 Good morning, everybody. Thank you for braving the heat. My name is Nancy Limogam, the president here at US Institute of Peace. And it really gives me great pleasure to welcome you all here this morning for an event that we love here at USIP, which is an event that helps us explore a year in the life of a peace teacher. As many of you know, USIP is an independent, non-partisan federal institute charged with the awesome mission of preventing, mitigating, and resolving violent conflict around the world. And we do this by linking training, with research, with policy, and action on the ground and supporting those who are on the front lines of preventing violent conflict. And when Congress founded us 35 years ago, they knew that that mission required an integral focus on education. And so today, our public education program includes engaging individuals and organizations across all 50 states, as well as around the world. And we provide resources and initiatives for both students and educators, including our peace teacher program. I want to just also note that we work around the world with young leaders in a program called Generation Change, which trains and mentors young leaders who have grown up often in violent conflict and have been forcibly displaced from their homes. They have each chosen a pathway of peace instead of perpetuating the cycles of conflict. And we bring 20 of those young leaders each year to Dharmsala for a week-long retreat in India and includes a highlight of a two-day dialogue with the Dalai Lama. And every year, invariably, in their exchange with the Dalai Lama, he makes the point to them of what is most important, invest in education. And it affirms our mission and reminds us that we fight wars on the battleground, but we prevent them in the classroom. So it gives me great pleasure to welcome our peace teachers to USIP. This is the fourth year that we've done this. And each year, we select four outstanding peace teachers from around the world to work together and with the previous peace teachers with exchange of ideas, with training resources and support, and it really helps them strengthen their classroom exploration of global conflict issues, of peace and conflict and how that works around the world. So these are American peace builders in action. And they have each come from their respective states to be with us here today and offer insights on how over the past year they've brought peace building to light for their students. I had a chance to meet with them yesterday and I know you will be inspired and heartened by their stories and all the ways that they explore history and current events and really challenge their students to think more deeply about what do those issues mean? What does that mean for their lives and challenge their students to take the personal responsibility to connect their actions to a more peaceful community, state, country world. So before we bring them up, I want to first give a quick shout out to our incredible peace education team led by Ann Louise Colgan and Megan Chebelowski and Allison Sturma and Yusef Sultan. They do amazing work. I'm very grateful to all of them. And I want to give special thanks to today's moderator, Joanne Liedem Ackerman. Joanne is an extraordinary member of our International Advisory Council. She is herself a dedicated peacemaker and builder, very talented writer and author. And for more than 30 years has advocated for writers and freedom of speech through her work with Penn International. So Joanne, thank you once again for joining us. This is Joanne's second year of doing this. I think we have with us the families of two of our peace teachers. So I want to welcome them to Washington. I hope you have a great stay here. Thank you, Monica Shaw. Where did Monica go? Who's a previous peace teacher? And I want to give a special welcome to all of you who have joining us online. I know we have a lot of people online today with a big shout out to our wonderful friend at the Tennessee World Affairs Council, President Pat Ryan, hi Pat. Thank you everyone for being a part of this event today. And for those who are tuning online, you can join us at USIP with hashtag USIP peace teachers. So with that, I'm delighted to turn things over to Megan Chabalowski and thank you all once again for joining us for this special event. Megan. Good morning everyone. Welcome. Good morning. Thank you Nancy for joining us this morning. And thank you all for being here. I manage the peace teachers program on behalf of the public education team. I am excited to welcome you all and to present our special guests in a few minutes, our peace teachers. But first I wanted to share a little bit more about this program with you. There is a fact sheet out there which you can read but I'll tell you a little bit as well. This is a year long professional development opportunity for American secondary school educators. It is rooted in the conviction that educators can be pivotal in bringing critical issues of international conflict management and peace building skills into their classrooms. While we know educators often welcome this role we also realize there can be challenges. Whether these include curricular restrictions, limited class time or lack of information about how to teach these issues. So this program was really designed to try to address these challenges and help educators overcome them. So each year we do select