Grant Applicant: The Peaceful Project

The feature below is brought to you by The Peaceful Project, an organization that is in the running to receive a See Beautiful Grant. For more information about all of our giving initiatives, please click here. 

To learn more about The Peaceful Project, please visit their website: here.

Discovery, Trust, and Living from Your Values

In fourth grade, his face was a rigid mask.  Throughout the exercise where the students related to experiences where they had felt sad, hurt, happy, scared, and mad, he only related to mad.  He said that he felt angry all of the time. It was later in the small group, when we were talking, that he began to cry. He sobbed, surrounded by supportive classmates, and shared how his two-year-old brother had died.  He had no one to talk to about it. He was afraid to talk to his father. His mother was out of the country. We spent two hours with his class, and when it came time to leave, his face was alive with a brilliant smile. He hugged me goodbye and wouldn’t let go.  This was the most profound time of gratitude for me in teaching The Peaceful Project’s Community in Unity Program.

There are more stories about fourth and fifth graders seeing how courageous they are: stories of students sitting at The Peace Table learning to respectfully resolve conflicts, and of children discovering their core values and examining how they will handle challenging situations from those values.  There is such gravity in this work.

We applied to See Beautiful to further Community in Unity in Ferguson, Missouri, where we have been working with fourth and fifth graders. Community in Unity is The Peaceful Project’s social-emotional learning program focused on peaceful conflict resolution, developing trust, understanding feelings, and discovering values.  

Discovery
In many character-building programs, traits are laid out as something lofty to aspire to and something that is ever so slightly out of reach.  Students are encouraged to display a particular character trait over a course of time, and there are awards given to a select group. We approach values and character traits as the beginning of a great, continuing discovery!

In Community in Unity, all students discover those traits within themselves.  They begin by identifying the traits they highly admire in someone else. It could be their mother who is loving, devoted, and kind.  It could be Martin Luther King who was compassionate, patient, and eloquent. It could be a cousin who is supportive, funny, and smart.  They use three of those traits in an “I AM Statement” that they will then practice. That statement is a springboard for their relationships and for how they show up at home, with friends, and in the classroom.  They learn that those traits admired in others are actually within them and are indeed who they are!

Teachers have the children read their statements before tests or at challenging times as a reminder of who they are.  The “I AM Statement” not only sets the foundation for the classroom community, but it is also a powerful tool for teachers to use throughout the year.  When there is an argument, teachers can guide students to remember their statement and choose how to respond from their values.

Trust
During Community in Unity, every student makes a Trust Agreement with one another.  They agree to respect one another, to come directly to the individual with a problem rather than talking about it with others, and to honor each other’s opinions.  This agreement sets the tone for the classroom. Knowing that others commit to being trustworthy makes a huge difference in how students view their classroom lives and in the level of safety and comfort they feel.  

When there is gossip, the teacher can discuss the value of the Trust Agreement and how gossip creates mistrust, judgement, and fear without solving the problem.  Teachers can have the class remake their agreement throughout the year, especially when new students join the classroom. Students learn to hold themselves and each other accountable.

Living from Your Values
The students live from their values through The Peace Table, where they come together to peacefully resolve conflict.  Everywhere we have introduced The Peace Table, students have loved it and have always reached resolution, sometimes after long standing feuds.  

The Peaceful Project’s mission is to guide young people to live their unique lives’ purposes.  A large part of that is recognizing the beautiful in themselves as well as the beautiful in others.  It is a shift in the way they view the world. Others become compatriots rather than adversaries. Students become their own advocates as well as compassionate advocates for one another.

Our programs provide opportunities for participants to experience the often unexpected power of peace in their lives and to connect to a vision of the future that they truly desire.  We have worked with young people in the juvenile justice system, members of the LGBTQ community, and students in elementary through high school.

Each heart that opens to new possibilities is a chance for peace.  Community in Unity is a heart-opening experience that embraces peace building from the inside out.

Written by Maggie Macaulay for The Peaceful Project

Edited by Rachel McLeroy for See Beautiful