Tag Archives: peace building

Peace and Community Service For Children

By: Rebecca Kane


Content: This resource is a lesson plan from the Louis D. Brown Peace Institute in their designated “Peace Curricula” section, which has designated lesson plans for Elementary, Middle, and High School Students. The section I have chosen to discuss is from their “Pathways to Peace: Lesson Plans for Elementary School.” This organization is dedicated to being a center of healing, teaching, and learning for families and communities that have been impacted by murder, trauma, grief, and loss. 

Access to their website at: https://ldbpeaceinstitute.org/the-peace-curricula/ 

Access to this specific set of lesson plans (Today we will be discussing Lesson 5): https://ldbpeaceinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Pathways-to-Peace-Lesson-Plans_Elementary-School.pdf 

Context: This lesson is specifically designed for elementary school-aged students. Those who then benefit from this resource would be elementary school educators, community youth facilitators, or anyone who falls into a category like such. This lesson is designed for formal or informal educational settings. This could be particularly helpful for communities dealing with children who were exposed to violence, whether directly or indirectly, through the media, in order to give them a safe space to process their feelings and emotions. 

Implementation: This lesson plan can be incorporated at any point during the school year that the educator deems necessary, but could be especially useful if the school or community center holds Peace Weeks or even Mother’s Day events, as part of this lesson pertains to these matters.

The Lesson Plan Set-up: 

  • Students will ideally be set up in a circle to facilitate open sharing.

Materials: 

  • Large blank paper/poster paper
  • Makers, crayons, and/or colored pencils
  • Printed copies of the story of Louis D. Brown (the Elementary version) (Provided Below)
  • Printed copies of “How to get involved with the Mother’s Day Walk for Peace.” (Provided Below)
  • Tape or other resource to hang materials

Time: 45-60 minutes

The Lesson Plan: 

(5-10 mins) Introduction: The educator/facilitator will introduce themselves and welcome the students, and if they so choose, they can even allow for short introductions for students to share their names. Following this, the students will be read the Principles of Peace to set the tone for the lessons. The educator/facilitator must also remind the students that the lesson in class today is a set time for them to practice the Principles of Peace that they had read. 

(20 mins) Mother’s Day Walk for Peace and the Story of Louis D. Brown: The educator/facilitator will begin by reading the students the story of Louis D. Brown and how his parents had started the Peace Institute. After reading this story aloud, the students will then be asked some questions to get them thinking. Here are the questions:

  1. What kind of person was Louis? How did he help others?
  2. How does what happened to Louis make you feel? How do you think his family felt when he passed?
  3. What did Louis’ family do to keep his memory alive? How does the Peace Institute help the community?

(Disclaimer: The educator/facilitator has the ability to alter/cut questions that do not fit in the time frame, and also questions they do not feel comfortable asking, per the students’ response to the story itself.)

Following this discussion of Louis’ story, the educator/facilitator will then explain that an important part of the Peace Institute’s work is the yearly Mother’s Day walk for Peace. The walk is a way to bring the people together from all over the city and state to create a community where they can share love, feel unity, and have hope, which are all parts of the Principles of Peace. The students will then be encouraged to let the people within their own communities (friends and family) know about this Mother’s Day Walk for Peace, and will be given sheets of paper with information about it to bring home. Once they have discussed the contents of the sheet and have been given time to ask questions, the educator/facilitator will ask the students these questions about the Mother’s Day Walk for Peace:

  1. Why is walking together and being together important for peace?
  2. What other ways can you think of to work for peace in the community? 

(15 Mins) Vision of a Peaceful Community: 

The purpose of this section is to humanize the community and to stop the blame and shame of violence, especially on the young people who have the potential to become peacemakers of said community. In order to stop the violence and start building peace, the institute wants to share that we must recognize the strengths, assets, and resilience that are present within every community. 

Instructors will ideally put students into groups of 3-4. If not possible, the size of the groups can be adjusted to better fit the group’s needs. Once they have been separated into their groups, they will be given a large piece of blank paper or posterboard. The educator/facilitator will then ask each group to work together to draw what they imagine a peaceful, happy community to look like. In order to help the students start, the educator/facilitator will give these as examples for the students to begin their drawings:

  1. People working together
  2. People sharing
  3. People having jobs, houses, and happy families

Educators/facilitators are also encouraged to make sure students within each group are sharing their ideas and working collaboratively to represent the Unity section of the Principles of Peace. 

(5 mins) Peace Mural:

After the groups of students have finished the drawings, the educator/facilitator will have each of the groups hand their posters and form them as one, making their very own peace mural that shows off everyone’s work together. 

In a circle, the students will then all share one thing that they see happening in these images of a peaceful community that they would then like to see happening around them in their own communities to promote peace. 

Here are the papers needed if you decide to include the Mother’s Day Walk for Peace portion:

Goal: The goal of this resource is to help students create a shared vision of a peaceful community and, by doing so, create a personal commitment to peacemaking in their own communities. This resource combines the arts with storytelling, a similar idea to that of the ones said in “Storytelling For Social Justice: Connecting Narrative and the Arts in Antiracist Teaching,” written by Lee Anne Bell. This resource acts as a counter-storytelling community (Bell, 2020). By allowing students to engage with Louis’ story, students move beyond concealed stories of trauma and begin to develop critical empathy and understanding, social imagination of a more inclusive community, and narrative agency to rewrite their future with new goals and ways to do so, all detailed in Bell’s book, and have the possibility to be shown by the students who complete these activities. 

