We asked three educators about the impact on their schools of the threats of war and terrorism, as well as issues of peace.

Kathryn Deacon Principal, Canterbury Public School, NSW

Some of the children in years 5 and 6—and even younger—have very strong opinions and views. If they're looking at a newspaper and make a comment, we give them a chance to become critically literate and deconstruct what they've seen. We've been able to use the press reporting of Bali, September 11 and the war on terror generally as a teaching tool to try and develop critical literacy skills, giving everybody a chance to say what they want to say.

Many schools have probably approached things in a similar way. We can't bury our heads in the sand. The community is alarmed, and we've had to address that in a way that keeps social cohesion and affirms the value of every person. And that's what we do. It has been a matter of responding to this crisis as we would to any other crisis.

We need to make sure that we're helping children to solve problems. If they have a conflict in the classroom or playground we teach them that there are ways of resolving this in a peaceful, civilised way. So all children are heard, all opinions are heard, and then decisions are made about appropriate or inappropriate behaviour. Just teaching them to get on has been even more of a focus.

Our focus isn't only on trying to cover the outcomes in the syllabus. Engaging children in their learning is one of the most important things we can do. We're trying to help them develop the generic skills: working cooperatively, group work, problem solving and critical literacy. But there are not enough resources in these focus areas. Schools generally would have to find the funding to purchase those resources or find them on a website. It would be good if the various departments of education or employers could assist with making those resources available, or letting us know where we could get them. I feel sure it will be up to teacher unions to fill the gap.

Letitia Murgha Teacher, Western Cape College, Weipa, QLD

When September 11 happened I was at a remote community outside of Weipa. When the children came to school that day there wasn't really a full understanding of the significance of the event because they hadn't heard the words 'terrorism', 'terror' and 'terrorist' before.

It's such a difficult concept to explain to children, especially those in a remote community where you don't have access to newspapers every day—there's only TV with the regular news reports. What child would want to watch the news if they could be fishing, hunting or playing on the beach?

I was working with secondary students when the Bali bombings occurred. Indigenous students, like other students, do have strong opinions and views, especially when it's about people who take away the rights of others. There is definitely room in the curriculum for teaching about human rights issues. Many of the students come from communities with direct experience of the violation of human rights—particularly those who were sent to missions during the assimilation and protection years of our Australian history.

Sometimes I've set homework for them to watch the news and then we have a discussion about the issues. I like to encourage them to watch the news and be informed.

Teaching and learning experiences that promote peace, cooperation, empathy, compassion and tolerance I believe have to be inclusive and modelled. I respect and acknowledge the experience of teachers—we all do it and it's our business to promote those issues and model them for all our students.

I speak on behalf of my extended family, that we are compassionate people and any threat of war or violence is something we take a stand on. We want to support the process of peace. I know my family supports peace. We need to keep the momentum going in supporting each other, whether we're in a remote community or a bustling city. We need to be united in saying we don't want to promote war, we want for our generation and future generations peace.

At this school we're trialling the New Basics curriculum, which is about preparing students for the world and making sure that they've got the right skills and abilities to operate as active citizens. Globalisation is everyone's business and it will affect us as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

The New Basics does provide teachers with the opportunity to work, plan and talk in inter-disciplinary teams, and brings about inclusiveness in the key learning areas. Peace is everyone's business.

Maurie Mulheron Principal, Keira Technology High School, NSW

When the September 11 attacks happened, we realised that most kids would have woken up to the news and would have seen the images on television. There was a sense that they would arrive at school feeling fairly confused and worried.

I was working in a different school at the time. We called an assembly to encourage the students to learn about what had happened rather than jump to conclusions. The media tend to apportion blame quickly and we didn't want the kids to do the same.

The message was: “We may never know what was behind this but it's very important that we stay together as a community, respect other people's religion, race and background, and don't draw conclusions in haste.” Many students at my current school are Islamic. Around 35 per cent are from non-English speaking backgrounds and many were, at some point, refugees themselves.

We asked the kids after the bombing in Bali to look at the people around them at our school. They would have noticed staff and students of all different skin colours, countries and religions. Many were born overseas with different values and belief systems, and yet we all get on by and large. We're a school that doesn't tolerate violence, we don't fight amongst ourselves, we try and resolve conflict as best we can through open communication.

I tried to extend that to a worldview: this is a modern problem and we can deal with it if we are willing.

As teachers, we're well placed to extrapolate our local school experience to broader issues. If we can get 800-plus kids from diverse backgrounds to coexist in a relatively conflict-free environment, with all the stresses and strains within a school community, why can't we do it in terms of the wider community?

We've got to reaffirm the right of teachers to explicitly teach about non-violence and the peaceful resolution of conflict. I don't think we should apologise for that.

What happens in schools almost universally—and particularly in public schools where we have kids from so many backgrounds—is that we provide certainty in kids' lives. When students want to question what they see on the news or read in newspapers, they feel reassured when teachers allow for class discussion time to work through an issue. There was a time during the Cold War with the threat of nuclear war in the 60s, 70s and even into the 80s when many teachers generated their own personal resources—based on poetry, songs and novels written about post-holocaust society—that they then integrated into classrooms. And they are excellent teaching resources.

But I think we've had a false sense of security over the past 10 years. It's time we started to develop those resources again.