Why Do They Call Me The War Teacher? in Educating for Peace in a Time of Permanent War: Are Schools...

Book Chapter: “Educating for Peace in a Time of Permanent War: Are Schools Part of the Solution or Problem?” Routledge, scheduled release, May 2012

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Why do students call me “The War Teacher”?

Problematizing Militarism in Education as a Freireian Codification

Mike Klein

Introduction

While it may not be possible to end the reign of militarism in US society, teachers can

take the lead in halting the spread of militaristic ideology in their classrooms by electing

to practice and teach peace” (Finley, 2003, p. 159).

I facilitated Peace Educator Workshops for a non-governmental organization called World

Citizen in St. Paul, Minnesota USA from 2002 to 2007. In my first year as facilitator, a teacher

approached me before the start of our workshop. Mack taught history at a local urban high school,

and had come to the workshop because he had overheard himself described by students as the war

teacher. When he asked them how he had earned this title, they said his American History class

focused on one war to another, to the period between wars, to the next war. Mack found himself,

as have other history teachers, “positioned at the intersection of ideological forces that seek to

simplify the past and their mission to teach students about the complex world of historical study”

(Leahy, 2010).


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He came to the workshop unsure if he was a peace educator, but certain he didn’t want to

be a war teacher. He had encountered what Paulo Freire described as a limit-situation, “perceived

limits that - recognized as constructed rather than natural or determined - can be acted upon and

deconstructed or transformed” (Klein, 2007, p. 191). Because of his war teacher nickname, he

recognized the militarism implicit in his course and now attached to his identity. Once this issue

had been made explicit – or problematized - he was determined to explore peace education

through our workshop.

Education can be both the problem and the solution in countering militarism and

promoting peace. Several assumptions frame this argument. Education in its many dimensions –

school systems, curricula, textbooks and teachers - reproduces the status quo unless a conscious

choice is made to the contrary. Neglecting a decision to reproduce or critique the status quo is in

itself a decision to teach the status quo as normative, thereby reinforcing it. And militarism is a

significant component of the status quo in the US and around the world. This chapter briefly

problematizes militarism in education then examines two case studies through the lens of Paulo

Freire’s pedagogy. Because Freireian methodology critically examines the dynamics of power,

and most schools systems uncritically support the status quo, his method is generally not known

to educators or used most schools. Both of the following case studies will illustrate Freirean

methodology by taking a critical approach to militarism and modeling an educational process for

teaching peace.

Militaristic Context for Education

“…only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge

industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that

security and liberty may prosper together” (Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1961).


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As suggested by this book’s title, our world is not only militarized but in a state of permanent

war. Yet prominent voices in US history make the case that militarism is a threat to democracy.

In 1795 James Madison wrote, “Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to

be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. No nation… could

preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare” (in Preble, 2010, P. 688). One year later,

“…in his farewell address, George Washington warned his countrymen to ‘avoid the necessity of

. . . overgrown military establishments’” (in Preble, 2010, P. 692). And 165 years later, also in

his farewell address, Dwight D. Eisenhower delivered his famous admonition against the

influence of the military industrial complex.

In contrast to these statements, evidence of a militaristic commitment to permanent war is

replete in recent US policy statements. The National Defense Strategy of the United States of

America (2005, p. 5) states, “We will have no global peer competitor and will remain unmatched

in traditional military capability.” The US Quadrennial Defense Report (2010) re-affirmed, “the

United States will remain the most powerful actor” (p. 8), and elaborated to state, “America’s

interests and role in the world require armed forces with unmatched capabilities and a

willingness on the part of the nation to employ them in defense of our interests and the common

good” (P. 9). According to the Department of Defense (2008, p. 25) the US operates 761 military

bases on foreign territory around the world. The Stockholm Peace Research Institute estimates

global military expenditures reached $1.6 trillion (1.14 trillion Euros) in 2010, the US accounting

for nearly half of that total.

Militarism in US schools is well documented (Finley, 2003; Allison & Solnit, 2007;

Leahy, 2010) and apparent to the critical observer. As Laura Finley asserts, “when militarism is

the dominant ideology, it stands to reason children will be socialized in ways that promote


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military-style answers to world problems” (2003, p. 154). In Finley’s content analysis of

seventeen of the most used US history textbooks she found, “An average of 89.1 pages are

devoted to war topics… an average of only 4.94 pages are cited for peace” (2003, p. 156).

