey (2023), gradually pushed kids to think before acting.Interventions took place whenever there was a conflict.We asked ourselves, therefore, if it was possible to propose the experience of a Culture of Peace in a turbulent context.
The present research at school involved the family, the main educational instance, in a path of Education for Peace based on the learning of virtues.To affirm that the polis is the locus of ethical learning, means that it is the responsibility of the adult to offer the child the possibility of gradually developing the capacities that they have in potential, but they need the other persons to be understood and practiced until they become acts.
Without the practice of these qualities, the human being precipitates (or society precipitates) into emotivism.MacIntyre (2021, p. 39) says that "Emotivism is the doctrine that all evaluative judgements and more specifically all moral judgements are nothing but expressions of preference, expressions of attitude or feeling, insofar as they are moral or evaluative in character".It means that there is not or is not considered the need of parameters external to the subject from which their own choices or attitudes are guided.The discussion of virtue in this research is based on the thought of this philosopher and proposes a path of Ethical Learning based on the concepts exposed above.
The Living Peace1 project is an Education for Peace tool started in Cairo, by Professor Palma (2018) in 2012.Today more than 2,000 institutions are Assessment of Education for peace and ethical learning at school associated and around one million children, young people and adults were touched by the initiatives of the project.Another 92 groups committed to building a Culture of Peace form an international network.The project, represented by its founder, Carlos Palma, received in 2014 the prize for excellence in Education for Peace from the Schengen Peace Foundation of Luxembourg and three Doctorate Honoris Causa in Mexico, Ecuador, and Spain.Professor Palma and other Peace Project educators were decorated by the Universal Circle of Peace Ambassadors of France and Switzerland (Palma, 2018).
This project is inspired by the ideas of Lubich (2013), an Italian woman who won the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) Peace Education Prize in 1996, has its source in the Art of Loving.The expression Art of loving, used by Fromm ( 2000) is adopted by Lubich (2009Lubich ( , 2017) ) to explain the characteristics of genuine love.The author founded the Focolare Movement2 in the 1940s that has as its main objective the pursuit of universal fraternity.Lubich (2002Lubich ( , 2009Lubich ( , 2013Lubich ( , 2017) ) explained, to different audiences, what she understood by Art of Loving.This art, explains, consists of loving everyone, no one excluded; to take the initiative in loving others; to forgive and love to the point of generating reciprocity.The love that the writer talks about is an attitude that involves the whole human being and cannot be confused with sympathy, although it can contain it, because whoever acts motivated by this art proposes to love everyone.
The choice of the Living Peace project for this research was justified because it emerged in the context of the civil war in which Egypt was, at the foundation of the project, and which, in some way, is comparable to the situation of violence in the school area, which is of social risk in Rio de Janeiro.The climate of insecurity experienced in the school environment was materialized in mutual distrust and tension in the school routine.Much time of the class was spent resolving disputes and teaching how to solve them in a positive way.
One of the pedagogical instruments used in the project is the Dice of Peace.On its six faces there are phrases that propose attitudes of Peace: to be the first to love, to love everyone, to forgive the other, to listen to the other, to love one another and to love the other.The game consists of throwing the dice and considering the sentence chosen as the basis for the actions of the day, and then sharing frequently the experiences lived with the selected sentence.The report of experiences follows a methodology from which Lubich (2009) invites you, focusing on the sentence in question, to communicate the fact that you experienced and to observe the presence of some fruit that has blossomed in yourself or around you.For this author, joy and inner peace are the result of the practice of love among people.

Research's process
In the qualitative research the process is central as in Education.The research in question is characterized by offering, as an integral part of the study, workshops in which the subjects have time to reflect about the virtue Friendship.In the class, conversation circles were held addressing the concept of the Aristotelian virtues every Monday, when one of these was presented.We understand ludic form as Aguiar (2019) and, in ethics, it facilitated the introduction of the virtues, generating interest.Initially, these were called word of the week, until the concept of virtue was introduced.A student would draw the word of the week, then we started to discuss the meaning and spelling of the word.Then we read an excerpt from a book that explained the meaning of the virtue or a chronicle in which that virtue was identified.The virtue drawn began to compose a mural to which the other virtues were gradually added.We observed that the mural was consulted frequently by the children and that the new words, over time, became part of their vocabulary, either orally or in writing.
The presentation of the Living Peace Project was made, initially, to the management of the School Unit and then to those responsible for the children.Having obtained a written authorization and after having presented the project to the children, the class was registered on the Living Peace website and the routine at the school began.We decided to roll the Dice of Peace every day, at the beginning of the class, and write the phrase drawn on the whiteboard to remember during the morning.
