Practical Activities and Resources for Families, Teachers and Other Caregivers. Noting that the conflicts arising daily for young children provide an opportunity for adults to model and teach skills for handling conflict peacefully, this guide provides tips for preventing unnecessary conflict, offers “first aid” for conflict moments, and provides resources for addressing common situations that can cause conflict. Developed cooperatively by Ohio’s Commission on Dispute Resolution and Conflict Management, Head Start Association, and Department of Education Division of Early Childhood, with implementation facilitated by many Ohio public libraries, the guide is comprised of 40 thematic units of instruction for the early childhood setting, with most units accompanied by home cards providing tips for preventing conflict and suggested activities. Each unit contains information on the importance of the topic for conflict management and its link to peace, suggested books, activities, and copies of home cards. The 40 units cover: (1) anger and aggression; (2) art; (3) bad day; (4) bad language; (5) bathtime; (6) bedtime; (7) behavior; (8) big and little; (9) big brother, big sister; (10) biting; (11) conflict; (12) cultural diversity; (13) death; (14) disabilities; (15) divorce; (16) dressing; (17) family; (18) fears; (19) feelings and emotions; (20) free choice; (21) lying; (22) mealtime at school; (23) mistakes; (24) nap time at school; (25) new baby; (26) teaching the problem-solving process; (27) safety; (28) school; (29) security objects; (30) self-esteem; (31) sharing; (32) siblings; (33) sickness; (34) stealing; (35) stress; (36) tantrums; (37) time out; (38) transitions; (39) whining and nagging; and (40) work. Also included in the guide are additional resources, such as a list of books for each unit, information on child development and child needs from birth to five years, and suggested readings for teachers and parents.
Archive
Digital Citizenship Poster for Middle and High School Classrooms
A poster targeting middle school and high school age youth that provides a flow chart to help students decide if sharing something (a photo for instance) online is appropriate or not. A larger poster is available for order – info at www.commonsensemedia.org/educators/middlehigh_poster
Peace education: A pathway to a culture of peace (2nd Edition)
209-page pdf book designed to provide educators with the basic knowledge base as well as the skill- and value-orientations that we associate with educating for a culture of peace. Although this work is primarily directed towards the pre-service and in-service preparation of teachers in the formal school system, it may be used in nonformal education.
Part I presents chapters that are meant to help us develop a holistic understanding of peace and peace education. Part II discusses the key themes in peace education. Each chapter starts with a conceptual essay on a theme and is followed by some practical teaching-learning ideas that can either be used in a class or adapted to a community setting. Part III focuses on the peaceable learning climate and the educator, the agent who facilitates the planting and nurturing of the seeds of peace in the learning environment. Finally, the whole school approach is introduced to suggest the need for institutional transformation and the need to move beyond the school towards engagement with other stakeholders in the larger society.
National policies on education for democratic citizenship in the Americas: Analytic report
48-page PDF report with the goal of “address[ing] the gap in the literature on national policies in citizenship education in the Americas, providing an initial “mapping†of these policies, at the formal and non-formal levels. To that end, the analysis focuses on national policies and standards, the school curriculum within which citizenship education is embedded, places and age levels where citizenship education occurs, and the extent to which citizenship programs are evaluated. Twenty-five countries participated in this study. Selected demographic characteristics of the countries are reported in Appendix 1.”
Preventing and countering school-based harassment: A resource guide for k-12 educators, rev. ed.
76-page PDF guide which “is the result of two conferences on racial harassment and numerous training-of-trainer administrator workshops conducted during the past eight years by the Equity Center (formerly the Center for National Origin, Race, and Sex Equity—CNORSE) where the intersection of the issues of racial and sexual harassment have been made clear by educators in the field. Although much national attention has been focused separately on the issues of racial harassment and sexual harassment, the reality is that when one form of harassment occurs, the opportunity exists for all types of harassment. Focusing only on one type of harassment can allow another type of harassment to go unchallenged. This guide addresses the more comprehensive issue of school-based harassment by capturing similarities in cause of, type of, and remedy for all forms of harassment while also addressing the unique and legal aspects of racial and sexual harassment, as appropriate. The hope is that the material will help school staff, families, students, and communities to create a safe and bias-free learning environment.”
Opening the door to nonviolence: Peace education manual for primary school children
Electronic version of the second edition of a teacher’s guide for teaching peace education to primary school students. “Part I is designed as a training in affirmation, cooperation and communication. Part II deals with the healing of trauma; Part III is about bias and prejudices. Part IV introduces peaceful problem solving and nonviolent conflict resolving and Part V is about peaceful living. There are 20 chapters/sessions in the book, each session developed through step-by-step activities.”
Conflict resolution, peer mediation and young people’s relationships: Technical Report
74-page PDF technical report that investigated, “what schools could do to improve young people’s relationships with each other, with teachers and with their families. This is a key question for schools, policy-makers and pressure groups; there are currently programmes and initiatives on behaviour, citizenship, healthy schools and many other areas which have relationships at their core. Within that broad area, the team looked in more detail at school programmes that encourage conflict resolution and peer mediation.” Ten studies relating to conflict resolution, all completed after 1994, were reviewed in detail.
