I’ve told stories to children all my life, mostly tales encouraging peace and justice, and environmental concern. In the late 60s and 70s (with a short interruption, drafted to be a Medic) I directed camps and did school assembly programs. I started the patient TV channel at Mpls Children’s Hospital, making TV behave like a storyteller wanting children to get well, and I spent over 20 years in the Minneapolis schools as a specialist teaching storytelling and video. Today I write a monthly SUN POST column as Director of the OGP (Old Gardening Party), keeping the world safe for children, gardening, and storytelling. The column, and a workshop that sometimes emerges from it, aims at helping adults tell important stories to the children in their lives, whether as a formal teacher, or a parent or grandparent.
Since the first Earth Day, environmental awareness (though often rudimentary) has been prominent informal education, but peacemaking is still overtly present only if a teacher inclines in that direction. It is inherent in social studies, but it’s most likely to be invisible or carrying the common storyline of “peace thru having bigger bombs than they do.” If learning to make peace with negotiation and nonviolence comes up at all, it is too often dismissed as being too political. Much of the culture, even some of those who called Martin Luther King a Communist in the 60s, has embraced his I HAVE A DREAM speech. Most don’t even know he also said, “We will never end poverty and racism until we quit spending so much sending our young people, mostly poor, out to kill poor people overseas.”
Public school teachers are too often inundated with “too many things to teach”, but for those so inclined, here are some peace and justice teaching resources than can be utilized individually or comprehensively. Most of these are offered free of charge because you never know what one striking story or exercise may lead an individual child to do for the betterment of the world:
BIRDS OF PEACE, www.birdsofpeace.org, emanates from the work of Dr. Walter Enloe, once headmaster of Hiroshima Intl School, and now retired as head of Global Environmental Education at Hamline. They encourage formation of Educator Collaborative Circles to learn and experience peacemaking via comprehensive work with the ancient, meditative, art of origami (especially paper cranes) and the stories surrounding it.
CECIL RAMNARAINE’S SOCIAL STUDIES PEACE CURRICULIM, www.cecilram.com, can be downloaded and utilized at no charge. In the 1980’s, Ramnaraine, a Minneapolis schools social studies teacher, got a small grant thru Veterans for Peace to develop a peace and justice curriculum which he and others used for a number of years. Both the elementary and secondary versions focus heavily on the stories of historic peacemakers like Dr. King, Rosa Parks, Will Rogers, Dorothy Day, and more.
FELLOWSHIP OF RECONCILIATION, https://forusa.org, is the oldest Interfaith Peace and Justice organization in the country. Under “Resources” they have MARTIN LUTHER KING AND THE MONTGOMERY STORY CURRICULIM GUIDE.
LITTLE MOLE AND HONEY BEAR PRESS, www.littlemolehoneybear.com, was started in 2018 by Jack Zipes, retired university professor and internationally known folklorist. The small press is resurrecting long, out of print, children’s books with social justice themes. For example, JOHNNY BREADLESS by Paul Vaillant-Couturier, reflects the author’s participation as a French soldier in the 1914 Christmas truce. I suspect most of these books are out of print because certain factions preferred them gone.
NATIONAL NETWORK OPPOSING THE MILITARIZATION OF YOUTH, www.nnomy.org, works to help young people, parents, and youth leaders to rely not just on the glowing promises of military recruiters, and the media which often supports them. Their work encompasses bringing out the big picture, the full truth, about war and enlistment. Their website also includes a TEACHING RESOURCES FOR CLASSROOMS section.
PEACE LITERACY, www.peaceliteracy.org, emerged from the work of Captain Paul Chappell, who grew in the South, biracially, his Dad a Korean War Veteran, and his mother from Korea. Chappell served in Iraq as a West Point Officer, worked intensely on his own trauma, and combined the classic body of nonviolence training with the best of military leadership education. The result is a downloadable comprehensive peace and justice curriculum, available at no charge to schools and other organizations.
PEACEMAKER MINNESOTA, www.peacemakermn.org, works to create a more peaceful world by providing resources for schools to be safer places, free from bullying and harassment. Peacemaker staff and volunteers teach children and young people positive skills like empathy, respect, cooperation and peaceful conflict resolution skills.
WORLD CITIZEN, www.worldcitizenpeace.org, began with Lynn Elling, a WWII Veteran and business person. Lynn dreamed there must be a better way to resolve international conflict than the slaughter of war. Led for many years by teacher/school principal, Kathy Millington, World Citizens conducts peace education training based on 5 principles – Strive always to be more peaceful yourself . . . Reach out in service . . . Protect the environment . . . Respect Diversity . . . Be a Citizen of the World. Peace Ambassadors teach these principles, and schools and other organizations are encouraged to become Peace Sites reflecting same.