Living the Peace Testimony in Quaker Education

Quaker Education

CHRONICLES OF

FA L L 2 0 1 1 Part of the year-long focus on peace at Westbury Friends School included the planting of a rosebush in a special peace garden in honor of a WFS staff person who died in a car accident.

Living the Peace Testimony in Quaker Education Violence in its multiple forms continues to plague our country and the world.

Ignorance exacerbates the conflicts that cause this violence. As a Quaker school, it is crucial to our mission to challenge such ignorance and explore ways to strive for peace in our work and relationships.

So begins a statement issued by Friends Seminary (New York, NY) to help guide their community during their seventh annual Peace Week this past February. That kind of thinking also drives many Friends schools to incorporate the Quaker peace testimony into their practices and curricula. As the stories on these pages make clear, Friends schools are putting Quaker faith into practice every day.

Communication as a way to peace When it comes to weaving the peace testimony and nonviolent conflict resolution into the fabric of a school’s culture, clear and appropriate communication is essential.

The conflict resolution process is part of the growing movement toward violence prevention. When children learn communication skills, when they begin to understand reasons for their own behavior and the behavior of others, and when they are given safe places and ways of showing remorse and empathy, they will change the way they deal with conflict.

Conflict Resolution Manual Friends School of Minnesota Students and staff at Friends School of Minnesota (St. Paul, MN) are committed to nonviolent conflict resolution and have developed a program that incorporates three elements into school life: 1) conferences, where two or three individuals work out interpersonal conflicts; 2) group gatherings, which are regular meetings of larger groups to address issues that affect the group, and 3) modeling by adults, where all adults in the school are trained to facilitate conferences.

FSM provides training and consultation, as well as a training manual, DVD, and coloring book on conflict resolution. Visit the school website at www.fsmn.org for more information.

Effective communication is also at the heart of a commitment to peace at The Quaker School at Horsham (Horsham, PA). Students learn about active listening, how to seek assistance appropriately, self-advocacy, and choosing words relevant to their message.

To deal with unsuccessful confrontations, students meet with an adult who models and guides them to a peaceful

resolution of their differences. Each child tells his/her side of the situation while the other listens quietly. Then each restates what he/she has heard. The adult will respectfully refocus and redirect if the conversation falls off center.

Students are guided to see common ground and decide what they can let go of and what they can compromise on. They also learn “to agree to disagree.”

Students learn to be more accepting and mindful of other’s points of view, as well as how to transform uncomfortable emotional reactions into a thoughtful communication process.

At Westbury Friends School (Westbury, NY), peaceful communication and interactions have become a way of life. This past year, “We Choose Peace” became the school mantra, starting with the International Day of Peace on September 21, 2010.

Before the Peace Day assembly, faculty talked with students about the many ways “We Choose Peace.” Each class also had the opportunity to present something about peace or gratitude and watched two videos: “Gratitude Dance” and “Hallelujah (Free Hugs),” both of which are available on YouTube. After the assembly, the entire student body and staff hugged one another, along with the parents who were present. “It was one of the most memorable moments in the history of the school for we all realized how truly blessed we are to be able, in this day and age, to hug our students and be hugged back by them,” remembers head of school Gerri Faivre.

A school-wide project to create origami cranes for peace also became part of the year-long focus on peace. Staff set in motion a plan to create 1,000 origami cranes by the 100th day of school on March 3, 2011, connecting it to many areas of the curriculum and other school activities planned for the winter term. The project got significant support from Westbury parent Dr. Renat Sukhov and his family following their visit to the Sadako and A Thousand Cranes Peace Memorial in Hiroshima, Japan, which receives origami cranes from people all over the world.

“The entire school was highly motivated and excited about this project and how it totally immersed the students in the concept of peace throughout the long winter, ending with our origami cranes hung at the Sadako Peace Memorial in Hiroshima,” Faivre says.

Students at The Quaker School at Horsham learn teambuilding skills through collaboration in creating a poster.

