WORKSHOP SYLLABUS – EDW 697

TITLE: “Building a Culture of Peace in the Classroom: Concepts and Strategies for Peace- building and Conflict Resolution”

COURSE CREDITS, ENROLLMENT AND SCHEDULE

This one-week, three credit graduate workshop, with an enrollment of 25, will meet from 8:00 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. on five days for a total of 37.5 hours.

CATALOG DESCRIPTION

Course participants will examine global, ecological, and local perspectives on the importance of peace building in today’s early childhood and elementary classrooms. A major emphasis of the course will be on teachers’ learning and using conflict resolution strategies and management systems that develop a culture of peace within their classrooms. This course will be taught collaboratively with experts from local schools and communities.

RATIONALE

Each year, there is a strong demand for workshops to help teachers develop strategies for the resolution and transformation of conflict within their own classrooms. This workshop is designed to help teachers become familiar with several well-known peace programs that have had success in classrooms and to help teachers extend the knowledge of peace from their own classrooms to the world outside.

OUTCOMES

At the conclusion of this workshop, participants will know and be able to

1. view the world and peace-building from multicultural, global, and ecological perspectives.

2. make connections over time (past, present, and future) and space (local, national, regional, and global) as they examine events, ideas, issues, and situations that occur within their own nation, communities, school districts, and classrooms that involve conflict, violence and peace.

3. apply the knowledge and skills they have already mastered to interests, issues, or concerns in their own lives, classrooms, and school-communities so that they can better meet the challenges and realities posed by an interdependent world and facilitate the development of peaceable classrooms and communities.

4. analyze the intricacies of cross-cultural communication and understanding globally and locally and practice strategies for culturally responsive teaching.

5. apply cooperative and collaborative learning techniques that can be used with children to develop tolerance and friendship, reduce prejudice, and nurture justice within the classroom.

6. assess value conflicts and analyze the role or effects of values in conflicts and in peace.

7. utilize conflict resolution and mediation skills in classroom situations.

8. practice skills that discourage, limit, and redirect negative behavior in the classroom.

9. review and analyze management approaches that support the reduction of conflict in the classroom and facilitate a culture of peace in the classroom.

10. review textual, community, video, and electronic resources for the classroom on conflict resolution and peace-building.

11. prepare a management plan for building a culture of peace within their own classrooms.

12. review programs and global opportunities for the basis of a future learning project that will engage their students actively in ecological and social improvement of the world around them.

TOPICAL OUTLINE

Day I

Introduction of Selves, Course, Overview of Workshop
Reflection on Individual Stories and Reasons for Participating

What is an Ecology of Peace? The Global to Local

How has the world/classroom changed since 9-11?
The Roots of Violence

Finding your center of peace.


Day II

The Peaceable Classroom – Teaching Students to Be Peacemakers
Kreidler’s 6 Principles

Community Building Program

Caring Communication – Building Tools in the Classroom for Peace

Local to Global


Day III

Peace Programs: Help Increase the Peace, Creative Conflict Resolution Program, Alternatives to Violence

Shared Leadership

“Taking It Back Home”

Global to Local


Day IV

Healthy Communities/Community Assets

An Ecology of Peace II

PA Council on the Arts Resident Artist – Peace Poetry

Local to Global


Day V

Mediation/The Peace Table

Teachers Sharing Plans for Building
A Culture of Peace in the Classroom

Global to Local

READINGS

Required Text:

Kreidler, William J. (1984). Creative Conflict Resolution: More Than 200 Activities for Keeping Peace in the Classroom, K-6. Parsippany, N.J. : Good Year Books.

Recommended Text:

Sapon-Shevin, Mara. (1999). Because We Can Change the World: A Practical Guide to Building Inclusive Classroom Communities. New York: Allyn & Bacon.

EVALUATION

Students will attend all classes and participate in large and small group discussions.

Students will maintain a daily reflective journal.

Students will review and prepare an abstract on one of the following: article or text resource, children’s book, video, and web resource.

Students will prepare an outline of a proposal for a student-based community action/ecological sustainable project.

Students will prepare a plan and a maintenance schedule for building a culture of peace within their classrooms using the Kreidler book as a foundation for strategies and the Sapon-Shevin book/outline as a basis for the philosophy of this plan. They will present a portion of this plan on the last day of the workshop.

SELECTED REFERENCES

Baer, Joan et al. Children as Peacemakers. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1998.

Barash, David. Introduction to Peace Studies. Belmont,CA: Wadsworth, 1991.

Boulding, Elise. Building a Global Civil Culture: Education for an Interdependent World. New York: Teachers College Press, 1988.

Burton, John. Conflict: Resolution and Prevention. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1990.

Brock-Utne, Birgit. Feminist Perspectives on Peace and Peace Education. New York: Pergamon, 1989.

Children’s Creative Response to Conflict. Descriptive Literature. Nyack, NY: Fellowship of Reconciliation, 1988.

Cloud, Kate, et al. Watermelons, Not War. Philadelphia: New Society Publishers, 1984.

Coles, Robert. The Moral Life of Children. Boston: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1986.

Cortes, Carlos E. Multicultural Education and Global Education: Natural Partners for a Better World. Riverside, CA: University of California-Riverside, 1980.

Edleson, Jeffrey L. "Teaching Children to Resolve Conflict: A Group Approach," Social Work (November 1981): 488-492.

Fisher, Roger and William Ury. Getting to Yes. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1981.

Fellers, Pat. Peace-ing It Together: Peace and Justice Activities for Youth. New York: Harper & Row, 1984.

Fletcher, Ruth. Teaching Peace Skills for Living in a Global Society. New York: Harper & Row, 1986.

Garbarino, James, Kathleen Kostelny, and Nancy Dubrow. No Place To Be A Child: Growing Up in A War Zone. New York: Lexington Books, 1991.

Hicks, David, ed. Education for Peace: Issues, Principles, and Practice in the Classroom. London: Routledge, 1988.

Johnson, David W., and Roger T. Johnson. Creative Conflict. Edina, MN: Interaction Book Company, 1987.

Kohn, Alfie. The Brighter Side of Human Nature: Altrusim and Empathy in Everyday Life. New York: Basic Books, 1990.

Kreidler, William J. Creative Conflict Resolution: More Than 200 Activities for Keeping Peace in the Classroom, K-6. Glenview, IL: Scott Foresman, 1984.

Lantieri, Linda and Janet Patti. (1996). Waging Peace in Our Schools. Boston: Beacon Press.

Looney, John. Alternatives to Violence. Descriptive literature. Akron, OH: Peace Grows, 1988.

Learning the Skills of Peacemaking. Carson, CA: Jalmar Press, 1995. McGinnis, Kathleen and Barbara Oehlberg. Starting Out Right: Nurturing Young

Children as Peacemakers. Oak Park, IL: Meyer & Stone Books, 1988. Reardon, Betty. Educating for Global Responsibility: Teacher Designed Curricula for Peace Education, K-12. New York: Teachers College Press, 1988.

Schmidt, Fran and Alice Friedman. Creative Conflict Solving for Kids. Miami: Grace Contrino Abrams Peace Education Foundation, 1983.

Last modified: 24 December 2003

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