Three children said they did not want to be part of the project.Their decision was respected, and their names were left out of the game.The definition of who would throw the Dice was made by drawing lots.The child drawn, played the dice, read the explanation of the sentence posted on the wall mural and, that day, helped the teacher with the activities.Three forms of recording the experiences were defined.Orally report the experience after the Dice was thrown; write in a note collected in the box of peace attitudes or write in the "Peace Diary" that circulated in the families (LINO, 2018).The diary spent the night in the house of the winner.Along with the diary, a miniature of the Dice of Peace was also sent.The proposal was to roll the dice as a family and share experiences, writing them in the diary.Those who told or wrote their own experience, glued a leaf or flower on the "Tree of Peace".
The tree, containing only a trunk and branches, was on the wall in the classroom and was composed as the attitudes of Peace were told.The purpose of the registration is to motivate reflection on one's own practice and encourage partnership with families, as we know that ethical learning begins at home.
It is necessary to emphasize the importance of the routine created in the experience of the project.In this regard, Baumeinster (2012) stresses that habit is necessary for learning virtues.Talking about virtues every day provided moments of conversation, interest on the part of students and motivated active participation in classes.
We observed that students raised questions regarding the obligation to forgive and love someone they don't even know.Lubich (2009Lubich ( , 2013) ) says that love, proposed in the Dice of Peace game, is not always directed to whom we know or have affinity with.The attitude of love can be directed towards a stranger, who is offered a seat on the bus, or to a colleague who is lent a pencil.Forgiveness, like love, is a choice.More than conceptualizing these attitudes, we strive to report facts of love and forgiveness experienced, because, as Piaget (1994) understands, the child learns through imitation.
The educator is committed to this purpose with the children.At this point, researcher and research subject merge according to the common objective: to build up a culture of Peace in the classroom, as explained by Ricci and De Bene (2010) of the teacher-student relationship in the thought of Lubich (2013).The authors place the teacher in the same position as the student without, however, losing authority.The authors say that the asymmetry, common due to the difference in age and experience, is not visible when children and adults find themselves in what puts them in common.
The workshop is one of the proposals of the method used.In this research, Education for Peace was understood as part of this learning, as it deals with the teaching for coexistence with others.

Discussion
Education for Peace, Ethical Learning and Character Education converge for the good development of the child.After a few months in which all persevered to throw the Dice of Peace during ten minutes at the beginning of the class, the child named "Thrush" explained that, by reducing the disputes, there was more time left for the class and the atmosphere in the room seemed lighter and joyful.When asked about the reason, she added by saying that it was not necessary to stop the class to draw attention and scold or resolve conflicts.By practicing the virtue Friendship, the students were opened to learn.The interventions generated in the children greater autonomy to decide whether to speak or remain silent during the class and more focus on activities.We understand autonomy as Piaget (1994).Conflicts were solved through conversation and, gradually, the teacher's intervention was no longer necessary.Regarding interventions, Sucupira-Lins (2015, p. 62) argues that "character Education is not the objective of a specific school subject that is included in the student's curriculum, but a constant in the activities of teachers and researchers in this area".Interventions in the researched class were part of everyday life and aimed at ethical learning.The gradual autonomy in relation to the children's self-regulation generated well-being, both in the children and in the teacher, improving the school climate.
The interviews followed the script by Narvaez and Bock (2014) and were translated and adapted.An Ethics learning questionnaire was answered by the children during a forum.Guardians and teachers at the beginning of the research and the same script was used in the last stage.The interviews were analyzed according to the method created by Bardin (2016) separately: the children and the guardians.For this article, we focused on analyzing the Friendship category.From 29 students, 12 related this virtue with the practice of the Dice of Peace, by using its sentences to explain the virtue Friendship, giving more than one example.They mention the expression "helping others" 21 times.This expression was used to explain how they practice the Dice and according to Piaget (1994) is part of the industry phase, typical in the 10 years old child, as the group in analyses.
The activities connected with the virtues and the practice of the Dices of Peace were presented in the same period, but they were never explicitly related, although there was the intention that the children could link the practice of the virtues to the experience of Peace.The elements were offered, the choice of adhesion and correlation were made by the children.The idea of interdisciplinary learning, as intended by Lück (2013), that includes ethical learning, has given meaning to the learning process, as claims Ausubel (2003), to the point of improving the attendance of the students at school.The children understood the learning process as a game in which they did not want to miss any stage.The children's attitude surprised those responsible and generated greater involvement of all parties in the learning process.It is important to say that those students that refused to participate at the beginning, later, became also involved.