For the 100th day of school at Westbury Friends, each class developed a creative display using 100 student-made origami cranes to celebrate the peace museum in Hiroshima.

A Publication of the

Chronicles of Quaker Education

FA L L 2 0 1 1

Peace in the Classroom

Friends schools are finding creative ways to incorporate the peace testimony in their curricula. What’s being taught in the classroom is enhancing student understanding of justice and basic human and civil rights.

Students at the Moses Brown School created a ceramic mural that serves as a reminder of Friends’ commitment to the peace testimony.

At the Moses Brown School (Providence, RI), two recent efforts demonstrate how the peace testimony is woven into the school’s curriculum.

In one, English teacher Lenke Wood and Galen Hamann, Director of Friends Education, discussed the peace testimony and conflict resolution after ninth graders read Scene 3 of Sophocles’ Antigone, a classic novel full of conflict and war. As homework, students wrote reflections in which they imagined themselves taking part in the Sophocles tragedy — and how they might prevent it. The exercise helped students understand that the peace testimony is not just about ending war, but also about seeking to resolve conflicts with neighbors, colleagues, family, and friends.

Meanwhile, middle school art teacher Cathy van Lancker and the eighth grade class created a mini-unit that introduced students to the peace testimony and Quaker artists like Edward Hicks, James Turell, and Melanie Weidner, and Quaker beliefs about symbols. Students then used pastels to create pictures that represented one element of the peace testimony. The images were incorporated into one design and students made a ceramic mural that will hang in the middle school halls as an introduction to and reminder of Friends’ commitment to peace.

Every student at Plymouth Meeting Friends School (Plymouth Meeting, PA) learns skills for social and emotional awareness through a weekly class led by Rob Staples, PMFS

school psychologist. The developmental curriculum includes a “feeling” vocabulary, as well as strategies for effective conflict resolution and authentic communication. The class culminates in training all fifth and sixth graders in peer mediation.

Although the processes become natural to the students, this established social-emotional curriculum is only one ingredient that has created a culture of community at the school. Everyone — teachers, staff, parents — are held to the same standards through clearly articulated processes for problem solving and working through conflicts. Problem solving processes and expectations also are included in parent and personnel handbooks.

More than 30 years ago, Wilmington Friends School (Wilmington, DE) initiated the yearlong Global Peace and Justice course to familiarize ninth grade students with the practical applications of Quaker testimonies. Most recently, after grasping the realities of global village thinking, students learned how to nurture a culture of peace and nonviolence by studying successes in the United States as well as Chile, Egypt, India, Liberia, Serbia, and South Africa.

Using social scientists’ analytical tools, students researched how several societies solved challenges related to human rights, interfaith relations, and resources such as water. Students learned how women build sustainability by role-playing activists and peacemakers at the annual

Carolina Friends School students work with parents learning nonviolent communication skills during a Rehearsal for Life workshop.

simulation of the international women’s conferences that occurred in Nairobi and Beijing. During the second half of the year, students analyzed global poverty, India and Pakistan’s independence, and the conundrum of Israelis’ and Palestinians’ coexistence.

A newer program at the Carolina Friends School (Durham, NC) also deals with the practical application of the peace testimony. “Rehearsal for Life,” adapted from Augusto Boal’s Theater of the Oppressed, empowers the school community to practice conflict resolution strategies within a skit created by students that highlights authentic conflicts and challenging situations. Participants ask an audience of their peers to step in and create new solutions, attempting to solve the conflict. Throughout this work, students examine bullying as a system, with a strong focus on empowering bystanders to take bold action.

This work has been widely successful with students, teachers, and even parents. The school also has co-created a teacher training with local schools so that more teachers can become trained facilitators in “Rehearsal for Life” techniques.

Prayer Flags for Peace

First person: Priscilla Taylor-Williams

Prayers for peace take many forms. One day last May at Olney Friends School (Barnesville, OH), students and staff gathered in worship to make prayer flags. The red, yellow, green, blue, and white flags will weather outdoors, where their makers’ prayers will gradually be released.

