Inner Peace and Outer Peace, a class taught within the department of Peace, Conflict, and Coexistence Studies (PAX), focuses as much on studies of the world at large as it does on the inner reflection required for a beneficial approach to those outer-world studies.
Peter Gould, a co-professor for the PAX course, followed the class’s development from its inception. After receiving his Ph.D. in interdisciplinary literary studies from Brandeis, he taught courses to graduate and undergraduate students in the university’s theater department.
While teaching these theater courses, a Brandeis sociology professor approached Gould with the idea for Inner Peace and Outer Peace, requesting that Gould submit a proposal for the class. Ultimately, the department filled the position with two other professors, but three years later, Gould was teaching the course.
After a one-year hiatus from teaching the course, Gould returned in Spring 2011, bringing with him John Ungerleider to co-teach the course with him. “We love each other, we love the commute, we love planning the class together, and both of us come at it from the exact same perspective,” Gould said of working with Ungerleider.
Ungerleider directs an organization teaching teens across the world about community leadership and peacebuilding in places of conflict. The PAX professor leads and engages in a variety of youth activism and conflict resolution organizations. “He’s beloved all over Vermont in teaching youth leadership and cross-cultural understanding and awareness,” Gould said.
The two commute from Vermont to hold one hour of office hours and teach the three-hour PAX course every Wednesday.
The first time the class meets every spring semester, Gould gives what he calls his “There’s the Door” speech. “I say, ‘You’re going to meditate in this class, and you’re going to find out some pretty awful stuff about yourself, and if you can’t face it right now, there’s the door,’” Gould said.
The course pairs a meditative, reflective component and another piece focused on active listening, awareness and conflict resolution.
“The class makes the connection between inner peace and international conflicts,” said Emilia Feldman ’19, a recent student of the course and future teaching assistant for the spring 2017 course offering said. “This class teaches the idea that in order to be a strong agent of change, you must truly understand the importance of inner peace and self-awareness.”
The class prepares students for conflict mediation at various levels, according to Gould, from interpersonal disputes between siblings or family members to conflict among international bodies on a global scale.
Student responses have proven that the personal skills taught to students in the class have been beneficial in their years after leaving Brandeis, Gould said. In this way, Inner Peace and Outer Peace differs from other Brandeis courses that focus heavily on academic knowledge over interpersonal skills.
“I heard it was a great experiential learning class, not a lecture like all the other classes I was taking,” Feldman said on why she wanted to take the class last year.
Gould hopes that his class will provide students the level of self-examination and awareness that allows them to truly understand themselves. He mentioned that the class may actually cause students to question their accepted identity. In this way, Gould guides students toward an identity which they better align with. “If you’re not prepared to question, ‘Is that really my identity? Are there identities that are deeper?’ If you don’t think you can handle that,” Gould includes in his famous introduction speech, “there’s the door.”
Approximately two-thirds of the class’ 35 students are typically seniors, noted Gould. In many cases, these students use the class as a time of reflection and preparation for leaving Brandeis’ safe space. They register for the class in the final semester “to get stronger in spiritual or psychological ways to face the challenges they are about to face when they leave the safe space.”
In recent years, the class has received strong positive responses. In the spring 2015 course evaluation statistics, students answered that the overall quality of the course fell around 92% to 93% respectively for both professors. Students also answered that the lecturers stimulated interest in the subject at a rate greater than 96% for both teachers.
“It’s my job as a teacher to make every single student in this class feel like they would not want to be anywhere else but right here, right now, because this is so rarefied, and so special,” Gould said.
The PAX course professors describe their teaching style as planned, but with “the energy of improvisation and spontaneity.” According to Gould, the two are dedicated to listening to student responses and providing deep and constructive responses to student input. “We are not trying to impress anybody with depth and breadth of intellectual knowledge. We are just trying to model a spirit of compassion,” he said.
Every year the course changes a little, and this year will be no different, Gould assured. The two professors plan to incorporate newer readings, including many that Gould recently published on the subject matter and works they studied themselves during their undergraduate and graduate studies.
In prior years, the professors filled the Castle Commons for three hours every Wednesday to teach the class, but this is the first year the class location has been moved. The first time teaching it in the International Lounge, they expect they must adapt the course accordingly to match the new space.
In this space, Gould and Ungerleider look to ignite thought and emotion through the study of outer peace in the context of inner peace. Each year the PAX professors look to delve deeper. “I think we can get more of that feeling of real, deep, powerful, life-changing emotion back into the class,” Gould said. “We don’t want to get too comfortable.”
