Ideas are shifting about what constitutes the nebulously named concept of "peace education" in Nagasaki, the second city ever to suffer an atomic attack, as its educators look to create a new approach to learning about their city's difficult history.
Educators say too much emphasis has been placed on relaying the brutal reality of A-bomb strikes to new generations, resulting in students forming a myopic view of the incidents rather than questioning and debating everything that culminated in the use of atomic weapons toward the end of World War II.
The program of so-called peace education has aimed to inform and educate children about war, but has used traditional, textbook-driven teaching techniques that may have failed to give students an understanding of the A-bomb strikes in the wider context of the war.