Relevance: Far too often, the public school system within the US creates lesson plans and guidelines that each school must abide by, neglecting to take into account the differences between states, cities, communities, etc, and how their learning might need to be shaped differently for the students as well. For educators working in communities affected by systemic inequalities or conflicts, students are often only surrounded by “stock stories” (Bell, 2020), which only focus on the violence that happens in their neighborhoods. By reshaping this and using the story of Louis D. Brown’s legacy, they are being provided with a counter-story in order to promote more critical and thoughtful dialogue about real-life issues that these students, although young, could be seeing in their own communities. 

The activity allows for students to reshape and be the architects of their own communities. It allows them to also see the transition from being observers of their community into being active and aware of their surroundings, to the point where they can create their own “peaceful community,” making them finally feel like a member of it. Often we also try to shield children from the realities with which they live, and although I do understand that, in some areas, it is virtually impossible, especially now with so many children having access to social media and the internet. With that idea in mind, I wanted to share a resource that I thought captured more of what we need to be teaching from a young age, and that is peace, and how, no matter how old, we all have the ability to act on it. 

Audience: The audience for this resource is any elementary school teacher working with their students to develop peace education in their classroom. I have shared these measures with my own family member who works in the public school system, teaching Kindergartners in the state of Maryland. 

This resource is also for local community center leaders or coordinators specifically working with youth. This can also include the leaders of after-school care programs, as they also have direct access to the youth of the school. My family member teaching kindergarten has shared these ideas with the people who work directly with her students in the after-school care program. 

References: 

Bell, Lee Anne. Storytelling for Social Justice : Connecting Narrative and the Arts in Antiracist Teaching. Second edition. New York, New York ; Routledge, 2021. Print. 

The Peace Curricula – Louis D. Brown Peace Institute. (n.d.). https://ldbpeaceinstitute.org/the-peace-curricula/

Pathways to Peace. (n.d.). Pathways to Peace lesson plans for elementary school. https://ldbpeaceinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Pathways-to-Peace-Lesson-Plans_Elementary-School.pdf 

The Playing for Change Foundation: An Innovative Approach to Peace Education

The Playing for Change Foundation fosters positive social interactions among at-risk youth through music education. Students have the opportunity to learn and play music with their peers in a safe environment, establishing community and peace building for youth suffering from poverty, infectious diseases, conflicts, genocide, etc. The foundation currently has 8 schools dedicated to fulfilling this mission in Mali, Ghana, Nepal, Rwanda, and South Africa. More information about this initiative can be found on their website: http://playingforchange.org/mission.

     This project can be expanded to elementary, middle and high school students in America. Many schools have had to cut their music programs due to a lack of funding for instruments, but I believe these programs can be just as important as the other essential subjects mandated in K-12 education. Playing an instrument can generally help improve students’ performance in math, in addition to introducing them to various genres and international music. It also offers a creative outlet for students to engage in, helping demote violent behavior and activities in and outside of the classroom. As a student, I recall required music education sessions in elementary school. By middle school, music lessons were no longer required, although concert band was an option. All participants were responsible for renting or purchasing their own instrument. Having free access to instruments, as demonstrated through the Playing for Change Foundation may create higher participation for students whose families are financially unable to provide them with an instrument. By increasing the number of music programs in schools, students, particularly at-risk youth have a safe space to engage in teamwork and personal growth. Learning an instrument and being creative does not only have to be an activity for small children; all age groups should be encouraged to participate in the fine arts and have the ability to do so.

     The concept of PFC does not have to be exclusive to schools. Camp counselors, Sunday school instructors, and other leaders can integrate music into their programs. It will be important for any instructor to have access to a variety of instruments, such as guitars, pianos, drum sets, xylophone, tambourines, etc. Guest instructors with a background in music should be invited to teach the students how to play the instruments. A small 20-30 minute session can be set aside for this activity during any given time of instruction. Students should be encouraged to create a song together in order to promote teamwork and to perform their song in front of their peers to boost self-confidence. Students who become passionate about learning, creating, and playing music will be likely to engage in music outside of the classroom, helping them refrain from violence when they are feeling bored or when facing a personal struggle.  

     The multiple intelligence pedagogy is relevant in peace building through music education. Some students are visual learners and may prefer to learn a song by reading the notes or studying written instructions. Others may learn by doing, i.e., watching someone else demonstrate how to play a song on their own instrument and then trying it themselves. Other students may be auditory learners, being able to pick up an instrument by ear or following spoken directions well. Regardless of how each student learns how to play their instrument, they all learn peace building, even if they are unaware of this, by working together as a team and being patient with each other’s different learning styles and pace of comprehension of new material. Students will not only leave their lessons with new music skills, they will have the skills to be more effective communicators by helping their classmates if they do not understand something. Having fun together while creating community may also be a gateway toward positive attitudes about collaboration, taking turns on instruments, and being patient as each participant learns through their own unique style.   

     Two stakeholders who would benefit from this resource are music teachers at my local high school and camp counselors for elementary and middle school-aged students. Music teachers can benefit from this resource by implementing these activities in their schools. They can collaborate with community centers or instructors at other schools to create after-school activities if there is not sufficient funding to hold a program in every institution. A camp counselor can utilize this resource by holding music sessions in addition to other daily activities. Camps usually foster the ideals of sportsmanship, teamwork, and leadership in the participating youth, so learning and creating music would be a great way to emphasize these concepts. Competitions between small groups of campers of the most creative song, as voted on by the entire group, can help promote sportsmanship. If students need assistance reading notes or finding the correct key on their instruments, other students can exemplify teamwork and leadership by helping them.