Peace One Day – What can we do?

Posted by David Wees ⋅ August 10, 2011 ⋅ 3 Comments

This is cross-posted from my blog because it is just that important a message.

I just watched this amazing TED talk by Jeremy Gilley.

I thought to myself, what I can do on this day to support peace? I’ve decided that one thing I will do is blog about peace, and share Jeremy’s message with everyone I know. I’m going to share the idea with my students, and we will brainstorm ways we too can get involved. World peace isn’t the job of one person, it’s everyone’s job.

I’d like to invite all of you to make similar vows. Follow @PeaceOneDay on Twitter and offer them our support. Use the hashtag #PeaceOneDay to share your blog posts about this idea. Share this idea with your students and ask them, if just for one day, can they set aside their differences and be at peace with each other? Can we set aside our differences as adults and be at peace together, at least for one day? Let us all set aside September 21st as a day where we all work toward peace.

About David Wees

David Wees is a Canadian teacher with 7 years international experience. He started his career in inner city NYC in a failing school. He met his wife in the spring of 2005 and together they moved to London, England where David taught in a small private school which was David’s first exposure to the International Baccalaureate curriculum. London was too expensive, even compared to NYC, so after 2 more years they moved on to Bangkok, Thailand where David taught for 2 years. David has co-authored a textbook for IB Mathematics, and has his Masters degree in Educational Technology. He is now in Vancouver, Canada, working as a learning specialist in technology. He blogs regularly at http://davidwees.com.

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Discussion

3 thoughts on “Peace One Day – What can we do?”

Excellent notion, David – thank you. Much of our work at school has to do with helping kids be at peace with themselves and others during their time with us – it’s so much more than following this rule or that. It sometimes takes years. It’s precious work.

I would very much like to help kids develop their own World Peace Game this year – I will try to post on that.

All the best,
C

Posted by Chad Sansing | August 11, 2011, 6:44 am

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David, I just sent this to 3 school principals to try to get something going, and thank you. It’s a powerful piece of engagement and a way of combatting and speaking back to this:

8 Reasons Young Americans Don’t Fight Back: How the US Crushed Youth Resistance

http://www.alternet.org/vision/151850

Appreciatively,

Kirsten

Posted by Kirsten | August 11, 2011, 11:27 am

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Thank you David.

At our school we have been celebrating Peace Day for years but I never knew it’s origins. Celebrations have included having every child in the school stand up one at a time holding a large photo of a child from a particular country of the world and say the name of that country. Then all together say, “May peace be in…” This has been a simple and powerful ritual, instantly personalizing through the photos a sense of connectedness among the children to their peers across the planet. We have added other components, songs, posters, etc, but the photo circle is always the heart of the event. Last year we hosted a community-wide evening gathering in a local park with tons of candles and guest singer/songwriters. It was lovely. Wonder what other ways people have found to honor this important vision in their schools and classrooms?

Paul

Posted by Paul Freedman | August 12, 2011, 5:24 am

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