Calling Youth to Action: The Peacemaker Project

Transcription

1 Calling Youth to Action: The Peacemaker Project To build a world of peace, we must call on the young people of today. What Is a Peacemaker Project? Peacemaker Projects are youth-driven, change-oriented projects that engage students in working collaboratively to address pressing needs in their school or community. Rooted in key understandings of service and peacemaking, students investigate underlying causes of issues they have identified and work together to create and implement action plans that will build meaningful, lasting change. Peacemaker Projects go beyond traditional community service; they harness young people s courage, compassion, and collaborative energy by empowering them to take positive action in the face of injustice. Through Peacemaker Projects, young people take the lead in creating real and lasting change, and learn to see themselves as powerful forces for peace. Why Peacemaker Projects? Peace First believes that young people are natural peacemakers with the power and responsibility to change the world. To support them in this work, educators must provide young people with concrete opportunities to design and carry out creative solutions to complex problems. Peacemaker Project Snapshots Concerned by the level of violence they witnessed in their neighborhoods, fourth grade students in Dorchester, Massachusetts partnered with a local peace institute to learn about existing citywide violence prevention strategies. They created a youth-friendly brochure to teach students at their school about these strategies and to support others in taking action to create more peaceful neighborhood communities. They celebrated their learning through the creation of a school mural depicting their ideal community. How Do I Get Started? Begin by teaching Peace First s Peacemaker Skills lessons, which lay the foundation for successful projects through fostering cooperation, communication, empathy, and problem solving skills. Continue with our Peacemaker Project lessons to explore civic engagement concepts and to begin to identify community strengths and needs. Once you and your students have selected an issue to address, use this guide to help you plan, implement, and celebrate your own Peacemaker Project. In This Guide Welcome to the Peacemaker Project Phase Guide! This guide is designed to provide you with the knowledge and tools you ll need to guide students in launching meaningful Peacemaker Projects that create lasting change in schools and communities. Here s what you ll find inside: Core Principles of Peacemaking Projects that will help you prepare to facilitate young people in leading meaningful, changeoriented projects. Links to the Peace First Peacemaker Project Lessons: an eight-lesson guide to kick-start your project planning process. A Step By Step Guide to designing, carrying out, and celebrating Peacemaker Projects with students. Tips for successful project management, including games, activities and strategies to help your students get from start to finish. Peacemaker Project Snapshots Distressed by the monumental amount of Styrofoam waste created by disposable lunch trays, a Kindergarten class in New York launched a school-wide waste awareness campaign. Through creative project planning and outreach to the community, these five- and sixyear-old students successfully convinced their school to adopt reusable lunch trays that significantly reduced lunchroom waste.

2 The Peacemaker Project: Core Principles Youth are often asked to help, but have few opportunities to lead. Before you begin This guide is designed to take you step-by-step through the process of planning, implementing, and celebrating a Peacemaker Project with your students. But, before diving in, it is important to outline six core principles that set peacemaking projects apart from more traditional service project models. We encourage you to read through these now, and to refer back to them often throughout your project work. Effective Peacemaker Projects Promote Youth Voice Provide youth with the space and support they need to make meaningful decisions throughout the design and implementation process. Create Change Challenge youth to move beyond one-time acts of charity by designing projects that will create justice, equality, and peace where these didn t exist before. Make Peacemaking Visible Publicly celebrate the power of youth peacemaking while helping students to see the impact of their work on themselves and others. Connect People Bring youth together and encourage them to work collaboratively across lines of difference with their peers and the broader community. Embrace Developmental Levels Strengthen the peacemaking skills of children and youth of all ages through developmentally appropriate topics, structures, and activities. Encourage Reflection Help students to understand their impact by providing ongoing opportunities for reflection. Ready? Let s get started! Read on to follow our step-by-step guide to designing and carrying out a project with young peacemakers. Peacemaker Project Snapshots After researching the needs of local teens, a sixth grade class in Los Angeles found that young people in their neighborhood were unaware of the resources and opportunities available to them. To address this challenge, the class organized and hosted a district-wide student/ teacher basketball game and community resource fair. During the half-time show, they distributed brochures with information about local organizations and encouraged teens to get involved in their community.