Formal military programs are also common in US public schools. The stated goal of the Junior

Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC) “is to reach 3,500 units by FY 2011 by encouraging

program expansion into educationally and economically deprived areas” (2007), accounting for

more than 10% of all public secondary schools in the US. And the Department of Defense

Troops to Teachers Program, “all but guarantees that teachers with pro-military values and ties to

recruiters will be serving the nation’s poorest students” (Leahy, 2010).

Challenging the status quo of militarism is a primary step toward teaching peace.

However peace education also challenges the institutional power structures of education: the

political, economic and bureaucratic systems that intertwine with militarism. In both its critical

approach to the status quo and its promotion of alternatives, peace education challenges

education’s internalized identity as conveyer of culture and as conduit into social roles within

established norms. If much of education has been reduced to this sort of functionalism - wherein

children are socialized to fulfill particular roles in a militarized culture - students emerging from

education will only be capable of reproducing militarization. Given all of the forces arrayed

against them, what’s a teacher to do?

Researching and Promoting Peace Education through Paulo Freire’s Methodology

“One defends [an authentic] democracy which does not fear the people, which suppresses

privilege, which can plan without becoming rigid, which defends itself without hate, which is

nourished by a critical spirit rather than irrationality” (Freire, 2005, p. 49).

I argue that contradictions like those described above are opportunities for a critical analysis of


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militarism using Paulo Freire’s (1970, 1973, 1985, 1998) pedagogy for critical education that

empowers learners and teachers to practice the skills of democracy. I illustrate his method

through two case studies to provide examples of teaching peace through Freireian codifications.

The first case examines Peace Educators in dialogue with established curricula in uncritical

institutions. The second examines the use of codifications in a peace studies Conflict

Transformation class. In both cases, I am writing about and reflecting on my own practice in the

context of these learning communities.

The concept of codifications is central to Freire’s pedagogy. Because his writing is dense

and articulation of his concepts changed over time, I have described his method in six steps

(Figure 4.1). I developed these steps (Klein, 2007, p. 189) from descriptions of Freire’s method

in both Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970) and Education for Critical Consciousness (1973).


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Central to Freire’s methodology, codifications (Step 3) are representations – often

drawings, sketches, or photos; or just descriptions – that allow learners to analyze distinctions

Figure 4.1 - Outline of Paulo Freire's method (Klein, 2007)

1. Investigators:

a. Make preliminary acquaintance through secondary sources b. Establish first-hand contact to uncover constructed codes c. Expect interviews to reveal longings, frustrations, disbeliefs, hopes and desire

to participate 2. Evaluation with local assistants

a. Uncover principal and secondary contradictions i. epochal or national-level contradictions

ii. local or particular contradictions b. Determine awareness of contradictions c. Articulating limit-situations d. Proposing untested feasibilities

3. Codification a. Development of codifications from contradictions b. Prepare didactic materials

i. Utilize familiar situations and felt needs ii. Do not render them too overt or propagandistic

iii. Organize as a thematic fan iv. Include other related or subsumed contradictions

4. Decoding a. Thematic investigation circles b. Re-present to the people their own themes in systematized & amplified form c. Begin with theme of 'culture' (distinguish what is natural and constructed) d. Break down into other themes (thematic fan) i.e.: politics, economy, religion,

labor, gender, ethnicity, etc. 5. Systematic interdisciplinary study

a. List implicit and explicit themes b. Classify according to the social sciences c. Break down the theme according to discipline with input from other

disciplines d. Compose brief essays with bibliographic suggestions

6. Intervention a. Post-literacy stage b. Defending democracy c. Democratization of culture


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between nature and culture, what is given and what is constructed. They are developed from

contradictions (Step 2) implicit in the hopes and concerns of a learning community.

Codifications help learners step back from their direct experiences to provide critical distance but

not disengagement from their own reality. They are presented in order to decode (Step 4) and

distinguish between situations that are given or constructed, analyzing social, political, economic

and other themes. In-depth study of these themes (Step 5) helps learners understand the broad

implications of codifications and develop action plans (Step 6).

I use codifications in my workshops and classes to encourage: critical analysis of

complex issues, thoughtful reflection on normative assumptions, and exploration beyond our

limited awareness of social phenomena; like militarism. I will explain Freire’s pedagogy through

the following two cases studies, referring often to figure 4.1. The Peace Educators Workshop

case study addresses teachers who create opportunities for peace education in a school system

that does not acknowledge or accept it. On the other hand, my own Conflict Transformation

Class case study addresses peace education as the accepted norm, and students who struggle to

identify implicit militarism or to effectively resist and transform it.

