April is National Poetry Month. What books are you reading to your children? Are they full of hippity hoppity bunnies and spring flowers? Nothing wrong with that. But how about trying one or more of these. Here are three poetic books to share with your children. Each one is completely different from the other, but […]
Let’s teach empathy
Last weeks’ post was a harsh one. It is so hard to believe that any American would condone torture of any kind. Tom Engelhardt in his post “What if Iranians Waterboarded an American” turns the issue on its head. What if it were an American being tortured he asks. What if it were someone we knew? Would […]
Do you love torture?
Do you love torture? Do you watch TV shows and movies where characters are subjected to intense physical pain? Do you play video games where you stomp on characters and mutilate them? Do you read books where evil minds and law enforcement design new ways to extract that important bit of information from the hero or the criminal? Seems […]
Is War Inevitable?
Modern man inherits all the pugnacity and all the love of glory of his ancestors. Showing war’s irrationality and horror has no effect on him. The horrors make the fascination. War is the strong life. William James Last Friday, September 21, was the International Day of Peace. Did you honor the day? I did. Thousands […]
Celebrate – Create Sustainable Peace
Wouldn’t it be great if there was a day when people everywhere stopped fighting wars, and instead gave humanitarian aid? By Tim Wolcott Well, there is a day dedicated each year to the cessation of hostilities and to public awareness of issues related to peace. It’s the International Day of Peace, established by the United Nations […]
Remembering Hell
Remembering Hell by Joan Koster What are you planning to do tomorrow? Get up? Eat breakfast? Go to work? Sixty-four years ago on August 6th, 1945 the people living in the city of Hiroshima were getting ready for their day. At 8:15 AM the first atomic bomb was dropped, killing 140,000 people in a man-made […]
CEASE
Does what we teach our children match what is happening in the world? In 1979 peace educator Peggy Schirmer and a friend walked into the preschool on Otis Air Force Base and told the teachers about the mock nuclear explosion to be set off at the Cape Cod base. The preschool teachers, like all teachers, […]
When Violence is the Answer
In light of the recent event in Aurora Colorado, it behooves us to re-examine the violent nature of our society where all too often the solution to one’s personal hurts seems to be go out and hurt someone else. Why? It’s on the TV, on the movie screen, in the video games: According to the […]
I really can’t, I’m no Mahatma Gandhi
by Tim Wolcott Do you really know Gandhi or even Martin Luther King, Jr.? You may think you do, but I believe that in some cases, we need to demystify our heroes so that we can more easily support their actions. Recently TeachPeaceNow.org was given a little book What Gandhi Says About Nonviolence, Resistance And Courage by […]
Do One Thing
What ONE thing can you do to make the world a better place? There’s an awful lot going on to be depressed about. Our last two rants addressed issues in education that will take concerted effort on the part of millions of us to effect change. Sometimes it seems so overwhelming, it seems easier to just […]
Happy Mother’s Day of Peace
In response to horror of the Civil War and committed to abolishing war everywhere, Julia Ward Howe, author of the Battle Hymn of the Republic, wrote a proclamation calling for women to rise up and declare themselves against war and for peace. She called it Mother’s Day of Peace and celebrated the day every June 2 as part […]
You Can’t Say You Can’t Play
In every classroom, in every school, in every community there are always insiders and outsiders. When you were in school which were you? In 1992 Vivian Gussin Paley set out to change the social order in her kindergarten classroom. She noticed, as most teachers do, that even when you outlaw hitting and ban name calling, […]