four outstanding American educators to join this program, to work closely with us and receive education, resources and support as they integrate these concepts and skills into their classrooms. They also then serve as models for other educators around the country. This is a very rigorous program. There's a lot going on behind the scenes that you don't see. So over the course of the year they work very intensively with us as they develop their understanding of international conflict management and peace building. And they discover new ways to teach about these issues. So they learn about curriculum that USIP offers that's designed for and by educators. And they also take online courses that develop their own knowledge. They lead their school's participation in USIP's peace day challenge in honor of the International Day of Peace on September 21st, which I encourage you all to do as well, please. Stay tuned. And they meet monthly online to build their connections with each other and to keep track of their progress. So by sharing their experiences and strategies with each other and with their colleagues and their communities, they are serving as informal ambassadors and models for other educators. And I don't think I mentioned this entire program is virtual. So this is actually the first time they're meeting in person. Although it's funny because every year we feel like we've all known each other really well even though we haven't actually met in person. Except for members of our public education team who have actually visited each teacher. Ann Louise Colgan and Alison Sturma had the opportunity to go and visit each of our teachers in their hometowns to speak with their students, their colleagues and their broader community about USIP's peace building work around the world. So it was a really excellent opportunity to hear what people in Chelsea, Alabama, Hartford, South Dakota, Franklin, Tennessee and Silverdale, Washington think how they think about America's role in the world and the importance of peace building. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to the stars of the show who are our peace teachers. I would like to invite our teachers and our moderator, Joanne, please to join me up on stage. And I will give you some quick introductions before we turn it over. So you have their bios in front of you so I won't read their bios to you but I do think it's worth saying a little something about everybody up on this stage. So I would like to thank Joanne Lena Mackerman for coming back for the second year. We're very grateful to have you here again as our moderator. She is a novelist, short story writer and journalist whose works of fiction include The Dark Path to the River and No Marble Angels. As Nancy said, she is vice president of Penn International and former chair of its Writers and Prison Committee. So she serves on numerous boards of leading non-governmental organizations and academic institutions and is herself an educator, teaching writing. And she's a former reporter for the Christian Science Monitor and continues to publish articles and essays and newspapers, magazines and books. And as a longtime member of USIP's International Advisory Council, we very much appreciate having your insight here today. Our teachers, Ryan Adams is a 14 year classroom veteran who teaches a wide range of social studies courses in Alabama and formerly in Louisiana where he's from originally. He currently teaches AP US history, 10th grade and 11th grade and has served as the pitching coach for the baseball program. So Coach Adams, as he's better known, also published a book called To Be the King of Diamonds which we've read and recommend to everybody as well about his own story and it's a way, his way of helping others to the telling of his own life story. So his family's here today. I think they might be in the other room but I wanted to welcome them all, especially his wife Melanie and their children ages two to 11. Jojo, Jesse, Tug and Sadie. So hi, you're listening in the other room I think. Cassie, Cassie Bates is an AP human geography teacher. After graduating, after graduate school she spent a year teaching English in South Korea which I think she'll talk a little bit about how that kind of helped shape her teaching and four years teaching seventh grade in Tennessee. So we have some middle school experience up here as well. Joanne Bull is in her 30th year of teaching. She began her teaching career in Iowa but moved to South Dakota in 1999 and has been teaching there ever since. And Jennifer Bull right here next to me, oh boy, teaches US history, AP US government and AP psychology in Washington. And her experiences overseas, including as a high school rotary exchange student and as a Fulbright teaching assistant really helped develop her love of travel and of other cultures. So with that in mind, thank you all for being here and they are going to kick off the event with some presentations about their time as a peace teacher this year. So I'd like to invite Joanne, our first teacher to come on up. Well good morning everybody. I am certainly thrilled to be here this morning. My name is Joanne Bull. As Megan mentioned, I've taught high school social studies for 30 years. The last 20 years I've been in Hartford, South Dakota at West Central High School. I'm here today with my husband Pat and Washington DC holds a special place in our heart. It is in this city