The question is posed: What is the goal of today’s meeting?
Bob Stewart: We’re working
towards a proposed vision, an action plan for peace education in
1.
We decide
to take one half hour to look at our notes of the past four days, and organize “potential
action items” under the categories: short-term, intermediate and
long-term. We decide to write down
these actions (items) on individual post-it notes and organize based on the
three categories.
Later it is decided
to further divide the short-term, intermediate-term and long-term into community
level and world level.
Joan (offers suggestion to look at
international level as well as community level regarding post-it note project): Bob,
you said at one point that
David: Yannis and I conversed in response to the work of physicist Derrick Hall. We must look to the apocalyptic in respect that “time is running out”. There’s great value in planting seeds and letting them grow: the “earth worm long term”. But a certain portion of work today should pay respect to the “high-risk, dramatic, urgent, apocalyptic”. Derrick Hall proposes immediate rapid action that I see as another dimension to our proposals.
Conversation shifts to issues in the news: 1. Palestine-Israel, news of
missiles fired into
Bob S: As chair, I must say, we can’t have effect on these emergent issues. We can’t be bogged down by debates of fires-- Time is of the essence. Thus the trouble with the earth worm perspective, though we must look to the long-term perspective. We are cultivators.
Our
goal: to prioritize our sticky notes making an action plan.
We should use this time to put deadlines to things, put people’s names
to things, and devise tactics how to implement things. Let
us verbalize a vision for Peace Education in
Conversation revolves around coming up with this vision.
Vision should be a simple statement, easy to remember captures what you
want to end up with (i.e. Kennedy had the vision to put a man on the moon and
bring him back before the end of the decade).
Regarding peace, it’s not simple to come up with a vision.
Meg: Our vision is of what we want the world to look like. Is it a
different vision of peace versus peace education in
Joan (regarding social studies): Vision captures the spirit of where you want to be: the idealistic leading to something more practical: negotiation and work to be done.
David: There’s a multiplicity of visions. Not one vision but complementary visions.
Laurie: Vision is sketchy if we go through the steps of the action plan, rather it’s the synergy of it all.
Meg: Whether we use the vision to achieve the plan, or use the plan to attain the vision, we now have rich fodder that can be worked with immediately.
Bob: Spend some time on clear articulation.
Seddika: Who is the audience?
Bob: The primary audience is Canadian people. There’s no one it isn’t for, though some it should be aimed at more directly.
Seddika: We should forget about our differences; concentrate on the dream I want to feel in peace. What are opposites? And how can I take the present situation and what can I do to improve the present situation?
Bob: Every person offers a perspective.
Sticky Note Exercise
6 volunteers, one for each category, each person clusters common ideas
within each category.
Community Level- Short-term
1.
Planning meeting for next year.
2.
Individual ideas
3.
Direct involvement of youth
4.
Parenting education and peace
5.
Develop a Canadian peace prize
6.
Promote conference outcomes
7.
Post charter of rights and
freedoms in every classroom
8.
Send letters to CEOs, chair(wo)men
of boards.
9.
Communication: put a one page
critical statement in front page of white pages
10.
Funding initiatives: centralize
resources
11.
Determine school curriculum
12.
Create committee structure around
outcome categories
13.
Research
14.
Clarify individual and collective
Peace Ed. Interests
15.
Develop teaching tool to debunk
worldview, series of workshops to help people see themselves as social agents of
change.
Community Level- Intermediate-term
1.
Develop measures to get “Culture
or Peace” used ubiquitously in society
2.
Teacher education
3.
Lobbying
-set up mechanisms
to lobby.
4.
Networking
-annual summit
conference
5.
Role of children
6.
Curriculum
7.
Provisions of resources
8.
Develop Campaign to depict culture
of peace in business society
9.
Other ideas not clustered into
above categories:
a)
Culture of Peace Newsletter (
b)
Liase with black communities,
confronting crime (in light of Toronto Star report on racial profiling.
c)
Be ready to fill jails
d)
Introduce Gandhi, MLK into
training for teachers
e)
Peace Ed. Workshops for teachers;
offer to boards at local level
Community Level- Long-term
1.
Major Concepts
a)
hurting people isn’t ok
b)
arts and culture
c)
work with science
d)
work like earthworm; keep vision
of soaring bird
e)
dance
2.
Research based
a)
local/domestic, school/street
violence
b)
peace web-sites
c)
study and decimate experiences of
practical, democratic participation in schools
d)
teach children about feelings;
what can they do about them?
e)
shift from individual to
collective and community
f)
produce research friendly
catalogue
3.
Program based
a)
city peace commission
b)
encourage study in
c)
encourage dialogue with police
d)
youth voice in political and peace
organizations
e)
radio station: promote peace ed.
4.
Lobby based
a)
peace propaganda campaign
b)
spend more on peace then war
World Level- Long-term & Short-term
(these categories were put together based on the cross-similarities of many of
the items)
1.