Case Study I: Peace Educators Workshop

As the events of 9/11 become “history” to contemporary high school students, how the event is

characterized and incorporated into history text books will reinforce justification for the “War

on Terror”, military industrial congressional complex, and other manifestations of unexamined

militarism (Bacevich, 2011, p. 74).

Teachers stand at the intersection between national, state, and school district policies;

standardized curricula and textbooks; and students. As their role is made more technical and less


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professional by increasingly restrictive requirements of the educational system, teachers are hard

pressed to remain effective and ethical educators. When their particular educational setting is

uncritically reinforcing the status quo, how can teachers resist and transform militarism?

The Peace Educators Workshop addresses that question from the teacher’s point of view.

Educators come together three times annually to explore peace education in US secondary

schools. Teachers in the workshop are encouraged to attend in pairs from each school to support

each other, and the group as a whole provides mutual support and solidarity beyond the school

building. Workshop sessions reflect Freire’s critical pedagogy by: drawing topics from the

participants’ own experience, investigating issues raised by teachers for deeper themes of

domination and militarism, relying on participants’ creativity and wisdom to solve problems, and

developing skills and solutions that positively impact their own classrooms, schools and

communities.

Freire’s pedagogy was usually implicit in workshops, but when participants expressed an

interest in the democratization of schools we explicitly explored his methodology. We did so

through another problem teachers struggled to address, military recruiting in schools. Analyzing

the privileges of military recruiters over those of other recruiters in public schools led to insights

about teaching peace and countering militarism in a teacher-centered change process. Acting as

Freireian investigators of their own schools, textbooks, and curriculum, fourteen public high

school educators found contradictions that highlighted limit-situations and produced

codifications that allowed them to address militarism in a tangible way. This first case study will

illustrate Freire’s method (table 4.1) and provide an example of a Freireian codification found in

school systems that reinforce militarism as status quo.

In our Peace Educators Workshop, teachers wondered why college, non-profit and business


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recruiters did not receive the same level of access to students’ personal data or to the campus as

military recruiters. They identified this privilege as a local or particular contradiction (Step 2).

One teacher in the workshop knew that this privilege was legislated, written into a little known

clause of the No Child Left Behind Act (2001). Thus the local contradiction of privileged

military recruitment in schools was tied to a national-level contradiction of legislated privilege.

The workshop allowed teachers to become aware of both levels of contradiction and begin to

describe the limit-situation of militarism as they experienced it. They realized militarism and

military recruiting were not a given, but a constructed situation that they were now

problematizing. The teachers moved quickly to discussing tactical responses that might

challenge or change the particular situation, a step Freire recognized as proposing untested

feasibilities (Step 2), or “what if” questions. What if we try to ban them from campus? What if

we get Veterans for Peace to recruit alongside them?

Their temptation was to address the local contradiction, but it leaves un-addressed the

national-level contradiction and the larger limit-situation of militarism. In Freire’s

conceptualization, the local contradiction of privileged military recruiting is only the

epiphenomena of the total limit-situation of US militarism. Instead of moving to immediate

intervention (Step 6), Freireian methodology approaches this contradiction and deeper limit-

situation as an opportunity for critical analysis by developing a codification (Step 3).

From the contradiction of privileged military recruiting, teachers could describe and

depict–with a drawing in this case–a scenario that regularly occurred in their schools: a

uniformed recruiter in a school hallway talking to a student. This codification could then be

decoded (Step 4) by breaking it down into themes. Teachers discussed how ethnicity and gender

was represented in the codification. The socio-economic background of the student was debated


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based on divergent understandings or is recruited, who enlists, and why. Connections between

political parties and views on war were dissected, religious commitments and views on violence

were explored, and macro-economic implications of permanent war were discussed. Decoding

the image of a military recruiter led to a more sophisticated analysis than would have been

produced by a simple discussion on the broad concept of militarism.

