Student Service LEARNING TO HEAL in Northern Ireland March 03,
2006 In Northern Ireland today, there remain deep and complex
problems left from the 30-year civil war, or the Troubles, as
the war is called by nearly everyone who lived through it.
Relatively peaceful since 1998, the country is still recovering
from long years of violence and is experiencing continuing
division. Yet, as a fragile peace developed during the last
decade, educators and social workers began to address the
attitudes and circumstances underlying the sectarian conflict.
Early childhood educators, with the help of faculty at Queen’s
University, are now implementing an anti-bias curriculum in the
schools, one which is designed to inhibit and perhaps reverse
religious and ethnic polarization. Professor of Education Diane
Levin ’69MS has long been involved in this process of helping
children heal from the traumatic markings that the violence of
war leaves on families and communities – and in learning from
the efforts in Northern Ireland. H