Major ideas
a)
help children to speak their
truths
b)
youth voice immerging in political
and peace organizations
c)
working towards a peace industrial
complex; make money on peace initiatives
d)
support international initiatives
e)
2.
Create and Publish
a)
peace movies, books, monuments,
etc. (short-term)
b)
empower people to publish non
profit media resources (long-term)
c)
publish youth written documents,
children’s peace initiatives
3.
Actions and Partnerships
Short-term
a)
bring world NGOs together
b)
support September 21
c)
celebrate the decade for a culture
of peace and non-violence
d)
organize youth card campaign for
Hague appeal of peace
e)
implement support for UNESCO
documents
f)
UNAC
Long-term
g)
help develop culture of peace
h)
world-youth peace initiatives
i)
link schools in
j)
Fundraise to build schools
k)
Workshop with police and military
l)
Increase dialogue
Laurie: The proliferation of changing a culture of war to a culture of peace rests on the changing of attitudes. The development of knowledge and skills: what does peace look like, sound like, feel like? We have to know how to develop ideas to be peaceful rather than watching kids divert back to what the parents taught (violence).
1. Peace Pole Ceremony (photos passed around).
2. What do kids talk about at Peace Symposium (Nov. 2001, Apr. 2002)
This included peace visioning in the classrooms, why peace is important to the students, band learned songs about peace, representatives from classrooms read ideas at mic., planting of a peace pole, etc.
Teachers have to unify and decide “this is what we believe in as staff.” There are always nay-sayers but we must work for the majority. There’s a need to sit down with the administration and focus on activities centred on value. Once this is clarified, get on board to put together the resources.
Meg: The classroom represents a space of conversion of systems; we have to understand all the different levels that come to play in the classroom.
Laurie: This is not simple. For
example a school in
Example of an exercise in classroom: Grade 6 class: individual writes down everything (s)he feels (s)he has the right to do. Share this with the person next to you. Differentiate between rights and privileges. Reword negative statements to positive ones (i.e. “to be without fear” should change “to be safe”).
Meg: The culture of the classroom is key. Kids need to feel valued by the teacher so they develop skills to value one another. The Art of Living Peace Program is based on affirmation- published by the UN.
Affirmation
a) have right to a safe education
b) jot down negative things that happen in the classroom and bus
c) kids identify their rights and what takes away from these rights
d) get kids to value; engage kids
e) build up images supporting Culture of Peace
f) move from Culture of War as they know it
g) have kids collect signatures for manifesto 2000
Yannis: How about cloning good teachers? (haha) We can elevate the status of good teachers by developing a documentary showcasing these good teachers. Publish this and play it in schools. We need to develop a) materials and b) lobbying systems. Get these things into the hands of teachers. Get copies of UN, Hague documents in every school and get people to value these things within the school system.
LUNCH
BREAK
After
the break, it was discussed how Bob Stewart had invited every province minister
to come to the conference. One
representative of a Ministry came - Joan Engel, Alberta Learning. In
addition, Paul Cappon (President of the Policy
Action Group on Learning and Director
General of Council of Ministers of Education, Canada) also made a presentation.
We discussed the need to hear what
is happening from within different avenues of the system.
Various
tactics were discussed for a move to peace education:
1.
Must
understand the system before you can change it.
2.
Politicians
need to be held accountable: motivate people (youth in particular) to hold
politicians’ liable.
3.
Youth
need to be active participants within the system (investment in future)
4.
The
Civics Course in schools teaches statistical data like how many seats in
legislature, etc. There’s a need for individual teachers to teach about active
citizenship. Take kids to a
demonstration.
5.
Have
background to answer questions and challenges regarding UN documents, etc.
6.
Go to
authorization of Credit of Teachers to involve more teachers in conferences for
peace education. Determine means of
formal credit for this; work for Certified Peace Conference for
7.
Say it
simply so people understand: “this is how things could look if we adopted
Peace Education. There’s a relationship between a failure to act sooner and
what is happening now.”
8.
School is
politicized and indifferent to change. How do we change this?
9.
Develop
unions of teachers and religious organizations.
10.
Develop
community level discussion (i.e. CP News Network).
11.
Encourage
student action and lobbying.
12.
Support
teachers
13.
HAP cards
Taj: Teachers go in with great ideas they want to implement in their schools.
It’s extremely discouraging (for people to work in an environment where
they) throw idealism out the window, and face up to “reality”.
We need to work together in ways of non-violent social change.
Dialogue with Queen’s Park and OSSDF.
Link and organize community and students.
Form initiatives for finding reasons behind why this or that is or is not
being taught.
Ray: At the
Larry: There are basic concepts we can use in our quest.
Start to look at political culture in classrooms or workplace. Take
measure of: how democratic? How authoritative? Do people understand inputs and
outputs? Go to various classrooms
and compare. Is the classroom a
participatory democracy? Is one person in charge?
There’s a need for a Canadian Peace Education handbook.
A public handbook of peace activities (Deirdre Fisher).