These themes led teachers to analyze militarism from their different academic disciplines,

(Step 5) referring to books, class assignments, and school events that supported or resisted

militarism. From within their disciplines, teachers began to re-imagine classroom approaches to

militarism (Step 6) without abandoning more immediate and confrontational tactics such as sit-

ins, petitions or picketing military recruiters. Teachers discovered a range of untested feasibilities

reaching beyond the local contradiction of recruiting. A math teacher realized her class could

meet a curricular standard on data analysis by tracking all types of campus recruiting, hoping the

contradictions would be apparent to students and providing data for further investigation or

intervention. A social studies teacher imagined an economics unit that compared jobs promised

in recruitment ads and actual employment statistics for current soldiers and veterans. In

connection with a required text, an English teacher decided she would assign articles by veterans

with differing views about military service and organizes a speakers’ panel on the topic. And a

social worker invited to a career fair representatives of Americorps and other full-time volunteers

organizations to provide students alternatives to military enlistment.

Proposing untested feasibilities at this stage allowed teachers to probe other limit-

situations within the theme and explore related contradictions. The latter example above raised

another national level contradiction: extravagant incentives for military versus volunteer service

in compensation, educational opportunities, and status. Because such themes “contain and are


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contained in limit-situations”, Freire describes these themes as generative because “they contain

the possibility of unfolding into again as many themes, which in their turn call for new tasks to

be fulfilled” (1970, p. 92).

This generative nature of Freire’s method is part of its promise for peace educators in

schools that reinforce the status quo. His method can create spaces in standardized curricula to

examine contradictions and address limit-situations in the midst of ordinary classroom activities.

The other promise of his method lies in its expansive potential for an empowering, activating

education. Student activism could be empowered by an isolated effort to counter local military

recruiting. However, if it is limited to addressing the local contradiction alone, what happens to

their activism after they succeed, or worse, if they fail? Law schools and other US educational

institutions have resisted military recruiting based on the previously untested feasibility of school

anti-discrimination policies, and with some success. But this now tested feasibility is likely to

lose its tactical efficacy after President Obama’s 2011 State of the Union speech:

“Our troops come from every corner of this country — they're black, white, Latino,

Asian, Native American. They are Christian and Hindu, Jewish and Muslim. And, yes,

we know that some of them are gay. Starting this year, no American will be forbidden

from serving the country they love because of who they love. (Applause.) And with that

change, I call on all our college campuses to open their doors to our military recruiters

and ROTC. It is time to leave behind the divisive battles of the past. It is time to move

forward as one nation” (Obama, 2011).

Narrow tactical efforts focused on this specific legal contradiction like non-

discrimination may be upended by a single policy change. However, using Freire’s method to

uncover national level contradictions has expansive educational potential for ongoing critical


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analysis of militarism and evolving interventions. “What begin as pragmatic actions, like keeping

youth from joining the military, are most effective when they have as their end the

transformation of the root causes of war, undemocratic governance, and injustice” (Allison &

Solnit, 2007, p. xviii). The end of a discriminatory military policy such as “Don’t ask, don’t tell”

will frustrate limited tactical activism focused on local contradictions. However it’s end could

also elevate critical education about national level contradictions related to discrimination in the

military based on race, class, gender and sexuality. Freireian methodology grounds education in

the particular without loosing sight of larger themes and contradictions.

Teachers need to use their own best judgment about how to utilize Freire’s method given

the variation in the political climate of individual schools. Some contradictions may be so hotly

contested, or presumed to be so centrally normative, that addressing them directly expends too

much political capital. But contradictions abound and allies may be waiting for an invitation. To

reflect Freire’s generative methodology, and to inspire readers, this case study concludes with a

list of contradictions peace educators explored following our 2010 workshop:

• Zero tolerance weapons policies and military drills or color guards at schools

• The advertised benefits of military service and the preponderance of homeless veterans

• Academic standards addressing US democratic values and review of actual US foreign

policy, historical (i.e.: colonialism) and contemporary (i.e.: unilateral military

intervention).

• Analysis of history books for themes of war and themes of peace (i.e.: Finley, 2010).

• Comparing US federal funding for education and funding for defense in an economics

class


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Case Study II: College Conflict Resolution Course

[Too often] peace education deals mainly with single issues and particular cases (such as

the proposed nuclear arms freeze or the war in Nicaragua), with the aim of avoiding or

limiting war. In the minds of some peace educators, this failure to focus on war as an

institution or on the ‘war system’ helps to perpetuate the notion that war itself is too

great a problem to tackle (Reardon, 1998, p. 14)

The previous case study addressed peace educators in a public education system that tends to

uncritically reinforce the status quo, including militarism. This second case study examines a

conflict resolution course in a peace studies program. As noted in the quote above, peace

education is sometimes focused on particular conflicts and gives limited treatment to systems

and values behind conflict, like militarism. In this case study instructors, curriculum, and

textbooks critically analyze conflict and yet are situated in a university that uncritically accepts

militarism as evidenced by: significant grant funding from the US Defense Department, the long-

term institutionalization of ROTC (Reserve Officer Training Corps) on campus, and its own

history as a military academy. How might an educator so situated use Freireian codifications to

address militarism?

