Peace and Tolerance in the Global Village

	What is PEACE?	Scope and RATIONALE	A Natural INTEGRATION

Peace and Tolerance in the Global Village. Educational Resoureces

Welcome to this Web site. These pages contain the outcomes of an on-going project that addresses the need in the educational community to develop curricular resources related to peace, global understanding and tolerance. The project aims at promoting constructive responses to the tragic events of September 11, 2001, and acknowledges the educators’ struggle to help children understand the social and political context in which the events took place. We believe that teachers would benefit from organized resources that offer knowledge base and teaching ideas to help K-12 students understand the geographic, economic, cultural, and historic nature of the attacks to the United States, the war in Afghanistan, the violence in the Middle East and in so many other latitudes around the world and close to home. It is our hope that you will find the units of study and the bibliography posted in this site, helpful. You may also check out the units at the Library of Indiana University Southeast. More units are in progress. We welcome your suggestions and feedback.

Magdalena Herdoíza-Estévez
Barbara Thompson

“Peace means different things to different people,
in different places, at different times in their lives.

“So…

“What is peace?
Where does it come from?
How can you find it?
And how can you keep it?”

“Peace
is not a gap between times of fighting,
or a space where nothing is happening.

“Peace
is something that
grows,
spreads-
and needs to be looked after.”

(From: Peace Begins with You)

Educational Resources for Peace, Tolerance and Global Understanding

SCOPE and RATIONALE

This project addresses a current need in the educational community by establishing curricular resources related to peace, global understanding and tolerance as a constructive response to the events of September 11, 2001. In the wake of that tragedy educators struggle to help children understand the social and political context in which the events took place. Teachers would benefit from organized resources that offer knowledge base and teaching ideas to help K-12 students understand the geographic, economic, cultural, and historic nature of the attacks to the United States, the war in Afghanistan, the violence in the Middle East and in so many other latitudes around the world and close to home. On the other hand, children need help to cope with the emotional aspects of these events (American Counseling Association, 2001), and literature is an effective resource to do so through well-thought processes involving talking, analyzing, and sharing views and sentiments (García & Michaelis, 2001).

This project aims at designing and sharing units of study to go along with “text sets” (Short and Harste, 1994) for young learners. Each unit includes several high quality trade books and a resource guide for the teacher. Maps, videos, artifacts, and other appropriate material might be added to expand on the topics, to provide more depth to the learning process, and to engage the students in hands-on/minds-on activities. Units, lessons, and guides will progressively be created and made accessible to in-service and pre-service teachers. Each set is a separate entity containing the planning materials and the respective text set. Along with a recommended bibliography, the units can be checked out from the Library of Indiana University Southeast. This site’s goal is to reach a wider audience of educators and includes the planning materials and bibliography for units that have already been developed. We will announce the new units that will be progressively become available at IUS and at this Web page.

Embedded in the project is a component of qualitative research. Selected pre-service and in-service teachers will work with the project co-directors to assess the impact of the resources in the views, and attitudes of students in elementary classrooms. We invite our colleagues to contact us if interested in being part of this process.

Social Studies and Children’s Literature:
A NATURAL INTEGRATION

The use of trade books in the teaching of Social Studies and Science has been advocated for many years (Short and Harste, et. al.). Paraphrasing Priscilla H. Potter (1994) we can say that lives of individuals in every ethnic group offer elements from all their histories that can be woven into discussion of particular topics. This approach provides students with more interesting primary source material, and allows them to explore a topic in depth, rather than skimming over the topic as is common in most conventional textbooks. It is for this reason that we chose to assemble good quality materials that will expose students to diverse life histories and perspectives.

Bibliotherapy, the use of books to deal with emotional issues and topics such as fear and death, is an established practice in educational settings (Norton, 1993). However, it is important for teachers to have solid resources and backgrounds, prior to engaging children in biblio-therapeutic experiences. The resource guides for the project try to provide teachers with the psychological resources needed.

M. Herdoíza

IUS/Education

Books

Magdalena Herdoíza-Estévez, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Education
School of Education 0005
Indiana University Southeast
4201 Grant Line Road
New Albany, IN 47150
Phone: (812) 941-2302
E-mail: mherdoiz@ius.edu
http://homepages.ius.edu/mherdoiz