Resources I Use to Teach About Peace Teaching upper schoolers about the peace testimony in the 21st century requires not only knowledge of Quaker thinking, but also resources in three areas:

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information on the current and sophisticated body of knowledge about what creates “the occasion” for war and “the occasion” of peace;

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examples that show religion as the cause or source of peacebuilding rather than war mongering; and

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stories of ordinary people who serve as examples of peace builders.

There are a number of resources that I find particularly useful. For example, the book Peacemakers in Action: Profiles of Religion in Conflict Resolution, edited by David Little with the Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding (Cambridge University Press, 2007), demonstrates that ordinary people can be inspired to create the circumstances of peace based on religious conviction.

David Little is also associated with the United States Institute of Peace (USIP), a source of up-to-date, researchbased information. In addition, I like the Center for Innovation’s text Religion and Peacemaking, Lisa Schirch’s The Little Book of Strategic Peacebuilding, and the films The Imam and the Pastor and Bringing Down a Dictator.

Priscilla Taylor-Williams is the Chester Reagan Chair of Religious Studies at Moorestown Friends School (Moorestown, NJ).

Peace Education Resources Available from Friends Council on Education

Pax Globalis Established by a UN resolution in 1981, International Peace Day is celebrated by people around the world on September 21. Many Friends schools take part in this commemoration of the personal and planetary progress toward peace.

Visit the bookstore online at www.friendscouncil.org Conflict Resolution, Peer Mediation: Peers Helping Peers with Problem Solving Developed by Anne Javsicas & Laura Taylor, Plymouth Meeting Friends School.

One Day, One Goal: Spreading Peace through Soccer The One Day, One Goal initiative, celebrated on International Peace Day, exemplifies the spirit of the Quaker peace testimony by connecting children across the world to each other and to a global vision of peace through soccer. Germantown Friends School (Philadelphia, PA), which has celebrated Peace Day in various ways over the past decade, participated in the Germantown Friends School September 2010 event by joining forces with students from four area schools. Students celebrated Peace Day by taking were divided into eight coed teams for an afternoon of soccer games. Throughout part in the international “One the day, they talked about how to stay connected when faced with the enormity of Day One Goal” initiative. the destruction of violence, and how to educate students without discouraging or frightening them.

In an inspiring follow-up activity this past May, a sixth grade GFS class Skyped with a youth group in Kenya called Destiny Vision Youth Group and Jeremy Gilley, founder and director of Peace One Day, the nonprofit that started One Day, One Goal.

Pinwheels for Peace Every year since Friends School of Portland (Falmouth, ME) was established in 2006, they have celebrated Peace Day. They gather with students from the Governor Baxter School for the Deaf and The REAL School, an alternative public high school, on the beach at Mackworth Island to plant Pinwheels for Peace.

This fall, a group of eighth graders planned a new event. As part of their Non-Violent Tools for Change curriculum in Language Arts, they picked issues to study that would lead to some social action. The students chose teen homelessness, the health of Maine’s rivers, and conditions in Palestine. One group decided that Portland needed a community peace demonstration, so they sponsored a 5K Walk for Peace around Back Cove on September 18, 2011.

Portland Friends School celebrated Peace Day by planting Pinwheels for Peace.

This conflict resolution curriculum integrates the teaching of personal conflict resolution skills, the social studies context of conflict resolution processes, and a school mediation program.

Conflict Resolution: Training Manual

By Friends School of Minnesota This model of conflict resolution acknowledges conflict is a part of life and makes conflict resolution a part of school culture.

Education for Liberation: Preschool Peace Education How is Quaker early childhood education a method of social change?

By Tamara Clark, Abington Friends School This Master’s thesis explores a distinctive vision of Quaker early childhood education as peace work.

Embracing the Tension: Moral Growth in Friends High Schools

By the Moral Growth Study Team, Friends Council on Education.

Results from a four-year study of the moral growth of adolescents in Friends upper schools.

Thinking Together With Young Children: Weaving a Tapestry of Community

By Susan Hopkins Hopkins writes that no one individual has the whole understanding, or the whole truth, of a situation.

