Resources for Teaching Peace

Fall 2010 - Becoming Peacemakers

Peacemaking begins within a person and travels out to those around you and finally to the world. Our explorations this semester will begin with discovering and strengthening our inner peace. Next we'll explore creative conflict resolution in our daily interactions with others. And finally, we'll look at what we can do to advance peace in our community and in our world.

Peace within

Friends General Conference Religious Education Committee is piloting Peaceful Piggy Meditation as part of creating a new version of the Sparklers pre-school series.

To feel peaceful inside, it is important to understand all of our feelings.

Breathing is an important tool in calming the body and mind.

Songs for focusing on inner peace include:

  • Let There be Peace on Earth and Let it Begin with Me - Songs of the Spirit, p. 18.
  • Dark of Winter - Worship in Song #40
  • Be Still and Know - Worship in Song #134
  • Teach me to stop and listen - Worship in Song #137
  • Holy Spirit, Truth Divine - Worship in Song #148
  • I Celebrate the Inward Light - Worship in Song #149
  • Amazing Grace - Worship in Song #185
  • Holy Love (round) - Worship in Song #188
  • I Need Thee Every Hour - Worship in Song #190
  • Wear it as long as you can - Worship in Song #195
  • Leaning on the Everlasting Arms - Worship in Song #201
  • Blessed Quietness - Worship in Song #202
  • Love Will Guide Us - Worship in Song #243
  • How Can I Keep From Singing - Worship in Song #245
  • I've Got Peace Like a River - Worship in Song #246
  • Dona Nobis Pacem - Worship in Song #296
  • Peace Is Flowing Like a River - Worship in Song #318
  • Peace Round (Jean Ritche) - Worship in Song #322
  • Prayer of Saint Francis - Songs of the Spirit #15

Peace in our Communities

Conflict resolution among our friends and families. Local efforts for social justice help build peace in our community.

One conflict prevention strategy is using good manners.

Is it teasing or is it bullying? This book sensitively portrays the feelings of children who experience bullying and it suggests strategies for changing the culture of teasing and bullying.

Why People Speak Many Languages This Seneca legend provides a Native American analogue to the Bible story of the Tower of Babel. There are a number of good discussion questions and one of the suggested activities includes planting a peace tree such as that planted by the Iroquois as a symbol of peace among several tribes.

Music for Peace in our communities.

  • Come Join the Circle - Lessonsongs for Peacemaking - Paulette Meier [Community Friends Meeting, Cincinnati, OH] (we have the CD of these songs as well)
  • Come Join the Circle - song lyrics only
  • Come Join the Circle - explanations and lesson plans
  • Envaido Soy de Dios (Sent by the Lord) - Worship in Song #256
  • Cuando El Pobre (Where there are poor) - Worship in Song #284
  • When I Needed a Neighbor - Worship in Song #293
  • Go Cheerfully - Worship in Song #333
  • A Place in the Choir (All God's Critters) - Worship in Song #306

Peace in our World

As we build peace in our communities through working for social justice, what can we do in our world to do the same?

In this story, The Bird's Peace, a child whose father has gone off to war, watches some birds to learn about a different way to make peace. The story is in the big Peace Book.

  • The Bird's Peace, by Jean Craighead George, author of many wonderful animal stories for children.

Wangari's Trees of Peace is the true story of Wangari Maathai of Kenya who started the Green Belt Movement in 1977 which earned her the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004.

Shalom, Salaam, Peace is a landscape of words and images suitable for all ages. The text is in English, Hebrew and Arabic.

Let There be Peace is a book of prayers from many different faith traditions accompanied by lovely, simple drawings. Because of the oversized pages of the book, a few of the attributions are cut off the bottom of the page.

Songs for Peace in our World

  • Down by the Riverside - Worship in Song #295
  • Vine and Fig Tree - Worship in Song # 300
  • A Song of Peace (Finlandia) - Worship in Song #304

Godly Play and Faith & Play lessons

Comprehensive Peace Curricula

There have been many projects over the years focussed on teaching young children the basics of conflict resolution and peacemaking. One of the most well-known is the Children's Creative Response to Conflict project which was created in 1972 by the New York Quaker Project on Community Conflict. It is now a 501(c)3 organization - Creative Response to Conflict and a sister program of the Alternatives to Violence Project which is active locally with our Friends Tom Martin, Liz Yeats and Glenna Balch.