In this case study of an annual Conflict Resolution course I am reflecting on my own

teaching in peace studies. Even in a program explicitly premised on the promotion of peace,

Freire’s method can encourage critical analysis of education inside and outside of a particular

institution. Academic tensions between theories, strategies, and tactics on one hand and current

conflicts, oppression, and human suffering on the other can be addressed by codifications drawn

from student research, examples from practitioners and activists, and the lived experience of

students.


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Our Justice and Peace Studies program methodology is grounded in Freire’s approach

and articulated in a four-step process we refer to as a Circle of Praxis. We begin our analysis in

the experience of violence and injustice, from the margins of power, and with those most subject

to suffering through direct experience, first-hand accounts, primary sources, or other

representations. We proceed to a multi-disciplinary descriptive analysis through the social

sciences. We subject that data to normative analysis examining worldviews, religious

perspectives, philosophical assumptions, and the construction of meaning. Finally, action

planning develops interventions to promote peace and justice while accounting for available

resources, potential obstacles, and the consequences of action. This last step leads to the next

experience in the circle, hopefully promoting informed, ethical and effective change. However

contradictions of Freire’s type exist even within our own praxis, such as the limited

representation of marginalized voices, the abstracting force of any academic study, the blind

spots and biases that shape and distort normative analysis, and the unintended consequences of

the best-planned action. Codifications will not prevent these problems entirely, but can help

ground peace education in tangible situations and inform critical analysis, concepts, and theory.

In my 2010 Conflict Resolution class I integrated several codifications into the syllabus

and responded to others that emerged during the semester. I explore four brief examples in the

following paragraphs. One contradiction that emerged from class discussion was based on the

inclusive mission of our Catholic university and the denial of equal rights for lesbian and gay

students on campus. This general contradiction became a focused codification when the

university hosted a conference entitled Reclaiming the Culture of Marriage and Life Spring

Forum. It brought speakers to campus including the authors of the Constitutional Amendment to

Eliminate Rights of Same-Sex Couples to Marry Initiative in California, USA, otherwise known


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as Proposition 8. This highly charged codification was analyzed with class concepts such as

identity, recognition, conflict framing, and conflict mapping. Our analysis examined perceived

contradictions (Step 2) in conference materials, the university mission statement, Catholic

theology, and students’ own definitions, between such concepts as “respect” and “dignity of the

human person”. Normative assumptions were decoded (Step 4) from the discursive elements of

the event and developed into a thematic fan addressing politics, history, religion, law, and

economics.

Some students chose to engage in further study and intervention (Steps 5 & 6) outside of

the course. Rather than staging an angry protest against the university, students gathered the

campus to celebrate the university’s stated convictions, including: pursuit of truth, dignity,

diversity, and gratitude. This celebratory framing created an inclusive demonstration with spaces

safe enough for university administrators to take the podium and speak in support of university

convictions. A more confrontational protest might have led these same administrators to restrict

or terminate the demonstration rather than join in. Freire’s method helped students analyze

contradictions and limit-situations in the event to generate resistance and develop a

transformative intervention.

On a more specifically militaristic topic, another class discussion raised the US military

policy commonly known as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” regarding lesbian and gay soldiers. Initially,

some students identified a particular contradiction and limit-situation (Step 2) in this policy

based on a soldier’s right to freedom of speech. In this discussion and in previous discussions on

LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer) issues, each student’s identity qualified their

recognition and definition of contradictions. Catholic students who accepted their church’s

teaching on LGBTQ issues recognized limit-situations for lesbian and gay soldiers, but did not


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necessarily accept these as contradictions. Students from LGBTQ-inclusive religious

denominations identified both limit-situations and contradictions through a more conceptual

analytical approach. And students who identified as lesbian testified to limit-situations and

insisted on contradictions from an existential perspective. Although students disagreed in their

analysis, Freire’s methodology provided an opportunity for their disagreements to be compared

and contrasted in a reasonable discussion.

