In twelve international conflicts, children of families from each side's political network could go to the same school and be home by dinnertime. With its educational processes designed in a unique way, each school would be the most farsighted way to resolve each conflict while also being the most intellectually rigorous school in the respective area.
-The Iraqi School in Baghdad: Shi'ites, Sunnis, & Kurds -The Afgani School in Kabul: Pashtuns (including the Taliban), Tajiks, Uzbeks, & Hazara -The Christian School in Belfast, Northern Ireland: Catholic Republicans & Protestant Unionists -The Cypriot School in Nicosia: Republic of Cyprus & "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus" -The Lebanese School in Beirut: Christians, Shi'ites, Druze, & Sunnis -The Nepali School in Kathmandu: Maoists, Royalists, & Social Democrats -The Bahraini School in Manama: Sunnis and Shi'ites -The Semitic School between Jerusalem and Ramallah: Israel & Palestinian National Authority -The Korean School between Seoul and Kaesong in the DMZ: North Korea & South Korea -The Punjabi School between Lahore and Amritsar at Wagah: Pakistan & India -The Abrahamic School between Nazareth, Daraa, and Irbid: Israel, Syria, & Jordan -The Tigrinya School between Adigrat and Adi Keyh: Ethiopia & Eritrea
The key is cooperative learning, a teaching method that can increase test scores in traditional subjects while simultaneously increasing each student's identification with the overarching social trait shared by all students from the two sides. This teaching method only needs to be used for 35% of the total lessons to have the desired effect on attitudes. The overarching social trait might be nationality (Iraqi, Afghani, etc.), ethnicity (Semitic, Korean, etc.), or religion, such as sharing Christianity in Northern Ireland. Over time, the parents of these children, including the political leaders, might also be inclined to identify more with this overarching social identity, having now seen their own children do it.
This development would eventually have a positive effect on top-level political negotiations. This is because a key predictor of successful problem-solving is trust, and a key predictor of trust is identifying strongly with a social trait - or social identity - with which the other person also strongly identifies. The process might take several decades to successfully impact the political scene, but 130 years from now, when everyone currently alive is dead, people will say that it was the wisest thing that we did to resolve the conflicts of the world.