-The Iraqi School in Baghdad: Children of the Sunni, Shi'ite, & Kurdish politicians -The Afghani School in Kabul: Pashtuns (Taliban), Tajiks, Uzbeks, & Hazara -The Northern Irish School in Belfast, Northern Ireland: Catholics & Protestants -The Lebanese School in Beirut: Political parties in the Parliament of Lebanon -The Nepali School in Kathmandu: Parties in the Nepalese Constituent Assembly -The Bahraini School in Manama: Sunnis & Shi'ites -The American School in Washington, D.C: Children of the Democrat & Republican leaders
One school, two or more cities, two or more opposing governments:
-The Semitic School (1) between (...) Jerusalem and Ramallah: Israelis & Palestinians -The Semitic School (2) ... Gaza City, Sderot, and Ashkelon: Israelis & Palestinians -The Abrahamic School ... Nazareth, Daraa, and Irbid: Israelis, Syrians, & Jordanians -The Korean School ... Kaesong and Paju in the DMZ: North & South Koreans -The Punjabi School ... Lahore and Amritsar at Wagah: Pakistanis & Indians -The Habesha School ... Adigrat and Adi Keyh: Ethiopians & Eritreans
One city, two opposing governments:
-The Cypriot School in Nicosia: Greek Cypriots & Turkish Cypriots
In 13 conflicts, children of families from each side's political leadership could go to the same day school and be home for dinner with their parents each night. Each school's culture would be designed to maximize the students' pride in their shared social identity. This might be a shared ethnic identity (Semitic), a national identity (Iraqi), or a geographic identity (Cypriot). This can be done while still allowing - and even encouraging - the students to also identify with the social identity that is in opposition to one held by half of their classmates (Catholics versus Protestants, for example). We all belong to many different groups, but we subconsciously put more importance on our membership in some of these groups than the other groups to which we belong.
By targeting the children of the two sides' political elite for 60% of the school's student body, each school would be the most farsighted way to stabilize the peace in their respective conflict. This is true regardless of whether there is already a diplomatic peace agreement in place.
These parents understandably would only want to send their children to the academically best school in the area. Fortunately, cooperative learning, the teaching method for instilling pride amongst the students in their shared social identity, simultaneously raises achievement scores when measured against traditional teaching methods such as lectures and classroom debates. This is true for any subject, assuming proper teacher training and classroom implementation. Cooperative learning only needs to be used for 35% of the total lessons to have the desired social effect. The rest of the lessons each year can use traditional teaching methods. Cooperative learning also has pronounced benefits on creating a more cooperative culture within the school, and thus this can help prevent students from bringing their communities' rivalries into their shared classroom.
No one has proposed such a connection until now.
While this website is under construction, you can read the bibliography that lists hundreds of supporting citations from scholarly periodicals.