Peacemaker's A,B,Cs for Young Children

  • ABCs Front Matter - Front matter & table of contents
  • ABCs Chapter 1 - Overview of Peace Education; Attitudes & Behaviors Wheel
  • ABCs Chapter 2 - Making a Space for Peace; Integrating peacemaking throughout the day
  • ABCs Chapter 3 - Informal conflict resolution; talking stick
  • ABCs Chapter 4 - Formal conflict resolution lessons; Peace Table; ABC's (specific lesson plans)
  • ABCs Chapter 5 - Empowerment as a peacemaker - going out into the world

Creative Conflict Solving for Kids

This is an earlier edition of Creating Peace, Building Community for which the student workbook is included below. This edition is the Teacher's guidebook with copies of all of the student worksheets included so they can be printed out separately as desired. Grade level - approximately 5th - 8th grades.

Creating Peace, Building Community

This is the student material only and without the teacher guide, is difficult to break into sections. Grade level - approximately 5th - 8th grades. Here are the pages covering different topics:

  • p 1-3 - people bingo, village guidelines, fair fighting rules
  • p 6-9 - affirmation
  • p 9-13 - rumors, another's perspective, empathy
  • p 14-19 - I-statements, speaking up, personal power
  • p 20-25 - decision making, peer refusal
  • p 26-30 - anger tree, anger management
  • p 31-32 - violence
  • p 33-35 - conflict
  • p 36-37 - putting it all together (7 step problem solving)
  • p 38-43 - mediation
  • p 44-47 - bullying
  • p 48-61 - doing my part, peace heros, peace vocabulary, how can I help?

Here is the complete booklet.

Peacemaking Skills for Little Kids

1993 curriculum by Fran Schmidt and Alice Friedman. Published by the Grace Contrino Abrams Peace Foundation, Miami, FL. This is designed to be used with a poster, an I-Care-Cat puppet, a student activity book and an audio tape that simulates visits from the cat. The script of the tapes is included. This is directed at very young children and the concepts are broken into small focus bites that can be used individually.

  • Front Matter
  • Concept 1 - The basis for a peacful world is an environment where children become friends, learn to work and play cooperatively and to respect the interdependence of all living things.
  • Concept 2 - We are all human beings. We are similar, yet each of us is unique. We accept and enjoy our commonalities and celebrate our differences.
  • Concept 3 - Feelings are a common bond all of us share. Feelings link us together as a human family.
  • Concept 4 - Peacemaking skills help us to get along as responsible members of the human family. We are all connected to the web of life.

Peace Games

This curriculum is an early version of a curriculum from an organization now called Peace First based in Boston. Peace Games was conceived at Harvard University in 1992 as an annual festival where children gathered to play cooperative games and share their dreams of peace. It evolved into a conflict resolution curriculum now used in many schools.
This particular curriculum is designed for 5th graders and involves learning conflict resolution through playing a lot of games. At the end of the 9 units, the students create their own new games to carry on the message of peaceful conflict resolution.

Young Peacemakers Project Book

This book contains instructions for a wide variety of relatively easy projects related to peacemaking. Age level - pre-school through elementary. 1988. Church of the Brethren.

Alternatives to Violence

This is the 1996 edition compiled by John Looney, published by Peace Grows of Akron, OH. The student workbook includes a set of case studies and the Teacher's Guide includes an appendix of Cooperative Games. In both books, completely blank, but numbered pages have been eliminated. May be used for middle school through adults.

For Jr/High School Young Friends

Friends Journal has recently published Quakers and the Search for Peace Drawn from the rich archives of Friends Journal, this book illuminates the many aspects of Friends’ most central and most public spiritual testimony: a search for peace. Many of these articles would be suitable for discussion among Young Friends. A copy has been purchased for the YF FAPS.

A Class of Non-violence was developed by Colman McCarthy of the Center for Teaching Peace, in Washington, DC. It consists of 48 essays and is arranged as an 8 week course for high school or university classes. A facilitator's manual is available through the peaceCENTER of San Antonio or on Amazon. A blog by the peaceCENTER provides additional resources and learning ideas such as films to complement the course.

Individual activities

These are activities or starting points from the book Educating for Peace

More Resources