Corporate Support

Upstanders for Peace At Frankford Friends School (Philadelphia, PA), a person who upholds the peace testimony is named an “upstander.” Students who seek peaceful resolution to conflict, who seek help when others are bullying, teasing or excluding, or who cooperate with peers are all “upstanders.” When a teacher observes a student upholding the peace testimony, an Upstander badge is awarded at the next Friday assembly. The badges crowd the prominently displayed bulletin board across from the main office — the first thing one sees upon entering the school.

Frankford Friends School’s “Upstander” badge honoring students who make Quaker testimonies visible in the daily life of the school.

News of Giving and Support Celebrating 80 Years of Sustaining the Spirit in Quaker Education Friends Council has created some special ways to celebrate our 80th anniversary — ways that invite your participation.

8 + 8 = 80 Matching Challenge Four generous donors have pledged to increase their annual giving this year, creating a challenge fund that will match all new and increased gifts up to $8,000. That match will make it possible to reach our 80th anniversary goal of $80,000 for the 2011 – 12 Annual Fund.

How can you help? Simply increase your gift to the Annual Fund this year. If you’ve never given, make a first-time donation. All new and increased amounts will be matched dollar-for-dollar until we reach our goal. Plus, if your company provides matches for charitable giving, their giving will be matched too!

Help us reach our goal of $80,000 in our 80th year of preserving, inspiring, and strengthening the Quaker core of Friends schools.

80th Anniversary Regional Receptions Throughout the coming year, Friends Council will hold special 80th anniversary receptions in various regions around the United States. These intimate gatherings will provide a chance for supporters of our work and their guests to meet with Executive Director Irene McHenry, to hear about our rich history, learn about current services, and participate in a discussion of future initiatives. Receptions are being planned for Philadelphia, New York, Greensboro (NC), San Francisco, Baltimore/DC, New England, and Raleigh/Durham (NC).

For more information, contact Amy Ward Brimmer, Director of Outreach and Development, 215-241-7533, amy@friendscouncil.org.

Welcome New Heads: Lucretia Wells, Buckingham Friends School, PA Edwin Harris, Friends School in Detroit, MI Paige Clark, Oak Lane Day Care, PA Charles F. Szumilas, Olney Friends School, OH John Keeley, Orchard Friends School, NJ Deborah Kost, Plymouth Meeting Friends School, PA Tiffany Notaro, Ridgewood Friends Neighborhood Nursery School, NJ Andy Jones-Wilkins, Tandem Friends School, VA Linda Serrette, Virginia Beach Friends School, VA Alicia Atkinson, Whittier Friends School, CA

Interim Heads: Pritchard Garrett, Delaware Valley Friends School, PA Joanne Hoffman, Friends’ Central School, PA Wilford X. Graham, Friends Meeting School, MD

Appreciation and best wishes on new journeys to the following heads leaving Friends schools: Annette Breiling, Cassandra Caringella, Joanne Felice, David Felsen, Donna Goud, Noreen Greimann, Ed Hollinger, Kevin Howley, Anne Javsicas, Dan Kahn, Rusty MacMullan, Paul Perkinson, Rich Sidwell.

w w w. f r i e n d s c o u n c i l . o r g

Irene McHenry, Executive Director

I invite us to reflect on, and let our lives demonstrate, this optimistic message from the Lincoln School (Providence, RI) Peace Testimony: We know we are not many and most of us are young, but we also know that every act of trust, honesty, kindness, and love increases the trust, honesty, kindness, and love in the world. We believe these are the seeds of peace.

The Friends Council’s research study of moral growth in Friends high schools, Embracing the Tension (1998), showed that seeds of peace are cultivated in Friends schools through attending to and working conscientiously with any kind of conflict, such as bullying, put-downs and hurtful words between students.

