Societies generate images of the possible and then draw their behaviour from those images…
- Elise Boulding

Once the inevitabilities are challenged, we begin gathering our resources for a journey of hope.

- Raymond Williams   

What journeys are we on as teachers, parents and citizens?  How do our travels relate to the rights of children and responsibilities toward future generations?  What 'maps' and cultural baggage do we bring with us as we leave the twentieth century and begin to explore the early twenty-first century?  To what extent do we consider both short-term and long-term issues for our children and their children? 

Our ideologies or world-views have a powerful emotional or affective character.  Our mentalities express hopes and fears, sympathies and hatreds, as well as putting forward sets of ideas about history, the existing social order and models of a desired future.  They are, if you like, cultural maps that we take with us in our journeys through life.  When we fail to see or refuse to see, how our maps are necessarily partial and leave many things invisible, we deny the possibility of a worthwhile sharing of ideas with others who may have quite different maps and quite different journeys. 

Historically, Western concepts of mapping with their boxed, two dimensional entities, gridlines and property delineations have been about achieving order, exercising control, 'taming' nature, commodifying territory, defining power relations and assumed destinies.  Such mapping has been far from 'culture free'.   In the case of the British Empire during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, mapping was very much tied to documenting visually the global reach of an empire in which 'the sun never sets'.  There was a lack of comprehension, for example, by the British colonisers who arrived in Australia in the late eighteenth century that the land had been in any way already 'mapped'.  After all, surely wasn't this newly 'discovered' territory 'terra nullius'? 

Dreaming Maps

There was a rich diversity of cultural life, language groupings and relations to the land by Indigenous Australians before the colonisers arrived. Far from being ‘terra nullius’ or empty space to be explored and ‘mapped’ according to Western conventions, there existed very different forms of ‘mapping’ landscape. In Indigenous Australian cosmology life and land are closely interwoven not just in matters of detailed knowledge about local topography and good sources of bush food and drinking water. The landscape embodies the intricate patterning of dreaming tracks, some passing through the countries of dozens of language groups. Unlike eighteenth century Western society, Aboriginal societies did not draw a sharp distinction between the sacred and the secular, the spiritual and the material. 

The cultural baggage that the British brought with them strongly predisposed them not to understand that Indigenous Australians had had custodianship of the land for many thousands of years and had 'mapped' the land in alternative, deeply spiritual ways.  Here, for example, is a description about the Yolngu community at Yirrakala and their 'mapping': 

For Yolngu, what provides the connections between places – bits of socialised topography that are known through being named – are the tracks of the Ancestral Beings, and the tracks are landscape.  For Westerners, the connections between places are seen in terms of abstract qualities such as length or width.  In a profound sense the Yolngu 'theory on land' has the landscape as a map itself…

     The fact that the Ancestral Beings socialised the landscape and thus created its identity in that 'other time' does not mean, however, that the world is unchanging.  The interrelated cosmos must be maintained by constant intervention – negotiation and renegotiation – by those responsible … 

(Watson, 1989, pp 28–30).

Resisting colonising maps and pathways

Whether in relation to past relations, present relations or potential future relations, how much attention do we give in our teaching and parenting to learning from other cultural lifeways and traditions?  Do we take our own cultural mapping for granted?  Is there a tendency to silence the voices of other traditions and other cultures?  How actively do we listen to the voices of young people from various cultural backgrounds in negotiating future pathways? 

Our cultural maps about the world, about our schools and our children's futures and their children's are likely to play an important part in what we do or do not do in the present.  Such images may not only be taken for granted but may rebound on whether we attempt to help create non-violent futures.  Even if we would like a less violent future, we may assume that the task is too difficult and by our own inaction, contribute to a self-fulfilling prophecy. Rather than walking together to help build a better world, in which unborn generations have the possibility to live, to laugh, to play, to share, to care and to transform conflicts non-violently, we may fatalistically accept a foreclosed future.  Rather than taking non-violent pathways and developing intergenerational partnerships, the wellbeing of children today and of successive generations may be stolen , impoverished or colonized through our lack of quality responses. 

Some examples may help to illustrate both the difficulties and challenges we may face as teachers, parents and community members.  At the school level, restricted cultural mapping occurs within the formal curriculum.  There is frequently a very selective presentation of the heroic journey of one's own nation and a very ethnocentric reading of the histories of other societies and cultures.  This may be illustrated by the ways in which the frontier wars against Australian Aborigines in the nineteenth century were long completely ignored in Australian school texts, as was the plight of the stolen generations during the twentieth century.  In these same texts, the ANZAC legend was strongly developed with its keynotes of a national rite of passage through the blood-soaked Gallipoli campaign in World War I, great heroism and noble sacrifice of men in arms.  There were also in these books plentiful images of 'pride of race' in the British Empire, with its 'civilising mission' in so-called 'backward countries' .  Other examples of restricted cultural maps may be found in the invisibility or near invisibility of women in many school text book histories.  What may be regarded as prerequisites for education in the twenty-first century, such as an explicit futures dimension and a gender inclusive and global perspective, may be missing.  Rather than a priority for meaningful reconciliation between Indigenous and non Indigenous Australians, gender equity, intercultural understanding and democratic action competence, the emphasis may be on reciting past national achievements whether in peace or war. 