3 1. Explore Suggested Duration: 4-8 sessions Congratulations! You and your students have decided to launch a Peacemaker Project. It s time to get to work and do some exploring! Peace First s Peacemaker Project Lessons are a powerful starting point to kick off your project work. This eight-lesson series will help youth to explore key concepts, such as community, service, and peacemaking. Through games, activities, and guided discussion prompts, students will identify strengths in their school and community and discuss issues or needs that pose specific challenges. Peacemaker Project Curriculum Overview: Lesson 1: Review of Fall Peacemaker Skills Lessons 2-3: Who is a Peacemaker? Lessons 3-4: What is a Community? Lessons 5-6: What is Service? Lessons 7: How Can We Help? Lessons 8: Creating Community Change The Peacemaker Project lessons are designed to guide young people through the first phase of project work. During this phase, youth are invited to brainstorm school and community issues that matter to them, then work together to select an issue to address through their project. Once youth have selected a specific need or issue, they are ready to investigate! Read on to learn how to support youth in this second phase. Peacemaker Project Phases: 1. Explore: Youth identify strengths and needs in themselves, their school, and their community. They then select an issue to address through their Peacemaker Project. 2. Investigate: Youth conduct research to understand the issue more deeply. 3. Plan: Youth create detailed action plans to creatively address the issue they have identified. 4. Act: Youth engage with one another and the community to carry out their project and build lasting, positive change. 5. Celebrate Youth share their projects and celebrate their accomplishments with their school, families, and community members. Promote Youth Voice: Read our Peacemaker Project tip sheet for additional games and activities to support youth in brainstorming and democratic decision-making during this stage.

4 2. Investigate Suggested Duration: 2-4 sessions Once youth have identified an issue that matters to them, it s tempting for them (and for you!) to jump right into project planning. But hold back! Careful investigation of root causes and larger social contexts will empower young people to emerge as experts on the topic they have chosen, and will prepare them to launch a true Peacemaker Project with the power to create meaningful, lasting change. Support youth in the investigation phase by helping them to connect with resources, community leaders, and organizations engaged in addressing their issue on a broader level. This may include identifying and compiling youth-friendly research, reaching out to school staff to share their knowledge, helping to arrange field trips or inviting guest speakers. Activities to Support Youth in the Investigation Phase: Conduct Interviews: Guide students in conducting interviews with local experts who can help them learn more about the issue they ve selected. Help pairs of students to write and rehearse questions, then hold an interview day when experts from the community visit the classroom or students make appointments to visit experts on campus. Don t forget to include school staff, parents, and families as you research potential experts! Chart Understanding and Questions: As a class or in small groups, guide students in generating a KWL (Know, Want to know, Learned) chart to track their questions and learning over time. Invite students to refer back to their charts regularly to add questions and document key concepts. Explore Cause and Effect: Draw a tree with the issue students have selected written on the trunk. Ask students to list the ways the issue affects their community in the branches. Then, invite them to brainstorm possible causes of this issue, and list these in the tree s roots. Connect to Literature: Create a display of fiction and nonfiction books related to the issue students have selected. Read a few each week, or invite older students to read these on their own during selfselected reading times. Embrace Developmental Levels: Be sure to plan age-appropriate games and structured activities throughout this phase to foster team building, maintain motivation, and keep youth focused on moving toward a project plan.