The investment of teachers and administrators in working with students to immediately address and resolve conflict sends the message that the community cares for everyone involved. Respect surfaced as a common theme across Friends schools. The study found that the distinctive nature of a Friends school leads the school community to expend time and energy working through differences and tensions in ways that cultivate respect, understanding, positive outcomes, and moral growth.

The basic Quaker belief in the Divine presence in every person is manifested not only in a stand against war and violence, but also in the constant advice to live daily in love and learn from one another (Faith and Practice, Pacific Yearly Meeting). The conviction that there is that of God in every person commonly appears in the mission statements of Friends schools and is often used interchangeably with phrases from Quakerism’s early beginnings, such as the Inner Light, the Inward Teacher. The Quaker commitment to peace, voiced since the beginning of the Religious Society of Friends, is alive in Friends schools today through intentionally created ethos and curricula, as illustrated in this issue of Chronicles of Quaker Education.

George Fox, the founding force of the Religious Society of Friends in England, was imprisoned many times in the early 1650s because of his beliefs. He refused to fight for Oliver Cromwell, the leader of the Parliamentary forces in the Civil War at the time. His words have resounded in Quaker history ever since: “I told them that I lived in the virtue of that life and power that takes away the occasion of all war.” Peace is not just the absence of war. It is about our day-to-day relationships with our families, our neighbors, people in our towns and cities, and in other countries. Peace is about how we cope with people that we may find difficult and different from ourselves — adapted from Harvey Gillman, A Portrait of Friends in Testimonies compiled by Sidwell Friends School (Washington, DC).

Non-Profit Org. U.S. Postage PAID Philadelphia, PA Permit No. 248 1507 Cherry Street, Philadelphia, PA 19102 215.241.7245 U info@friendscouncil.org UÊwww.friendscouncil.org

Seeds of Peace Admissions Peer Network, May 21, 2012, Friends Center Assistant Heads & Division Directors, April 30 – May 1, 2012, Chestnut Hill Meetinghouse Educators New to Quakerism, Pendle Hill.

Three separate offerings: February 13 – 14, 2012, March 8 – 9, 2012, May 3 – 4, 2012

Peer Network Events Heads Gatherings Workshops

Development & Public Relations Joint Peer Network, March 12, 2012, Friends Center Diversity Peer Network, March 5, 2012, Friends Center Annual Fall Heads Gathering, October 6 – 7, 2011, Germantown Friends School and William Penn Charter School

Early Childhood Educators, April 16 – 17, 2012, West Chester Friends School Facilitating Quaker-Based Decision Making in a Friends School, Friends Center, MLK Room, Philadelphia, October 24, 2011 with Arthur Larrabee

Heads of Schools with Secondary Divisions, April 12 – 13, 2012, Friends School of Baltimore

Mindfulness in Teaching & Learning: CORE Skills and Habits of Mind, George School, Tuesdays, February 7 – March 13, 2012

Reflections

SPARC, October 19 – 21, 2011, Pendle Hill; May 16 – 18, 2012, Chalfont Hotel, Cape May, NJ

Heads of Friends Elementary, Nursery, & K-8 Schools, April 29 – May 1, 2012, Chestnut Hill Meetinghouse

Friends Environmental Educators Network (FEEN), May 3 – 4, 2012, William Penn Charter School Heads’ Assistants Peer Network, December 8 – 9, 2011, Carolina Friends School Librarians Peer Network, February 24, 2012, Moorestown Friends School Quaker Life in Lower & Middle Schools, November 11, 2011, Arch Street Friends Meetinghouse Quaker Youth Leadership Conference, February 2 – 4, 2012, Friends Academy Service Learning Peer Network, November 14, 2011, Frankford Friends School Leadership Institute, November 2 – 4, 2011, and April 18 – 20, 2012, Pendle Hill

Upper School Religion Teachers, December 5, 2011, George School

REGISTER NOW online at www.friendscouncil.org

Technology Peer Network, November 4, 2011, Abington Friends School

2011 – 2012 Friends Council Workshops and Peer Network Gatherings Calendar

Quaker Education CHRONICLES OF

Living the Peace Testimony in Quaker Education

2011

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