Sunday, August 27, 2006

International Day of Peace

The International Day of Peace will be celebrated on September 21, 2006. Visit the website to learn what you can do "in your own backyard" to create a more peaceful world.

Here are a few of the people who have contributed in their own ways to creating peace through education:

MARIA MONTESSORI



I've been immersed in peace education for my entire career. As a Montessori teacher, my main focus has always been on creating an environment for my students that honors each child's need for an emotionally, spiritually, and physically rich, peaceful, and nurturing environment. Peace education begins at home, as parents interact with their children in peaceful and respectful ways. It continues as children progressively move outside the direct sphere of their parents and home.

As the children grow into awareness of the larger world around them, peace education seems like it would become more abstract, but it does not. Peace, like love, is not something that is, it's something we do, every day, in every way. It's woven through the curriculum. It's in every word we speak and in every deed.

RUDOLPH STEINER



I've also studied the work of Rudolph Steiner and have been fascinated with the correlations between his Anthroposophical Studies and Waldorf Education in relation to teaching peace. Here is an amazing article about the "reverse symmetries" of Montessori and Steiner's philosophies.

JOHN DEWEY



John Dewey's Constructivist learning is, like Steiner's work, thought to be very different from Montessori's, but a deep and real look at all three philosophies show that they not only share common threads, but that they are woven from the same cloth. That cloth includes understanding that children have to be active participants in their own learning, that they must have choices, and that it is the adult's responsibility to expose them to an environment that is rich in opportunities for growth and understanding.

Dewey is well described in this poem:

A Philosopher's Faith ~ by John Shook
Inspired by John Dewey

My person returns to unwind all its threads,
Woven by language into the habits of heads;
An old wearied head must bow down one final eve,
But my lively thought shines in cloth I helped to weave.

Your gift by my leave is but some seeds yet to grow,
Whose value was found in times of need long ago;
Sow all of these seeds in our vast garden with care,
Protect and defend the greater harvest to share.

To view such swift change, see truths melt under new suns,
To watch how scared souls kept on refining their guns;
My nation was home despite such strife with no cease,
My freedom was here while humbly searching for peace.

By trial did I live, by more trial find my thought’s worth,
My death you will get if you conceive no new birth;
No life without doubt, for the best fail now and then,
No rest for my faith, that each new day tests again.


The pictures on this post are from a website called Better World Heros. It is empowering to think of the mass of positive energy that has been created by these people. What is even more empowering is thinking of the difference each one of us can make.....

Yes, in our own backyards.

Friday, August 18, 2006

Kris Kristofferson "In the News"



I saw this video a few days ago and was reminded of what a powerful artist Kris Kristofferson is.

I think many of you will agree.

Thursday, August 03, 2006

Art, Soul, Humanity, History


Why do we build memorials? What is their purpose? How does their design influence our experience not only of the memorial itself, but also our understanding of the significance, both historical and human, of the event or person being memorialized?

When I first visited Maya Lin's Vietnam Veteran's Memorial in Washington, DC, I was unexpectedly struck. I was awed by the power of the emotions that were elicited as I traveled down the walk, essentially underground, along with the people whose names were carved into the hard stone. Even though my father was a Vietnam veteran, I had never truly experienced the depth of the human cost of the war. After all, he'd come back, twice, physically unscathed. During the walk down the wall, there was a silence, even in the noisy crowd ~ a silence so loud, of voices gone forever.


I feel that the purpose of memorials should be more than to simply elicit remembrance and emotions, or to impart knowledge. The vision of a memorial is best served by weaving the past to the present to the future. We should come away from a memorial changed. Our hearts and souls can drink in the passion of the ideals that fueled the greatness of the person or event being memorialized.

At the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial in Washington DC, I was again in awe of the power of art to shake my soul. As I walked along the path through the four terms of his presidency, I already knew the facts. The genius of the art showered light on the history and the connections between what happened then and who we are as a country now.

In no place is this more evident to me than the last view we have of FDR at the memorial. He is sitting in his wheelchair, circled by his great cape, his Scottish Terrier, Fala, by his side. Unlike the Lincoln and Jefferson Memorial statues, he is not enormously more than life size. He is accessible. He is literally within our reach.

The art..... oh, how amazing the art is. He is reachable and touchable, and he is changed by our touch. Just about everybody who goes to the memorial touches FDR's outstretched finger, puts their hand on his knee, and pets Fala. Our touch leaves a gleam ~ a collective gleam on the statues just as our touch as citizens, as humans, leaves a gleam on our world.

Few understood that more deeply than FDR.