To move down new and more peaceful pathways is not easy.  Honest dealing with the past histories of our countries is important but so too are our images or cultural maps of better ways forward: 

We need images of the peoples of the planet living quietly but adventurously on the earth, walking the ways of peace in a future still filled with challenges.  It is as essential to spend time dreaming the possible shape of that future as it is to learn the skills of peace building to maintain it… 

(E Boulding, quoted in Hutchinson, 1996, p.253)

Journeying towards cultures of peace: Some working principles for would-be travellers 

This is one of the many possible starting points for sharing ideas about ways forward in the twenty-first century that are likely to contribute to cultures of peace (see figure 1).  The Year 2000 has been proclaimed the International Year for the Culture of Peace by UNESCO, but obviously many of our efforts will need to be very much ongoing ones long after this particular year.  Peace is a continuing process of creation and re-creation.  There is no final resting place but a continuing task for our generation and successive generations.  Here are some possible compass bearings to help us on our various journeys. 

§                Participation and Partnership

The conventional mug-and-jug metaphor about teaching, in which the jug's contents of 'expert knowledge' are poured into empty mugs, makes the fallacious assumption that adults have nothing really significant to learn from children or children from each other.  The value of partnership and co-operative learning are denied.  Meaningful participation and dialogue are crucial to building cultures of peace. 

§                Empathy

Learning that is empowering and socially creative is not about one-way communication.   It is not about assuming there is only one way to peace.  It is not about linear modes of reasoning or dogmatic closure.  It is not about propagating

Figure 1 

Working together for a culture of peace

Some possible starting points 

  Hutchinson (2000)

monocultural maps about our world today and tomorrow.  Such approaches reflect a failure of active or empathetic listening to our children's voices on the future. 

Even with believed good educational goals relating to a non-violent future, it is important not to neglect questions of how we journey towards our desired ends.  If authoritarian means are used, such means easily corrupt educational or other social policy goals, irrespective of whether the ends are worthy in themselves.  To teach about the problems of bullying, gendered, racist or other violence in tightly prescriptive, morally strict or authoritarian ways may be just as flawed as a laissez-faire approach that choses to ignore such problems. 

There has been a growth of anti-violence initiatives in schools in the USA, Australia and other late industrial societies over recent years.  Available evidence suggests that what works best are programs that are strongly participatory, although the broader social context has a crucial bearing on success.   It is not a ‘cop in the classroom’ approach but  negotiated whole-school approaches involving peer support, peer mediation, anti-bullying, anti-sexist and anti-racist initiatives that tell the most encouraging news. 

§                Citizenship, conflict resolution literacy and civil society

In contributing towards cultures of peace, our schools have an important, if not unambiguous, part to play.  The caricature of many of our schools as places for driving into the future whilst looking fixedly in the rear-vision mirror is just that - a caricature.  There are major institutional constraints but there are also contradictions and site-specific opportunities that may be realized to a greater or lesser extent.  Opportunities may be missed in our schools to help negotiate non-violent futures and strengthen civil society.  Perhaps what is crucial is that less of these opportunities are missed. 

Rather than organisations that must be driven blindly and take their passengers uncomprehendingly to some 'future shock' destination, there are varying opportunities in our schools to extend what might be termed 'the active citizenship and foresight principle'.  There are varying opportunities to encourage the defensive or anticipatory driving practices in our schools.  There are varying opportunities for our students not only to learn from past travels or hindsight but from developing new 'maps' of potential reality, including less violent routes for would-be travellers through the early decades of a new millennium.  

In this context, there are arguably important considerations for ourselves as parents, teachers and community workers.  In a world that is becoming more interdependent but is confronted by violent trends there is an increasing need for ourselves to be more futures-oriented in what we do or do not do.  There are major questions for choice and engagement.  In preparing our children for a changing world, is more needed than the traditional 3Rs and the appeal of the apparent security of 'the good old days', pathways with a 'back to basics' curriculum?  Does the answer lie in adding the often proferred R or ROM of computer literacy?  Or, in actively listening to our children's voices on the future, do we need to reconceptualise 'literacy' in more optimal ways so as to encourage new maps and new journeys?  Do we need to rethink literacy in terms of skills of foresight, empathy, social imagination?  Should it be reconceptualised to include action competence in the non-violent resolution or transformation of conflict? (Hutchinson, 1996). 

