Children play a crucial role in creating social change and a better future for all. The “Family Engagement in Peace Education Workbook,” developed by Katie Santarelli of the DC Peace Team <dcpeaceteam.com/our-work/peace-education/>, encourages children to investigate the role that conflict plays in themselves, their community, and the world. The 32-page PDF has sections for elementary, middle school and high school youth, each providing 5 suggested activities. Throughout this exploration, activities are designed to pique a child’s curiosity in peaceful living and the role that nonviolent peacemaking can play in transforming conflict.
Archive
Pioneer Peace Pack
This resource collection includes information and activities for groups of 10 – 12 year olds who are participating in the U.K.-based outdoor education group known as the Woodcraft Folk. The resource includes instructor overviews and associated handouts and reading materials for activities focused on the following themes: Bullying, Conflict Resolution, War Toys, War Detectives, Child Soldiers and Positive About Peace. The Conflict Resolution module alone includes 6 separate activities.
The Woodcraft Folk group describes their goals as follows: “Our aim is to have great fun, but also to try and develop children’s self-confidence and build their awareness of society around them. Through our activities, outings and camps we help our members understand important issues like the environment, world debt and global conflict and, in recent years, we have focused on sustainable development. By encouraging children to think, we hope they will help build a peaceful, fairer world.”
Youth Video Production Guide
This 4-part video guide was put together for United Religions Initiative (URI) Youth Ambassadors by URI Young Leaders Program Steering Committee member, Matthew Youde, from Wales, UK, who is also a filmmaker. He advises on how to produce a number of different videos, from video-diaries to news clips to interviews; how to plan and film different kinds of videos; and special tips for filming interviews.
Cycles of harmony: Action research into the effects of drama on conflict management in schools
13-page PDF paper which, “describes the first five years of an ongoing action research project (1996-2000) investigating the possibilities of using a combination of drama techniques and peer teaching on a whole-school basis to help school students explore the causes of conflict, and develop strategies for conflict prevention and mediation … A number of principles relating both to conflict management and to drama, together with a tentative pedagogy for using dramatic strategies and techniques have emerged. These are elucidated, and the project and some of its provisional findings are described.”
Jabbertalk: a methodology for international youth work
An international collection of groupwork methods and activities, collected by volunteers from the EU-based Don Bosco Youth-Net. Presented as a 114-page pdf divided into activity categories including new games, teamwork, oral expression, non-verbal expression, dance expression, manual expression, musical expression, sherborne, values, behavior-communication-groups, evaluation techniques, and working with video. “All methods in the manual have been tested for years, because they are games which have been played for decades on Don Bosco playgrounds, oratorios, youth clubs, and summer camps.”
Lessons and activities for Florida’s fourth annual mediation celebration
41-page pdf manual which can be used “as a general guide to activities that can be easily incorporated in your classroom to make everyone aware of measures that help ensure peaceful schools … mediation skills and other methods of conflict resolution are life-long skills that help promote positive interactions among all people … the intention of this booklet is to help peak your interest and awareness in the area of mediation, and let you see how easily and subtly these concepts can be integrated into the existing curriculum.” Includes bibliography.
Nonviolence playlets
25-page MS Word document providing examples of nonviolence in action. “These short playlets are intended to dramatically reconstruct actual experiences in which nonviolent direct action has been used, successfully, to overcome violence.” Designed for use with youth of different ages.
Conflict: How do you respond?
Online questionnaire designed for children in grades 3-12 to help them discover how they handle conflict. Provides immediate feedback in terms of a childs “conflict style” based on their answers.
Harmony Island STAR and APE Activity Handouts
This 6-page pdf provides colorful poster and handout examples excerpted from the Teacher’s Guide for Harmony Island by Academic Edge, Inc. Harmony Island is a multimedia-enhanced conflict resolution curriculum designed to help learners broaden their understanding of conflicts and develop their conflict resolution skills. Students are introduced to core strategies that have proven to be effective in conflict resolution. STAR (Stop, Think, Act, Refect) is a series of steps learners can take to think about and avoid or resolve conflicts. APE (Active Listening, Problem Solving, and Emotional Awareness) is an acronym that summarizes some of the key skills involved in avoiding and resolving conflicts. The full teachers guide and information on purchasing the game materials is available via www.harmonyisland.org
Making class matter and engaging difference
42-page Powerpoint presentation given at the Sustaining Conflict Resolution Education: Building Bridges to the Future conference in Fairfax, VA, which “explore[d] ways to make ideas relevant and memorable so students take the ideas home and apply them to their every day lives, examples will include exercises on how to understand and engage difference well.”
Cool school: Where peace rules
Link to “high quality and free video game that teaches kids conflict resolution strategies. Targeted at children from Kindergarten through 2nd grade, the game is set in a fantastic school where all of the objects (chalk, erasers, books, etc.) come to life, depicting conflicts facing children every day. The game uses engaging, colorful characters and a vivid school setting to help children learn how to resolve these conflicts in a peaceful fashion.” Game is hosted on the Curriki & Global Education and Learning Community website.
Men stopping rape exercises
Pdf article from Conflict Management in Higher Education Report, Volume 6, Number 1, (Nov 2005), which presents a “list of some of the exercises developed by the members of Men Stopping Rape in Madison, WI, for use in anti-rape workshops, I compiled this list for use in Syracuse at a Man-to-Man training program entitled ‘Practical Strategies for Ending Abuse: A Skill Training for Educators.'”
Online Module: How to use class meetings: classroom management and the peaceable classroom
Online learning module exploring various types of classroom meetings and how they can be used to build community and prevent problems as well as address problems after the fact. Includes links to video clips demonstrating classroom meetings with different age students.
How to use class meetings: classroom management, the peaceable classroom
Word document discussing types of classroom meetings and how they can be used to build community and prevent problems as well as address problems after the fact.
Eight building blocks for effective class meetings
Single page word document listing eight activities to help promote effective class meetings, based on “Positive discipline in the classroom” by Jane Nelson, Lynn Lott, and H. Stephen Glenn.