Learning to conceptualize Friendship is not yet being a friend, but the exercise of thinking about such a concept is necessary to reflect on the experience.The objective of the Friendship workshop was to reinforce the concept of this Aristotelian virtue, applying it to the character of the book under study.The book "I swear it wasn't me", from the collection "Lili: so is life" was discussed at the Friendship Forum.Initially, only the teacher had this book, and it was read in steps.A few months later, the class received the book and was invited to reread it individually.The teacher introduced the dynamics of a Forum and half of the class discussed whether the character Lili practiced the virtue of Friendship.The other half of the class did the same for the virtue of Justice, which is not discussed in this article.After thinking about virtue concepts, it was observed that personal preferences, as MacIntyre ( 2021) intend in the emotivism, gave place to the virtue as a criterium for acting.
Peace isn't synonymous with being quiet.The class became participatory and lively.They did not accept the proposals without understanding well what it was about, and they put themselves in an assertive and gentle way.The respect between everyone grew in relation to the beginning of the year.
The Forum was directed from a script translated and adapted from an activity proposed by Narvaez and Bock (2014) with the purpose of teaching Ethics according to Aristotelian perspective.The institution and voting of the speech rights rules of each component were part of the Forum.It was possible to observe the commitment of the students, who had underlined excerpts from the book and made notes on the back cover.They argued about the situations in which Lili had practiced Friendship or not.The explanations given presented trust, respect, loyalty, sincerity as the basis of Friendship, as supported by the reference authors of this theme.The forum was an important instrument for Character Education, because it offered the possibility to reflect about action's motivations.It was possible to observe that it was evaluated as significant by the students and the proposed objectives were achieved: to think about the concept of virtue by applying it in practice.The exercise generated attention and criticism regarding their own attitudes, although all the time the attitudes of the character were analyzed.Recognition of their own mistakes, apologies and restarting again, generated autonomy in the students and the research teacher did not need to intervene as much as she did at the beginning of the research.
After interventions, we asked the kids what Friendship means.It was hard for them to express a concept, so we asked them if they had friends and why they were considered a friend.Most of them described those people with some words as illustrated in Graph.Source: Authors' archive (2023)

Graphic -Kids' answers referring to the Friendship Virtue
The above-described attitudes were used in their description.It is possible to observe that kids considered those who practice the Dice of Peace as Friends.All of them said the same even if the interview was done individually and without communication between them.
We can find elements of Aristotelian virtue when they said "tell the truth", which is the virtue of Honesty.We can also see the virtue of Generosity.The help of another person is one of the conditions to the first level of Aristotelian friendship, even if it isn't yet a good friendship, but it is a first step.It is possible to consider "help others" and "to be funny" in this perspective.The attitude of respect isn't present in the Aristotelian theory of virtue, although we can think that a person who lives the Justice and Prudence virtues will act with respect.
When the students were asked to describe someone who practices Peace, it appears 30 times that is who practices the Dice of Peace.We can affirm that the kids define the attitude of love proposed in the Dice of Peace and the virtue Friendship as synonymous, which in not far from the theory considered in this research.
Where does ethical learning find a place in school Education?Lickona (2001Lickona ( , 2012)), one of the most engaged psychologists for this subject, designates this field as character Education according to Aristotelian thought.In his conception, Character Education is the determination to lead the subject to acquire and cultivate virtues.Narvaez and Bock (2014) observe, in their research, that in school, in general, there are interventions for Ethical Education, yet there is a need for planned and intentional actions.The researcher concludes that this action exists at school, and it is just not usually structured or recorded.Miranda and Sucupira-Lins (2021), in their investigation, discuss about the school importance in Character Education and argue that the socialization at school permits to exercise virtues, the Character Education base.
A work focused on ethics is not visible, as identified in the research by Narvaez and Bock (2014) and Lickona (2001Lickona ( , 2012)).Ethical learning is inserted in the scope of Education, which focuses on the subject's cognitive, physical, affective, sociocultural, ethical, and spiritual dimensions.It is in the complexity of being a person that this formation takes place.Maritain (1966), in this regard, emphasizes the need for an Education that includes these dimensions of the person and alerts to the error of a training devoid of the development of the thinking, because "Education is not animal training.Education in man is a human awakening" (Maritain, 1966, p. 36).With the crisis in society, it fell to Education the task of remedying the gaps created.The philosopher's concern is that by dealing with emerging needs, the core of Education is lost.