Agreeing to disagree about this local contradiction, students discussed higher-level

contradictions such as restrictions on the rights for US soldiers during military service. The

codification (Step 3) was manifested in a drawing of an individual soldier exercising democratic

rights (i.e.: freedom of expression, press and assembly). This codification in turn generated

awareness of other contradictions including US military intervention to promote democratic

rights in other countries (e.g.: Iraq), and US support for democracy in Iraq while supporting

dictatorial regimes in other countries. Decoding (Step 4) in this instance was conducted using an

ethical framework from the Conflict Resolution course addressing: values, duties, rights and

outcomes. Decoding based on these four ethical concepts led to an interdisciplinary thematic fan

including analysis of issues: legal (rights under civilian compared to military legal systems),

political (duties of service to country and the politics of patriotism), economic (outcomes for

individual soldiers and for national spending priorities) and religious (values of compassion,

nonviolence, justice). By the end of the discussion, students also became interested in the

experiences of ROTC students and military veterans on campus and developed potential

intervention on their behalf (Step 6).

Finally, the most significant engagement with Freire’s method in this class was an online

dialogue in partnership with the New Tactics in Human Rights project of the Center for Victims


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of Torture. Through this partnership we engaged in a seven-day online dialogue with human

rights practitioners around the globe (Step 1). Students chose the theme for this online dialogue,

“Engaging Youth in Non-Violent Alternatives to Militarism”. Over the course of the semester

students researched organizations engaged in this work, developed questions about militarism,

explored alternatives based on academic theories and concepts, and identified human rights

practitioners to invite into the dialogue (Step 2). These featured practitioners agreed to

participate in the midst of their human rights work, to reflect on their practice the light of the

students’ questions. They included representatives of: The Swat Youth Front in Pakistan; a youth

development program in Palestine; American Friends Service Committee in the USA; a

representative of UNICEF (United Nations Children’s Fund); and the director of Project YANO

(Youth And Nonmilitary Opportunities) in the USA.

The dialogue was initiated with broad themes such as: nonviolent alternatives to military

service; engaging youth; the role of family, community and government, etc. In response to these

themes featured practitioners raised examples from their own practice that pointed to perceived

limit-situations and served as codifications (Step 3) although they were not presented as such by

featured practitioners. Each codification became the starting point for analysis or decoding (Step

4) and the development of thematic fans through online dialogue discussion threads. Themes

developed rather organically in the course of the dialogue, and were occasionally clarified or

expanded in comments from the New Tactics dialogue facilitators and myself. Codifications that

emerged from the dialogue included: the concept of “opt-in & opt-out” in military recruiting;

sports as alternatives to violence; and volunteer service programs as alternatives to military

service. The concept of military recruiting is explored below. The latter two are available in the

archived dialogue (New Tactics in Human Rights, 2010).


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Military recruiting has occurred in US high schools for decades, but it was

institutionalized under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (EASA, 1965) and

expanded to include privileged access in a little known provision of the No Child Left Behind

Act (NCLB, 2001). The 1965 ESEA mandated that the US military have the same access to

students as post-secondary schools and employers. The 2001 NCLB mandated privileged access

to students that includes directory information, “names, addresses and telephone listings” (Sec.

9528. (a)(1)). Because The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA, 1974)

proscribes release of such information, privileging military recruiters in this way stands out as a

contradiction. However another subsection of the NCLB legislation provides an “opt-out” for

students or parents, so that directory information will, “not be released without prior written

parental consent, and the local educational agency or private school shall notify parents of the

option to make a request and shall comply with any request” (NCLB, Sec. 9528. (a)(2)). This

discussion thread culminated in a student comment on a perceived contradiction inherent in “opt-

in & opt-out”:

Today four United States Senators sent a letter to the CEO of the online network

Facebook, asking that users should be able to "opt-in" rather than "opt-out" of sharing

private information with third-party websites. They were concerned about how people's

information can be used, and were also concerned that not enough people take advantage

of opt-out forms who would actually prefer to do so. I just thought this kind of showed

the values of the United States with respect to militarism and the army. It's preferable to

have an "opt-in" form for Facebook, but "necessary" to have an "opt-out" form for the

military (New Tactics, 2010).


