Teachers Blog
Check Out this Comic Book - Peace in Our Schools
Posted by CR Ed on May 27, 10
Students in the Cleveland Municipal School District helped create this special comic book created by youth for youth. Through a grant from the Cleveland Foundation, children in public school classes across Cleveland came together to take a stand against violence in school and in the city. The comic book that resulted is found below. The book is part of a larger series sponsored by the Comic Book Project. You can visit the project website to see books created elsewhere and to learn about how your schools might get involved.
Peace in Our Schools Cleveland Comic Book
Conflict Resolution Examiner
Posted by CR Ed on May 12, 10
The Examiner.com web network of syndicated writers now has a Conflict Resolution and Character Education examiner providing stories, role-plays, articles, and lesson plans. Lots of downloadable content of interest to teachers. The author is Debbie Dunn. Dunn is a professional storyteller, published author, a Conflict Resolution Specialist, and a Certified Teacher. She taught 14 1/2 years in elementary and middle school. She tells stories and writes full-time from her home in Mosheim, TN. Find out more here.
Teacher.tv Behaviour Challenge video module
Posted by CR Ed on Mar 25, 10
The U.K.-based Teacher.tv site has just released a very engaging learning module called The Behaviour Challenge which places you in the classroom with three students who are presenting problems that may interfere with the learning environment. You choose which student to focus on first, and then what approach to try with them and you see video of their response and some commentary from a coach. It’s a nicely done interactive learning tool. I wonder what others think - Does it incorporate enough Conflict Resolution concepts in the learning?
Peace One Day Multi-Media Curriculum distributed to U.S. schools
Posted by CR Ed on Mar 16, 10
Peace One Day, in Association With Scholastic, and Underwritten by Ben & Jerry’s, Offers Free Multi-Media Online Curriculum to U.S. Middle and High Schools to Inspire Students to Be Global Citizens
Educational Program Features 21 Lesson Plans, DVD, and Live Webcast Designed to Motivate Teen Participation in Peace Day on September 21st, 2010, a Day Adopted by All UN Members and Recognized by the US Senate
Filmmaker and founder of the UK-based nonprofit Peace One Day (POD), Jeremy Gilley, today announced the distribution of a free online educational curriculum and film to schools teaching grades 6-12 in 11 US states. The program includes 21 lesson plans helping teachers and students to explore such issues as conflict resolution and nonviolence, using Peace Day, September 21 as a focus. Additionally, all grades 6-12 classrooms are invited to participate in a special LIVE webcast held in New York City on March 19, 2010, at 1 p.m. EDT to inspire students to make a difference in their school, community and in the world. Jude Law, Ambassador of Peace One Day, will be joining Jeremy and special guests live on the day via Skype. The online curriculum is available at http://www.peaceoneday.org.
In 2001, September 21 was unanimously adopted by UN member states as an annual day of global ceasefire and nonviolence. In September 2009, the US Senate unanimously passed a resolution which recognizes September 21 as a global day of peace.
The Peace One Day curriculum fosters discussion and projects among young people about peace and nonviolence in their schools, local communities, and the world at large. The online curriculum is designed to be used in conjunction with Gilley’s award-winning documentary film The Day After Peace, a compelling documentary charting one man’s journey to establish September 21 as Peace Day. Thirty thousand free copies of the film will be delivered to middle schools and high schools this month. Peace One Day’s educational curriculum and DVD are being distributed in association with Scholastic, the global children’s publishing, education and media company, and underwritten by long-term supporter Ben & Jerry’s.