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
Kids Working It Out Resource Appendix
A listing of books, publications and websites provided in the appendix to Tricia S. Jones and Randy O. Compton (Eds.) 2003 book Kids Working It Out: Stories and Strategies for Making Peace in Our Schools.
Road to peace, The: A teaching guide on local and global transitional justice
10-chapter teaching guide “that introduces students who have a general knowledge of human rights to the concept of transitional justice. Using the expertise of The Advocates’ human rights monitoring teams, who carried out work in Peru and Sierra Leone, The Advocates for Human Rights has created this teaching guide to be used with ninth grade through adult learners … The Road to Peace, as its title suggests, does not just teach about justice, but seeks to advance justice. The lessons are planned to encourage creative thinking about conflict resolution and restoration of justice, so that students feel empowered to promote justice in their own communities as well as around the world. The Road to Peace teaches about justice on a local and an international scale, asking students to make connections between instances of justice and injustice in their own lives, and in situations where justice has been or is being threatened in other countries … this comprehensive teaching guide introduces students to the concept of transitional justice through:
* Lessons on the root causes of war and conflict
* An overview of human rights and different transitional justice mechanisms
* Mock war crimes tribunal and mock truth commission role plays
* In-depth country case studies
* Individual case studies on human rights abuses
* Investigative tools to study the need for transitional justice in the U.S.
* Skill-building resources on how to apply reconciliation on a local level
* Conflict resolution and peer mediation exercises
* A transitional justice glossary
* Resources for further study and action on peace and justice.” Includes detailed glossary, organizations list and bibliography.
Bullying prevention
On-line learning module which teaches the user to “State definitions and types of bullying, list the short and long-term effects of bullying, describe places where bullying happens, state examples of effective and appropriate bullying interventions, describe the roles of parents, siblings and others in preventing bullying, recognize the requirements of a school bullying prevention program and locate resources for bully prevention.”
Peace education: A pathway to a culture of peace
178-page pdf document which “helps the educator, whether in formal or non formal settings, to understand that peace is a holistic concept and state of being and that it can not be learned in the traditional lecture-note taking-testing framework. Indeed, peace education can be integrated into many disciplines. The culture of peace must replace the culture of violence if we and our home, planet Earth, are to survive … teaching the value of tolerance, understanding and respect for diversity among the school children could be introduced through exposing them to various countries of the world, their geography, history, and culture. At the appropriate levels, curricula must include human rights, the rules governing international law, the United Nations Charter, the goals of our global organization, disarmament, sustainable development and other peace issues. The participation of young people in this process is very essential. Their inputs in terms of their own ideas on how to cooperate with each other in order to eliminate violence in our societies must be fully taken into account. In addition to expanding the capacity of the students to understand the issues, peace education aims particularly at empowering the students, suited to their individual levels, to become agents of peace and nonviolence in their own lives as well as in their interaction with others in every sphere of their existence … We have organized the book into three sections. Part I presents chapters that are meant to help us develop a holistic understanding of peace and peace education. Part II discusses the key themes in peace education. Each chapter starts with a conceptual essay on a theme and is followed by some practical teaching-learning ideas that can either be used in a class or adapted to a community setting. Part III focuses on the peaceable learning climate and the educator, the agent who facilitates the planting and nurturing of the seeds of peace in the learning environment. Finally, the whole school approach is introduced to suggest the need for institutional transformation and the need to move beyond the school towards engagement with other stakeholders in the larger society.”
Induction pack for tutors of citizenship education: Global conflict
29-page pdf packet to help trainees “understand the nature of global conflict, understand how issues of global conflict relate to citizenship and use issues of global conflict in their teaching in secondary schools.” Includes bibliography.
Briefing paper for trainee teachers of citizenship education: Resolving conflict between countries
6-page pdf briefing paper which “aims to introduce pupils to the values of open-mindedness and respect for others’ views, teachers should concentrate their approach on analysing with students how such destructive and confrontational situations arise, and how they can be avoided … a commitment by states to this process is articulated in Article 2(3) of the United Nations (UN) Charter, in which they agree to settle their disputes by peaceful means, these means are outlined explicitly in Article 33(1), which proclaims that states “shall seek early settlement of their international disputes by negotiation, inquiry, mediation, conciliation, arbitration, judicial settlement, resort to regional agencies or other peaceful means of their choice.â€
Briefing paper for trainee teachers of citizenship education: Managing conflict between individuals
9-page pdf paper “written specifically for trainee teachers of citizenship education, it is one of a series of papers that explores the theme of “conflictâ€; this one specifically addressing the issues relating to “resolving conflict between individuals,†the paper aims to help the reader learn more about conflict and to identify the learning opportunities that arise for exploring the issue with young people through citizenship education, using classroom and wider school based activities as well as a community focus.”