Organizations That Teach Peace:
Cultivating Peace Initiative has two classroom-ready online curriculum modules, a “Student Guide to Action,” and a link to “Peacemakers in Action,” where they highlight student peace projects and educational opportunities taking place worldwide. www.cultivatingpeace.ca/cpmaterials/
The Freechild Project supports young people in their work for social change, particularly among groups that historically have been denied political participation. The website acts as a directory for social change organizations, provides free literature through the Freechild Library, organizes letter campaigns, and provides a database on youth rights. www.freechild.org
Global Citizens for Change organizes international volunteer projects for young people and provides resources for teachers who want to bring global issues into their classrooms. www.citizens4change.org
Global Exchange promotes environmental, political, and social justice worldwide. They provide citizens with hand-on tools and overseas trips for developing global partnerships. www.globalexchange.org
Help Increase the Peace Program offers experiential training workshops for middle and high school students. Participants learn nonviolent responses to conflict, analyze the impact of societal injustice on their lives and the lives of others, and work on taking action for positive change. The website features articles on bringing nonviolence workshops to school. www.afsc.org/hipp.htm
Justice Learning engages high school students in dialogues on social justice issues. The website includes articles, editorials and oral debates from journalists nationwide. All materials are supported by curricular materials and additional links. The program is a collaboration of NPR’s “Justice Talking” and the New York Times Learning Network. www.justicelearning.org
Metta Center for Nonviolent Education provides links to writings relevant to the September 11th attack and a documentary collection of case studies in which nonviolence has proven successful. The website features resources for using study circles to support nonviolence education. www.mettacenter.org
Opening of the Heart is a photo exhibition and education project documenting the lives of Israelis and Palestinians. The site integrates personal stories and testimonies with the portraits taken by Beverly Duperly Boos. Customized traveling exhibits are available.www.openingoftheheart.org
Peace and Justice Studies Association publishes the “Peace Chronicle,” a newsletter that covers new scholarship and literature, research on peace education, central issues in the peace and justice movement, book and film reviews, and other selected resources for educators and activists. It also has a global directory of Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution programs. www.peacejusticestudies.org
Peace Games forms long-term partnerships with school communities to empower students to be peacemakers. They offer service learning projects for students, curriculum materials for teachers, and newsletters, workshops, and community events for families. www.peacegames.org
PeaceJam is an international education program that partners Nobel Peace Laureates with high school youth, teachers, youth group leaders,and college-age mentors. Through their PeaceJam groups, students design and complete a community service project and present their accomplishments at a PeaceJam Youth Conference, held in several locations each year. www.peacejam.org
Taking It Global connects young people in over 200 countries through a Global Youth Action Network and Service Day. They provide a youth action guide to help young leaders turn their ideas into action.www.takingitglobal.org
Teaching for Change provides teachers and parents with the tools to transform schools into socially equitable centers of learning. The Teaching for Change catalog offers hundreds of K-12 books, videos, and posters for teaching from a social justice perspective. They also publish a practical guide to K-12 multicultural, anti-racist education, and staff development. www.teachingforchange.org
Workable Peace is a secondary school teaching and learning project that integrates the study of intergroup conflict. The program gives teacher trainings about history and intergroup conflict, and provides curriculum materials and resources. www.workablepeace.org
Read All About It
In Bearing Witness: A Zen Master’s Lessons in Making Peace, Zen practitioner and nonprofit community developer Bernie Glassman offers teaching stories that illustrate ways of making peace one moment at a time. Each chapter focuses on an event or person and demonstrates how a particular peacemaker vow is put into practice. Random House, 1999.
Farewell to Manzanar, by Jeanne W. Houston, is the true story of one spirited Japanese American family’s attempt to survive the indignities of forced detention, and of a native-born American child who discovered what it was like to grow up behind barbed wire in the United States. Random House, 1981.
Free The Children! Conflict Education For Strong & Peaceful Minds, by Susan Gingras Fitzell, is a handbook for parents and educators on moving beyond conflict through the development of compassion. Fitzell uses concrete examples and exercises for K-12 students and suggests methods to create healthy schools and communities. New Society Publishers, 1997. www.newsociety.com
Skipping Stones: A Multicultural Children’s Magazine is a multi-lingual, ecologically aware collection of writing and art from children around the world. Includes an international pen pal section, book reviews, and news for kids, plus parent/teacher resource guides. www.skippingstones.org
Teaching Tolerance is a bi-annual magazine published by the Southern Poverty Law Center and available free to educators. The magazine includes resources, ideas, and strategies to help teachers promote intercultural and interracial understanding in the classroom and beyond. www.tolerance.org/teach/
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Michael Lujan Bevacqua says
This is so beautiful!