“For the Sake of Children-Peacebuilding Storytelling Guide”
Posted by Kathleen Doyle on Feb 24, 10
Interested in promoting the development of Peace Building in your curriculum? This online version of a book of story-based activities is now available in our CRE Resource catalog. The stories help to spark childrens imaginations to write creatively about their own understanding of peace and how they might create their own representation of having an active part in conflict resolution and the peace process. The activities in the book encourage the development, writing and sharing of stories highlighting many peace building elements such as: happy endings, win-win situations, challenges resisting stereotyping, peace within the environment and many more elements. You can view the book in our online resource collection: http://snipurl.com/peacestorytelling
Teachers.tv Anger Management video
Posted by CR Ed on Feb 10, 10
Teachers in the U.K. have a rich resource of videos and other support materials provided by teachers.tv which currently celebrating their 5th Anniversary. This video on Anger Management provides a look at the challenges faced by two teaching assistants who work to manage the anger and accompanying misbehavior of some students in their school. (Note: video downloads only work if your are based in the U.K.)
Teaching for Good Behavior - free OpenLearn course materials
Posted by CR Ed on Jan 28, 10
Readers may not be aware of the wealth of resources made available by The Open University in the United Kingdom. OpenLearn, built on the open source learning platform known as Moodle, provides lots of course materials at no cost. It is definitely worth a visit. One that might interest CREducation.org folks is a course known as Teaching for Good Behaviour. As the introduction explains,
The quality of our teaching inevitably has an impact on the behaviour of our students. This unit considers some of the factors that can contribute to misbehaviour in the classroom and some of the steps that we can take as teachers to re-engage students with the learning process. This unit considers the format of lessons, how lessons are delivered, how to present lesson content in an interesting and creative way, and the development of “engaging lessons”.
Here’s the outline of topics covered:
Introduction
1. Teaching and behaviour
2. Lesson format
3. Lesson delivery
4. Lesson content
5. Developing ‘engaging’ lessons
References and Acknowledgements
Great Video: Learn & Live: Resolving Conflict at O’Farrell Middle School
Posted by Kathleen Doyle on Jan 09, 10
I found this video very interesting and most helpful. The philosophy at O’Farrell Middle School aims to enhance student life in not only academics and family life but also to stress the benefits of Student Social Development in order for children to perform well. The school regularly welcomes the participation of staff of community agencies on site to help in this initiative. Specialists and staff meet with students weekly. For example, regular meetings include visits from Counselors to to talk with groups of children about Conflict Resolution techniques and visits from Counselors to discuss gang issues. One interesting facet of conflict and resolution that arose during a student-teacher discussion session in the video was how the issue of the student’s boredom in the class affected the student-teacher relationship. You can view the video as part of our online video collection.
PeaceKidz Manual
Posted by Kathleen Doyle on Dec 09, 09
I just reviewed the information in the PeaceKidz Project Manual. The Manual is a compiled work of five groups of Conflict Management students at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. The manual is meant to help teachers start their own adventure of learning, educating and inspiring the young people in their classrooms to make informed choices about Conflict Resolution in their lives.
When utilizing the manual the “PeaceKidz Gang” encourages teachers to be self-directed in their learning about the program before they use it. It is important for teachers to make their own decisions about goals and effort of how to build the features of the Project into their curriculum to successfully evaluate progress made after using it. The program is also designed to be Constructivist in nature - teachers are encouraged to listen to the kids, build on everyday experiences in the framework of the lessons and be ready to change and learn new things while delivering the lesson plans.
Words Work - Conflict Resolution curriculum for middle-school youth now available
Posted by CR Ed on Oct 25, 09
The American Bar Association’s Section on Dispute Resolution teamed up with some experienced conflict resolution educators (Nancy Kaplan from CRU and Kathryn Liss from HIPP) to produce a new conflict resolution skills curriculum. And thanks to funding from the JAMS foundation, the materials are available at no cost. You can preview it online here - Words Work preview.
The Words Work curriculum is geared toward youth in grades six to eight. Through ten 45-minute sessions, educators guide youth through interactive lessons that focus on relationships, problem-solving, communication, and leadership skill-building. The package includes a facilitators manual and a set of supplemental worksheets. Note that, due to the extensive use of colorful graphics, the pdf files are rather large downloads.
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