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, were busy teaching their children how to live and work peacefully with each other and how to be safe in their classroom, never realizing the violent tableau being staged by adults outside their school.

Peggy Schirmer followed up this experience by creating a slide show “Children of Hiroshima” featuring words and pictures done by children who had been working safely and peacefully in the classrooms when the atomic bombs struck.

What one educator can do…

Peggy Schirmer went on to found CEASE Concerned Educators Allied for a Safe Environment. Read their Resolution: War Hurts Children! and consider sending it to every politician and world leader.

Here are some excellent publications by CEASE members:

    Teaching Young Children in Violent Times by Diane Levin

   Hearing Everyone’s Voice: Educating Young Children for Peace and Democratic Community by Susan Hopkins