§                Educational vision: making hope practical

To begin to effectively work for more peaceful futures, it is important for young people to be at least able to envision what such futures might be like.  Instead of the implicit R of Resignation to a feared, violent future that many young people anticipate, should we enliven social imagination about non-violent alternatives?  Do we need an explicit futures dimension across the curriculum that encourages new cultural mapping and non-violent pathways?  Elise Boulding (1988) has argued the importance of ‘image literacy’ that challenges colonising or violently foreclosed cultural maps of the future. 

With the latter, she is inviting us to include the new Rs of Resourcefulness in envisaging peaceful futures, building Respect for basic human rights, including the rights of future generations, and working together actively to achieve meaningful Reconciliation.  A growing body of research on young people’s anticipations of the future is one of the strongest endorsements of such needs (Hicks 1996, Hutchinson, 1996).  Figures 2 and 3 illustrate some of these findings and issues. 

Figure 2  

Hopes and Fears: a study of Australian  youth attitudes to the future

§             an uncaring world

§             a physically violent world

§             a structurally violent world

§             an environmentally unsustainable world

§             a mechanised, dehumanised world

§             a politically corrupt, deceitful world  

Adapted from Hutchinson (1996)

Figure 3  

Hopes and Fears: a study of Australian  youth attitudes to the future 

§             Active listening

§             Technocratic dreaming

§             Beyond technocratic dreaming

§             Cultures of peace

§             Enfranchisement, new literacies

§             Needs of future generations  

Adapted from Hutchinson (1996)

Broadened notions of literacy such as these relate closely to enfranchisement and civil society.   There are practical considerations of whether our children are primarily empowered or disempowered by their learning experiences.  In what we do in our homes, our classrooms, and our broader society is hope made practical about peaceful futures or despair convincing about 'perpetual' or ‘immutable’ trends in violence?  (Naidoo, 1999). 

Whether as teachers, parents or community workers, the challenges are great.  Yet we can make practical contributions to lessening political illiteracy about cultural editing and foreclosed cultural maps about the future.  A vital challenge for ourselves is whether we not only acknowledge major difficulties but begin to ‘walk our talk’ in ways that combine freedom with responsibility and resist impoverished, violent social futures for our children and successive generations.  There are many constructive resources to begin much longer journeys of negotiating cultures of peace with our children and for future generations.  (Hutchinson, 1996,  Hicks & Slaughter, 1998, O’Sullivan, 1999). 

Walking together?

May I end on a personal note?  It is also an invitation to you for shared journeys.  Recently, I participated in a reconciliation event.  In May 2000, over 250,000 Australians, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous took part in a People’s Walk for Reconciliation Across the Sydney Harbour Bridge.  On the eve of the walk, Evelyn Scott, Chairperson of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation posed the questions about new dreams and new pathways:

…Will you take our hand?  Will you share our dreams?  

These words invite us to travel together more peacefully and creatively.  They specifically relate to Australia and the need for meaningful reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.  However, they have a wider resonance.  

Globally the challenges are great.  After all, the twentieth century was the most violent on human record.  What lessons have we learnt?  Will we begin to walk in ways that give much more than token regard for the needs and rights of future generations?  There are possible, new and more peaceful pathways and maps to guide us.  What choices will we make with our children and for their children?

Notes on Contributor 

FRANK HUTCHINSON is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Western Sydney, Australia,  in the Faculty of Social Inquiry.  Previously, he has worked as a curriculum consultant at both the primary and secondary school levels in areas of social literacy and alternatives to violence.  His main research and teaching interests relate to issues concerned with young people and educating for more peaceful, socially just and environmentally sustainable futures.  He did his PhD on the topic Futures Consciousness and the School (University of New England, Australia, 1993).  He is the author, co author or contributing author of several books on peace education, human rights education and futures education.  These works include: People Problems and Planet Earth (Melbourne: Macmillan, 1982, 2nd edition 1986), Educating for Peace (Canberra: Curriculum Development Centre, 1986), Educating for a Fairer Future (Sydney: Geography Teachers’ Association & WDTC, 1988), Our Planet and its People (Melbourne: Macmillan, 1992), Education beyond Hatred and Fatalism (Malmö, Sweden: School of Education, Lund University, 1994), New Thinking for a New Millennium (London: Routledge, 1996), Educating Beyond Violent Futures  (London: Routledge, 1996), World Yearbook of Education: Futures education (London: Kogan Page, 1998) Peace Education: context and values, Leece: UNESCO & Pensa Multi Media, 1999)  He is a councillor of the Peace Education Commission, International Peace Research Association and a member of the World Futures Studies Federation. 

Contact details:  Faculty of Social Inquiry, Locked Bag 1, University of Western Sydney, Hawkesbury, Richmond, NSW 2753, Australia.
E-mail:  f.hutchinson@uws.edu.au

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