Peace, not Pieces - Part I

Or, My Personal Path to World Peace

Grade 11 Language B lessons are often more dramatic than Drama lessons. We have a mini United Nations scenario going, although all voting situations are won hands down by my generally peaceful Korean students. Last week we approached the mysterious and esoteric topic of "poverty", something that is but a distant concept for my richer-than-thou charges. But they seldom disappoint; in their individual oral presentations, they made connections between poverty and the idea of who controls a country's resources and hence, what it is that leads to poverty. Bravo, I thought, as I set out to draft this week's plan - one that should spill over to the next two.

In brief, the idea is to explore: As a global citizen, what contribution can I make to World Peace? The "guiding question": What are the many paths that can lead to World Peace? And not to leave out the much-maligned TOK: How does language and perception affect our view of "self" and "other"?

My English HOD wrote back on the planning sheet: "Lovely plan! Wish I could sit in." All I could think of, at that moment, was, "I hope it works."

We started off with a discussion yesterday, briefly wondering about "What are the main causes of conflict that stand in the way of World Peace?" Hyungbai immediately corrected me, "It's not conflict, it is confliction. Conflict is a verb." We dived into our respective gadgets - he, the digital dictionary, I, the laptop - and came up for air at the same time. "OK," he said, "conflict is noun too." Hyunbin confirmed it on his digital gadget. They had a minor argument, in Korean, involving nouns and verbs. Phew! "Please speak-a the Eeeeengleeesh," I chanted. They complied for a few seconds. The question I put to them next was: Can you give me examples of instances of international conflict? Choruses of "North and South Korea, India and Pakistan, Tibet and China" floated around. Like I said, they seldom disappoint.

Then we began to watch Jody Williams' talk on "A Realistic Vision for World Peace".
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/jody_williams_a_realistic_vision_for_world_peace.html

They were delighted, of course, with her using, without actually saying it, the F-word. We stopped to briefly speculate about which country the speaker was from - most of them worked out "USA" - either due to her accent or her reference to "Congress", "the President" and "dollars". We paused at the reference to Hiroshima - they were not familiar with the bombing, except Hazuki, of course. When I narrated this part of world history, there was a wide-eyed question, "Why did they do it?" Then they turned to Hazuki to ask, "Where do you live?" She responded with, "Tokyo." Then, endearingly, "Is that far from Hiroshima?" "Yes, very far." "Oh, thank God."

We made another brief pause to figure out the reference to "His Holiness" and giggled at the reference to "action" hero. Then, just as we reached Aung Sun Suu Kyi, my sweet SoYoung piped up. "Ma'am," she sang, "I'm not following any of this. It has too many big words."

I offered her the transcript. She looked at it with some interest. "This also has very big words." The others wanted the transcript too. "SoYoung, wherever you don't understand, we will stop and discuss it. OK?" She didn't look convinced.

The rest of the ride was fairly smooth. Conchita looked delighted at the mention of the Northern Ireland conflict [she had worked that into her "poverty" oral last week - talking about discrimination and unemployment] and Akhil was pleased with the Tree Lady's strategy to get people together. Deepak pretended to be staring out of the window, but whenever questioned on what had just been said, he supplied a suitable answer.

Then they made the first part of the following list: the need for peace.

Need for Peace
Kind mind
The world would be a better place for everyone to live in
Understanding with or between their different cultures
People live happier and safer life
Spread happiness
Not to be selfish with each other
Relax and be happy

So today's lesson began on the same note. Each one of them wrote his/her "need" on the board on one side, and possible reasons for conflict on the other. Kyeong signed his name with a flourish under "Not to be selfish with each other" - this, he explained, was because some day he wanted to join the government in his country and he wanted them to know this.

Here's the second list:
Reasons for Conflict
money
resources
greed
discrimination
pride
ignorance
differences of thinking
different perspectives of people
different thinking and individual identity
different wishes
different opinions
can't understand each other


The discussion that followed, linked ideas from the first list to thoughts on the second. For example, "understanding with or between their different cultures" was linked to "different perspectives of people" and " different thinking and individual identity"; "kind mind", on the other hand, linked with "money", "resources", "greed" and "pride". Soon, the green lines connecting the two lists created a tenuous spider's web. We identified four main areas that could be worked on:

1. Money
2. Resources
3. Discrimination
4. Differences

What they began to plan next was the project called: My Personal Path to World Peace.
The Objective of the project is: Convince other people that your "path" is a good solution.

We also discussed the TOK angle: Language and Sense Perception - the effect of these on our view of "self" and "other".

What is the minimum word count, Kyeong wanted to know. When is the submission date, Hyungbai asked. I shook my head at both of them. "Don't worry about minimum/maximum/optimum… or about deadlines. Do it from your heart. Otherwise it's no use for you won't learn anything from the experience."

Tomorrow we will watch another inspiring talk: Lesley Hazleton - On Reading the Koran.

As they began planning the project, which can be in the form of a ppt, film, photographs, talk, recorded conversation, enactment, etc., I sat back and watched furious scribbling on paper or rapid clicking on laptops, with a certain sense of satisfaction.


For, this is my personal path to world peace… and I have set off down the road with determination. To help my students think like global citizens, to invent creative solutions to reduce conflict, to walk for a while outside the narrow confines of curricula and learning outcomes… to sow the seeds of peace, not pieces.