where we met 21 years ago through the National Geographic Society and we celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary just last month on a trip to Sweden and Norway. So why did I want to become a peace teacher? Well the mission statement of West Central School District is to prepare all students for living and learning in a changing world. And I certainly think a critical piece of that is to create global minded citizens. And this can certainly be a challenge when your school district is in rural South Dakota where many times the students and the citizens may feel themselves separated from many events in the world. And so I thought this was a very important curriculum to bring to our students. So we did several things early in the school year to get the students familiar with the USIP and to get them in a global awareness mindset. And so we kicked off the year with several activities in connection with the International Day of Peace. It happened to coincide with our annual Trojan Reading Bowl. So at that event, some of my National Honor Society students hosted a table introducing our young students to the USIP, specifically the peace trail on the mall walk. And so the young students got a chance to vote for their favorite monument on the peace walk and then got a chance to color that monument in. The high school students had some fun that week. On Friday, I had a scavenger hunt organized where I had hidden several pictures of famous peacekeepers around the school along with some of their quotes. Students found the pictures, found the quotes. We used those to create a bulletin board and then at lunch, students traced their hands and used their collective hand prints to make a peace symbol. And what was kind of neat with that activity is students even took it a step further and they personalized it. They wanted to add their names or their own symbols or their own words to resonate that statement of peace on our bulletin board to welcome people into our school district. For the most part, I used the teacher's toolkit in my World History II class. And I had two objectives, two main objectives. One was to encourage students to start looking at global issues and events for multiple perspectives. And so one of the activities we did to get students in that mindset as I asked a student volunteer, how do you see the classroom from where you sit every day at your seat? And they told me. Then I invited him to come up. Now look at this classroom from my perspective. I see things a little differently. How about if you lie on the floor? How about if you step out in the hallway and look through the classroom now through a window? What if you get up on the students or the teacher's desk? And so while this was a fun activity, it really did get them into that mindset that here's something that I see every day, but yet if I change my vantage point ever so slightly, it gives me a different perspective on things. My second objective was to get students to talk about conflict. Oftentimes I think we see as conflict as something that we want to avoid. But how can we work through conflict and have positive change come from that? An important part of that was using the conflict style assessment provided in the Peace Builders curriculum. I'm always asking my students to make connections, connections to their personal life. So they certainly did their own self-assessments of their conflict styles, but then we took that a step further. And as we talked about the 20th century conflicts which are a big part of the World History II curriculum, I asked the students which conflict styles did various countries seem to demonstrate during these different events of World History II? And did that change during the conflict? Did that change during the 20th century? And then at the end of the semester, we took it a step further in a summative assessment by having students then apply this information to current conflicts going on around the world where they researched different conflicts and then used the Peace Builders vocabulary, the curriculum to make connections in that fashion. And so wrapping things up, I always like to tell my students that history is just that. It's a collection of his stories and her stories, but there's a little bit more than that. The story's not done being told. The story's still being told. You hold the pin. You know when you say that to students, that's pretty intimidating. But I believe that the activities that the Peace Builders curriculum provides these students empower them to take that pin and write that history of which they can be proud. And so they don't have to see themselves as simply as helpless witnesses to history that we have a voice and we have a skill set that we can influence that so that future generations can be proud of us. So in conclusion, I'm just so honored to have been part of this program this year and I look forward to meeting some of you a little bit later and answering some of your questions. Thank you so much. My name is Cassie Bates. I am from Franklin, Tennessee. I teach AP Human Geography at Centennial High School. And from the beginning of my career, from being able to travel abroad and living in Korea for a year, it was always been my goal to come back and to create more aware global citizens and to help build empathy in my students. I graduated from Lee University, which is in East Tennessee with my bachelor's and master's. I'm