Posted on 11/02/2006 8:55:27 AM PST by XR7
The day starts at Redmond Elementary School with students taking the Pledge of Allegiance, and then the PeaceBuilders Pledge, a promise that the children will build peace in school, at home and in the community...
The PeaceBuilders program, which employs techniques and activities to promote nonviolence and prevent bullying, is built around a simple tenet, that students, teachers and staff members will be good to one another, won't hurt each other and will tell someone they trust when they have conflict with one another...
"The school has adopted this as a way of life; it's an undercurrent in everything going on there; it's infused in their daily lessons," said Donna Burcher, communication director for the California-based PeacePartners...
Teachers will give students Praise Notes when they've done something good, and if students are fighting, they may be asked to come up with a "peace treaty"... It works, Heid said.
Students are taught that every action they take either increases peace or decreases peace in the school, Heid said.
"It empowers kids, and makes them feel part of a community," Heid said. "It changes their mind-set. We spend less time on behavior problems, so teachers have more time to spend on academics."
Nationally, the PeaceBuilders program has been used in more than 600 schools...
"I think this makes a big difference to all kids, but especially those kids who haven't had stability in their lives," Heid said.
Redmond Elementary, 16800 N.E. 80th St., is near Redmond's downtown. The school often enrolls children from two local shelters, and 40 percent of its students are on free or reduced lunch.
The school pays PeacePartners $250 annually to maintain the program...
Making students feel happy and safe at school is an important part of the program, Fields said.
(Excerpt) Read more at archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com ...
Right.
And they'll kick your @$$ if you disagree with their mission.
When this generation grows up, the muslims are going to kick our @ss.
You used the J-Word! Don't you know that the NEA has worked dilligantly for forty years to protect children from that!?
Oh, remember those heady days, when we rang the bell for peace the world over? Oh, and then a year or two later we were attacked by religious madmen who didn't share our peace-loving values, and whose holy books said we should be slaughtered like pigs for being infidels, and FOR daring to believe in something other than the big, holy religion that keeps them enslaved to rich oil barons, but in exchange lets them treat their women like property? And we found out that nomatter what kind of vapid, self-deluding, ivory-tower, Bill Clinton, stupid Liberal Democrat alternate reality we built for ourselves, the world really is a dangerous place where you need a strong military to protect us? Remember that wonderful, Liberal-conceived, touchy-feely, feel-good, "gonna-change-the-world" Peace Bell?
I bet there are still idiots down there singing "Kumbyah" right now, and preaching about how the Muslims are just misunderstood. Liberals. What ya gonna do?
Needs to be repeated OFTEN.
"People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."
George Orwell
There is a blind fascination with 'empowering' everyone today, but when everyone has equal power no one has any power; which means the inmates are controlling the asylum.
I'll see your two peace bells, and a candle light vigil, and raise you a meaningless celebrity telethon used just to get has-beens back in the limelight, and a whiny PBS fundraiser gushing about how it's "all for the children!"
How nice for them.
As Tolkien's Eowyn of Rohan observed, "It wonts but one foe to breed a war, and those that have not swords may yet die on them."
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