It is in the combination of emotional intelligence and the exercise of virtues that we understand the Education of character.This is intentional, which means that interventions in occasional situations are not enough, but they need to be programmed, thought out and inserted in the school program.Lickona (2001) says that character is a set of which the subject's feelings, thoughts and actions are part of it.It is from this perspective that we developed this research-action.The emotion that moves the action needs the virtue to support the choice of action.It is not possible to ask someone to experience something the existence of which is unknown.It is necessary to introduce the virtues to the children and the possibility of experiencing them.Likewise, it is necessary to offer an environment in which the virtues are practiced.It is important to underline the risk, as alert Ananos, Rivera and Amaro (2020), that this proposal arrives to the group as an imposition.The authors emphasize that it is a dialogical process.It was the direction this Peace Education tried to follow.

Final reflections
One school year is not enough to consolidate Education for Peace and Teaching Ethics, however, this action-research made it possible to observe that the seeds of a Culture of Peace and Virtues were sown.It was thought, instead of Education for Peace for Children, to talk about Education for Peace with children, as it confirms what action-research with greater commitment requires: the course was carried out together with the subjects of the research.Active observation and listening along the way created bonds of Friendship, mutual respect and cooperation between the researcher-teacher, kids and their families.The families responded promptly and generously.They showed interest in and valued all proposed actions.They provided support at various moments and participated actively, offering important elements of the children's Ethical learning that were more noticeable in family interaction.
Action-research does not allow generalizations, but we infer that, observing the necessary conditions for Ethical learning and especially if there are adults willing to experience the Virtues and practice Peace, it is possible to teach ethics and provide the conditions for a Culture of Peace.There was growth in the exercise of Trust, which is an important element for the practice of Friendship.This was confirmed in the statements of the interviewees and warns of the need for Ethical Learning and the appreciation of mutual trust in relationships.This Virtue, in turn, calls for the practice of Loyalty, as one trusts those who are loyal.
The Living Peace project answered the question regarding the possibility of living Peace in a hostile environment.In a short time, the children took ownership of the proposal and everyone who visited the class was invited to get to know what they called: our project.Peace and virtues were not just words written on murals but became the life of the class.Goleman (1995) says that the lessons learned, in times like these, will not be forgotten.The students had access to the pedagogical tool, the Dice of Peace, in the didactic material for the 4th and 5th graders of the Municipal Network of Rio de Janeiro for almost two years.In 2022, a former student of the researched class sought out the research teacher and requested the Dice of Peace model to present to the classmates of the 9th grade, who were not in the researched class.
To create Peacefull environment it is required, as we have observed, planning, involvement of the whole person as a teacher/students and seriousness in living the Virtues.We do not know if the fruit will come, since the role of Education is to provide the foundations.We educate for autonomy.The 4th grader adhered to the proposal, carried out the learning and spread what they learned to the entire school, at the time, and continues to sow the Culture of Peace.As argue Santos and Sousa (2019) those are initiatives a small level and need to be together with macro initiatives that go over educational sphere.That structural violence needs structural strategies, and the Aristotelian Virtue practice is one way.
This research was successful and should be continued.It is suggested that it should be expanded and replicated, so that new results can bring more knowledge about this issue.

Evaluación de la Educación para la paz y el aprendizaje ético en la escuela Resumen
Este artículo aborda aborda la Educación para la Paz basada en las virtudes aristotélicas con niños en situación de riesgo.El problema de investigación es la violencia en la escuela y la necesidad de construir allí la paz.La hipótesis es la posibilidad de la Educación para la Paz en zonas de riesgo.El objetivo es que los alumnos de cuarto año puedan aprender y practicar la virtud de la Amistad.El lugar de la investigación es una escuela primaria pública en un área de riesgo en la ciudad de Río de Janeiro, Brasil.El proyecto Living Peace es el concepto central de esta investigación sobre Educación para la Paz.Concluimos que la práctica de la Ética y la Educación para la Paz a través de la Virtud es posible si los estudiantes aprenden a practicar las virtudes como base de una Cultura de Paz.
and at school, as Leme (2009) points out in his research, justifies the need for interventions aimed at transforming the situation of violence and analyzing possible paths for a Culture of Peace.The objective of this research is to analyze the course of an Education for Peace program and character formation in relation to the virtue of Friendship.