currently crazy Lee enough going back and working on my EDS and educational leadership. I have one six-year-old, so I got to actually apply some of this to my own six-year-old. He's going into first grade right now. His name is Lucas. And that was him and we were in California doing some sea kayaking, which was a lot of fun. So I've had the opportunity to travel quite a bit. Of course, never enough. If you've traveled yourself, you know that itch that you've got to keep going. And I recently had somebody tell me that traveling is like reading a book. If you stay in the same place, you're reading the same page over and over again. So it's my goal to read that entire book and share that entire book with my students and friends and colleagues. And I recently just got back from Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand last Saturday, still suffering from jet lag. So why did I want to be a peace teacher? Why did this spark interest in me? In my class in AP Human Geography, we have to constantly talk about conflict and look at case studies of ethnic conflict, case studies of Sudan, case studies of Balkanization and Yugoslavia, case studies of Rwanda, case studies of religious conflict in Ireland. And it's constantly conflict, conflict, conflict. And based on that and what we see in media, students constantly have a pessimistic view of the world, of the world is doing so much worse and all we see is war and all we see is violence, mis-bates, how does this end? How does peace come? And what happens after, what happens after the conflict is settled in Rwanda? How do you resolve those issues of what you just went through with each other? How do you talk about those things after the fact? How do you negotiate? And I never really had a good answer because constantly all we see is the conflict, all we're taught is the conflict, we're not taught about what happens after. We don't see on the news what happens after. So that really motivated me to apply and really drive for this opportunity to be a fellow with the peace teachers. So during our year, we got some really great guest speakers to come in and speak with our students. One of those being an employee for the Refugee Resettlement Agency in Nashville, which is really relevant to my students because in Nashville we have the largest number of displaced Kurds in the world. And I have students who live in the suburbs of Nashville and don't even know what the ethnicity Kurdish is. They don't even know Kurdistan is a stateless nation. So that was a really great opportunity for them to see that process and understand that process that is local to them. I also had our president of our Tennessee World Affairs Council come in and speak about his experiences in the military and speak about his experiences and working in different areas of conflict. I greatly had the opportunity of Anne Louise coming in from the United States Institute of Peace, which was perfect because she's actually from Ireland and we had talked about the conflict of the troubles in the 90s and she was able to come in and talk about how the US was involved with the negotiations after the fact, how they negotiated between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland to come together and work together. And that was our Senator George Mitchell at that time. And we were able to use some of the USIP's resources for that lesson. The peace day challenge that we did, I actually got to partner with our art teacher, Nikki Guarini, the National Honor Society had always wanted to do these pinwheels for peace but didn't really know when or how to do it. So our classes, while we had guest speakers coming in and talk, they took notes and they drew pictures and wrote about their feelings about peace and pictures of their feelings on these pinwheels, which you can see some examples of, which I have 135 students, so I couldn't get all 135 in one picture. But we sat them along Mallory Lane, which if you ever go to Franklin, Tennessee, it's like the busiest street. So it was really great way to bring awareness that weekend about peace day, the International Peace Day. And so they were, they suck out and spun all down Mallory Lane that week. So at the end of the year, I had the opportunity to see my global citizens in action by traveling abroad with them. And they really got to see the different perspectives that we'd been talking about each year. We had the opportunity to go to the Vietnam War Remembrance Museum in Ho Chi Minh City, which of course gave the other perspective and I had kids in tears not understanding this side that they hadn't seen before. And my own son coming to me and asked me, mommy, who's the good guy? And having to answer those questions and really see them interact with those perspectives and go to a school in Cambodia, it was a really great opportunity and I am so thankful that I've had the opportunity for the Peace Fellowship and really keep going and learn more about how we rebuild an hour job and our students job to build peace in the world. Thank you. Good morning everybody. Hi, my name is Walter, Ryan Adams. Go by Ryan. From Chelsea High School in Chelsea, Alabama. Teach AP US History, both 10th grade and 11th grade. My wife, Melanie, is in the next room, along with my four kids who are here. And you can see on the bottom right picture, I saw all four of them in front of the USIP the other day, Sadie, Tug, Jojo, and