5 1. Explore 2. Investigate 3. Plan 4. Act 5. Celebrate 3. Plan Suggested Duration: 2-3 sessions Youth have identified an issue they care about. They have brought in community experts and conducted research to investigate the issue more deeply and hone in on their project work. They are ready to enter a critical stage: project planning! During the project planning stage, you and your students will map out the work required to carry out their Peacemaker Project from beginning to end. Collaboration and teamwork are essential here, as youth will need to work together effectively to identify next steps, prepare for potential hot spots, and delegate responsibilities to ensure they complete their project in the time allotted. As an educator, your role may vary widely depending on the ages and developmental stages of your students. Younger students may need much more guidance to understand each step, while older students may be ready to take the lead in creating week-by-week plans. Regardless of your level of involvement, your role in this stage involves keeping morale high, helping students stay focused, and asking probing questions to help students think more deeply about how to carry out their project work. Activities to Support Youth in the Planning Phase: Map It Out: Create a visual tracker to help students plan. Show the number of meetings you have left together and indicate any dates you already know (such as when they will celebrate their accomplishments as a team or present their project to the community). Use an arrow or star to indicate where students are in the project process and help them keep track of how much time they have left. Sequence Steps: As a class or in small groups, prompt students to brainstorm every possible step they may need to take to carry out their project. They should write down each step on a sticky note or small strip of paper, then work together to arrange these steps sequentially. For younger students, you may decide to write out these steps in advance and have students focus on arranging them in a logical order. Connect People: As students plan, encourage them to think about school and community experts they can partner with to strengthen their project.

6 4. Act Suggested Duration: 2-4 sessions With detailed project plans in hand, youth in this phase are ready to take action! Depending on the project youth have chosen, this work may include anything from putting together flyers to invite the community to their day-long conference, to writing the pages of the book they ll distribute to families, to painting hop scotch lines to refurbish their school playground. No matter what the work entails, be sure to think through how you will structure and support students time together. Take time to regularly celebrate accomplishments along the way and encourage students to reflect on their learning and growth. Structures to Support Youth in the Action Phase: Work Stations: Break up the tasks for the day s work time into centers or stations. Place all materials needed to complete a task at the station. Place students in small groups and have them spend ten minutes working at one station before rotating to the next. Expert Groups: Based on students interests or strengths, create expert groups to focus on specific sets of tasks. You may have a communications group who sends updates to school administrators and the community, a design team in charge of creating flyers and brochures, and a development team who plans fundraisers to buy supplies. Team Captains: Appoint (or have students elect) team captains in charge of managing key portions of the project work. Team captains may have separate meetings to check-in with one another, or may have regularly scheduled times where they report back with updates to the entire group. Document The Process: For effective Peacemaker Projects, how youth carry out the work is often just as important as the work itself. Be sure to set aside time throughout the implementation stage to document how youth are progressing from start to finish. Invite students to take photographs of the group at work, collect drafts of work for a project portfolio or scrapbook, or to fill out weekly reflection forms documenting what they are learning and how they feel about their work. Encourage Reflection throughout the implementation stage by allotting time to have students reflect on how their work is going, what they are learning, and why their project matters.

7 5. Celebrate Suggested Duration: 1-2 Sessions After many weeks of careful planning, collaboration, and determined action, youth have successfully implemented their own Peacemaker Project. It s time for your students to celebrate their accomplishments, share their work with others, and reflect on the impact their project has had on their classroom, their school, and their community. As an educator, your role in this critical stage may include working with school administrators to schedule time for school-wide celebrations, helping students to rehearse their project presentations, and planning activities to help students reflect on and evaluate their work. Activities to Support Youth in the Celebration Phase: Assembly: Hold a daytime or evening assembly where students can share their Peacemaker Projects with the school and their families. Whether they choose to create a PowerPoint slide show, write a speech, or show a video, be sure to allow time for students to rehearse and get feedback on their presentations. Poster Gallery: Invite each class to create a poster board display to showcase their Peacemaker Projects. Elect student representatives to stand by their displays and describe their projects to peers, school staff, family members, and the community. Book Signing: If students wrote a book, created an album, or produced a film as part of their project, invite family and community members to attend a book signing, film screening, or album release party. Students can present their work, then sign autographs and distribute copies of their final product. Celebration Quilt: Give each student a square of fabric or heavy construction paper to illustrate a favorite moment from their project work. Sew or tie the squares together to create a celebration quilt. Display the quilt at an assembly, party, or picnic, and invite students to share their quilt squares with their families and the community. Keep us posted! Share your project tips, ideas, and successes by ing us at dac@peacefirst.org