A biography study of "Great Peacemakers of the World"
Time, it seems, is never on our side. In an educational world filled with mandates, schedules, tests and deadlines, every teacher struggles to keep up.
In November, I looked at my literacy curriculum map and saw that it was time to begin teaching the genre of biography. Meanwhile, my social studies curriculum map told me I had to begin helping students "identify and evaluate the roles active citizens play in their communities, including decision making, problem solving and conflict resolution."
I took a deep breath and decided that the only way to tackle these two immense topics was to combine them. Thus began our biography study of "Great Peacemakers of the World," a journey that would have a profound impact on my life and the lives of my students.
I began the unit by scouring libraries and bookstores for biographies of "Great Peacemakers" such as Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, Eleanor Roosevelt and César Chávez. As I read each text to my students, we noted similarities and differences among the subjects and debated merits and drawbacks of their approaches to related issues. We also took time to learn the basics of nonviolent conflict resolution for ourselves, which allowed us to peacefully address disagreements when they arose in our classroom.
Most of my students' families are immigrants to this nation, and the children have a deep understanding of the hardships faced by many of those who still live in their parents' native countries. As a result of their first-hand knowledge of these challenges, my students decided to collect funds for people in the various countries they represented: AIDS patients in Haiti, orphans in Pakistan and flood victims in Ecuador, among others.
Our study of the peacemakers helped the class understand and engage in active citizenship, thus fulfilling our social studies mandate. It also augmented the children's literacy skills. Students were so interested in and inspired by the lives of their new-found heroes that they spent a significant amount of personal time researching the peacemakers on their own. Students who were struggling readers came to class with chapter books several grade levels beyond them, and were reading with fluency and gusto.
Kerry Fine
Margetts Elementary School
Chestnut Ridge, N.Y.
To help children learn more about nonviolence and how kids can help change the world, order I Can Make My World a Safer Place: A Kid's Book About Stopping Violence, by Paul Kivel. It contains great ideas for local and global involvement. ISBN 978-0-8973-3291-9 ($11.95).
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