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This observation about a national-level contradiction (Step 2) provided a concrete example of

contrasting values in the context of militarism. This codification led to a rich discussion or

thematic fan (Step 4) that is beyond the scope of this chapter, but available in the archived

dialogue (New Tactics, 2010).

In addition to discussing tactics related to opt-in & opt-out, featured practitioners offered

other untested feasibilities; tested in their case, but untested for more than 1000 visitors

following the dialogue (Step 2). A military aptitude test given in many schools provided data to

recruiters (beyond directory data), so some groups were attempting to ban this test through

legislation. Veterans for Peace worked with student groups to counter military recruiting by

coordinating peace group recruiters right next to the military. These particular untested

feasibilities provided further codifications for the class to analyze for other subsumed

contradictions (Step 3) and decode for militaristic themes (Step 4). In the dialogue, students

posed questions that directed the dialogue back to contradictions, limit-situations, codifications

and decoding: exploring the supposed and actual economic benefits touted by recruiters, the

report of over one hundred rape and sexual assault cases against military recruiters in a single

year (CBS News, 2006), and Reardon’s assertion that militarism and patriarchy are inseparable

and shape the dynamic of domination of men over women (1985).

Additional codifications of militarism emerged in our online dialogue. Sports programs,

promoted as alternatives to Taliban madrassas in the Swat Valley of Pakistan, sparked debate

about the pseudo-military nature of sports as encouraging rather than discouraging militarism.

Volunteer programs like Americorps and the Peace Corps were upheld as alternatives to military

service. However it was also suggested that the Peace Corps lays a foundation for US

militarization in other countries (a subsumed contradiction), and others noted that volunteer


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service programs are woefully under-resourced compared to US military service, individually

and institutionally. At $446 million, the 2011 budget for Peace Corps (Peace Corps Connect,

2010) is dwarfed by the budget for military recruiting, $1.8 billion for the same period (Secretary

of Defense, 2010).

A final contradiction hit closer to home. A recently built science building on our Catholic

university campus does not display crucifixes or any religious symbols. This contradiction is due

to the public funds used in construction and appropriated by the Defense Department to address

its need for future software engineers. An additional contradiction, subsumed in the first, is the

development of a peace engineering concentration by the school of engineering that encourages

graduates to pursue alternatives to militarism through sustainable development projects. As in

previous examples, this contradiction created opportunities for critical analysis in a course

dedicated to peace studies, enriched by Freire’s methodology, and set within a militarized

educational context.

Conclusion

Our 2011 Conflict Resolution class left behind the previous year’s explicit focus on militarism to

study resource-based conflicts. Yet militarism was raised anew in the comments of guest speaker

Julián Lazalde, Program & Advocacy Officer with Catholic Relief Services. He quoted Bishop

Nicolas Djomo Lola, the President of the Catholic Episcopal Conference of the Democratic

Republic of the Congo (CENCO), who provided a codification for mineral-based conflicts by

stating, "There is a drop of Congolese blood in every cell phone.” Given that each of us had a

cell phone in our pocket or backpack, this codification made an impression on us all. Discussions

followed on themes of political economy, 700+ US military bases around the world, and US

policy to ensure “access to key markets and strategic resources” (QDR, 2001). Although the


20

focus of our semester had changed from the previous year, our Conflict Resolution course could

not escape global militarism, its insidious role in our own consumer lifestyles, or its presence in

education.

Freire’s methodology holds promise for academic analysis, however it is not to be

applied as a rigid formula. As evident in these case studies, the process may begin in the middle

with a codification, circle back to contradictions or limit-situations, jump forward to thematic

fans, and return to untested feasibilities before developing interventions. The order of these steps

will depend upon the institutional context, the educator’s syllabus, and the connection to

students’ experiences. Most important is the diligent adaptation and pursuit of Freire’s process to

develop critical analytical skills, democratize teaching and learning, and empower agents of

change.

Freireian codifications can address militarism in educational settings that reinforce the

status quo and in those that promote critical analysis. Codifications are tools for praxis-based

education that connects the broad implications of militarism to the particular concepts and case

studies of a standardized curriculum. Thoughtfully constructed or serendipitously discovered,

codifications provide a starting point for critical inquiry through decoding and thematic fans that

challenge limit-situations and raise additional contradictions. Freire’s methodology encourages

critical thinking without prescribing conclusions to analysis, even if codifications are indeed

premised as challenges to the status quo - to militarism in education – in the pursuit of peace.

References


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militarism

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