Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly

In This Episode

For Educators

Religion and Peace – Procedures For Teachers

In This Lesson

Prep — Preparing for the lesson
Steps — Conducting the lesson
Extension — Additional Activities


Prep

Media Components

Computer Resources:

  • Modem: 56.6 Kbps or faster.
  • Browser: Netscape Navigator 4.0 or above or Internet Explorer 4.0 or above
  • Personal computer (Pentium II 350 MHz or Celeron 600 MHz) running Windows® 95 or higher and at least 32 MB of RAM
  • Macintosh computer: System 8.1 or above and at least 32 MB of RAM
  • RealPlayer
  • Adobe Acrobat Reader 4.0 or higher. Download the free Adobe Acrobat reader here: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html

Bookmarked Sites and Video Resources:

Preview all of the sites and videos before presenting them to your class. Bookmark all of the Web sites used in the lesson on each computer in your classroom; create a word-processing document with all of the Web sites listed as hyperlinks and e-mail to each student (or type out the URLs and print); or upload all links to an online bookmarking utility, such as www.portaportal.com, so that students can access the information on these sites. Make sure that your computer has necessary media players, like RealPlayer, to show streaming clips (if applicable).

RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY Web Sites:

Other Web Sites:

  • Al Fatih Academy: Peace Leaders Program
    http://www.alfatih.org/Peace_Leaders.html
    The Peace Leaders Program of Al Fatih Academy is a unique conflict-resolution and peace-building program that teaches students, families, and communities to build and maintain peaceful relations with one another by living Islamic values and practice.
  • City at Peace
    http://www.cityatpeacedc.org
    City at Peace is a youth development organization that uses the performing arts to teach and promote cross-cultural understanding and nonviolent conflict resolution.
  • Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR)
    http://www.forusa.org/
    FOR is committed to active nonviolence.
  • Life and Peace Institute
    http://www.life-peace.org/default2.asp?xid=
    The Life & Peace Institute (LPI), based in Sweden, is an international and ecumenical center of research on and action for peace and justice.
  • PeaceWeb/Network of Communities for Peacemaking and Conflict Resolution
    http://www.apeacemaker.net/
    PeaceWeb/NCPCR focuses on diverse traditions of peacemaking and increasingly involves youth and young adults at its global conferences.
  • United States Institute of Peace
    http://www.usip.org/library/topics/rp.html
    This site offers a comprehensive list of religion and peacemaking links.
  • World Conference of Religions for Peace
    http://www.wcrp.org/
    This piece highlights a coalition of representatives from the world’s great religions who are dedicated to achieving peace.

Materials:

For teachers:

  • Chart paper and markers and/or chalkboard and chalk
  • Screen upon which to project video segments, if available
  • Handouts of Web resources if computers are not available
  • Downloadable student organizers

For students:

  • Computers with the capacities indicated above

Steps

Introductory Activity 1:

  1. Write “peace” on chart paper or on the chalkboard. Invite brief student reactions to and/or definitions of the word. Ask them what they “see” or think about when they hear or read it. Paraphrase and synthesize student comments.
  2. Ask the students what they think of when they hear the term “peacemaking” and in what context are they familiar with the term. (Likely responses will include war, political conflict, the Middle East, and related topics.)
  3. Invite the students to describe their familiarity with current peacemaking activities, efforts, and/or movements with which they are familiar — globally, in their state/region, in their community. They should note small- and larger-scale efforts, with the understanding that we often think of peacemaking as a national or global venture. But people like Gandhi, the Dalai Lama, and Thich Nhat Hanh stress that even large-scale efforts at peace need to begin smaller, with ourselves in our daily lives.
  4. Ask the students to keep track of common elements of the peacemaking efforts their peers name and to come to some preliminary consensus about what motivates and is at the heart of peacemaking, and what type of individuals may be drawn to this work.

Learning Activities:

Activity 1:

  1. Divide the students into small groups. Distribute the bookmarked RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY Web sites and/or transcripts (depending on computer capability and access) equally among the groups. The following is a recommended grouping of segments to give the students a broad grasp of the range of peacemaking efforts and those who take them on.Group A

    Group B

    Group C

    Group D

  2. Distribute the PEACEMAKING PROFILE organizer. Instruct students to review the sites or the transcripts to:
    • Describe each peacemaking effort (what it is trying to resolve, who heads it up, where it is based, etc.)
    • Note the essence of each activity and/or individual (for example, is it strictly religion-based? Does it combine religion and politics? Does it bring groups of people together?)
    • Identify the motivators behind the peacemaking efforts (for example, war, interfaith approach to establishing peace, correcting the past, etc.)
    • Highlight the characteristics/background/experiences of the individuals heading up the efforts
  3. Have each group discuss and come to consensus about what is at the heart of most peacemaking efforts: cause, impetus, strategy, and leadership.
  4. Invite each group to share its findings with the class. Synthesize their responses using a schematic map or web or similar organizing tool. (Log on to http://www.graphic.org/brainst.html for a sample mapping organizer.)

Activity 2:

  1. The students should now have a relatively solid grasp of peacemaking efforts and what drives them, from cause to individual.
  2. Distribute the CRITICAL CONVERSATION organizer. The students can respond to the questions as part of a class or group discussion, or respond to them individually and then offer their thoughts as part of a class discussion. The goal is to elicit their perception of the impact of peacemaking, particularly on large conflicts. (The students may revisit videos/transcripts studied in Activity 1 or view/read new ones to bolster their responses.)
  3. Invite the students to share their responses and to engage in discussion about the overall merits and the downside of peacemaking, perhaps in the context of real world situations that are often beyond ethical, religious, social, and/or humanistic reasoning and control.

Culminating Activity:

The students have several options:

  1. The students can interview community peacemakers (who may represent local, national, or global causes in their community) to learn more about peacemaking efforts as well as those who drive them, and to compare and contrast against their original findings and thoughts. Log on to R&E Teacher Tips https://pbs-wnet-preprod.digi-producers.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/teachers/tips.html for specific interviewing strategies.
  2. Similar to A: the students may conduct e-mail interviews with representatives of global peacemaking efforts to better understand the strategies required to undertake broad-scale efforts, such as those centered on ending a major war.
  3. The students may create an actual or fictitious peacemaking program that addresses a cause in which they have a particular interest. They design a rationale, strategy, and campaign for addressing the conflict/cause they have selected, and if it is an actual program they want to implement, put it into action, perhaps under the guidance of a community peacemaker. The students might explore the possibility of working in conjunction with a community program to implement their ideas.

Extension Activities:

Students can:

  • Establish a conflict resolution or mediation program in their school that is built on a peaceful approach to defusing discord among students
  • Form a club in school that sponsors a series of programs and activities that reflect the student body’s cultural diversity, beliefs, and values
  • Implement a monthly celebration of historic and/or presently prominent peacemakers, especially those in their community. This might include posters, one-page fact sheets distributed to all the classes, videos on the individual and causes he/she supported/supports, etc.

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