Jesse. I thought that was Jojo across the street. So what's interesting is really, there's obviously something different about me. I am the coach up here. Baseball guy and becoming a USIP Peace teacher is a bit of an interesting story because how did I come to do this? I am not well traveled. With four kids, trips to the grocery store is enough. So we don't venture very far out of our little region of the country. And so last year, when I got an email from a friend of mine from the Close-up Foundation, Lauren Rumpke, sent me an email and said, hey, this thing is like you, you should apply. So, you know what? Okay, I'll apply. Answer the questions put down, just trying to be me. And then all of a sudden, found out last July, hey, you got accepted, it's like, all right. When we all met, then I realized, wait, this is a little bit more special than I even imagined. It's a little more select than I even imagined because I have some obvious challenges. I know I don't have any international experience to be able to bring to the classroom or to bring to the program. I know that I teach AP US history and coach baseball every day. And so I'm kind of narrowed down by the challenges of the context. And so then it kind of dawned on me, spend the year kind of fulfilling whatever it is that they saw in you to begin with. So that's what I did. So I took a lot of the peacekeeping tools and kit, a lot of the curriculum that we were given and I just adapted to what it was because I am a social science teacher, which means that my interaction and the interactions that happened in my little microcosm of a classroom, well, that's gonna translate because it's a direct translation to how things are and how my students, myself, how they're gonna interact with others on not only on a person to person level in our classroom, but also in a school-wide interaction, in community-wide interaction, in county-wide, in statewide national and international interaction. It's about how people deal with people. So if I know that that's how it translates then let's take the skills that we were given and adapt those because I don't teach a subject. It's not just teaching about facts and dates and history as to when things happened and knowing them because I can fulfill a jeopardy question. That only provides us the context and the opportunity to put these skills into action within our students. And so what I teach is I teach students. And it's about my interaction with them. One of the things that I loved about the program was the definitions that we were given. Looking at conflict as not a negative thing, but just something that's gonna happen. Getting the idea of, and I always thought that was a fairly good storyteller, but the difference between story and a narrative, one someone hears the other, they're a part of. And so that's what my job was, is to develop these skills with my students and for them in interaction with myself to become part of the same narrative. One of the biggest things I had taken away throughout this year that I end up going back to quite often. And there were several activities that we had along the way. Sure, we'll chance to talk about it later, but in March we did our own little March Madness. I'm a graduate from the University of Alabama and our basketball team's been up very good. So instead of focusing on that bracket, my classroom, we developed our own presidential bracket. And using the approaches to conflict as a means to figure out who the best ever is. And became a very interesting activity. Use the conflict styles analysis within my classroom for the students to realize how they attend to approach conflict and to see if that changed over the course of the year. But this idea of a conflict resolution and conflict transformation, this really stuck out as to how I approached and what changed me as to how I approached just teaching even after 15 years of being in the classroom. It is not about solving problems. I can put something on the board and just because I put it on the board does not mean that they know it. But getting past and going to the root of the issue, that's where the real change can happen. Because each student that comes in, each person who's in here right now, everybody comes in with their own story, their own background that brought them to this moment. And as I interact with students every day, I'm getting kids from various backgrounds and various, as Joanne put it, various perspectives of where they are in the room. And my job, our job is unique that our responsibility is to reach each and every single one of them. And it may not be on this day or this day, but throughout the context of just the classroom in general and through historical situations, we can pull off each one of those layers and get to addressing the real issues. And does it work all the time? It's a process. It is a process. But one thing that stuck out in something that I end up putting on my board and a question that I'll ask my students each day is to try to simplify what we see as very, very complex. And it came down to a simple question. When you have the opportunity, which one would you choose? Would I rather do right or be right? And certainly becomes very powerful to think about because I know what we would all like to say. But then you reflect back at how often in trying to do one, you end up doing the other. In trying to do the right thing, you end up just getting your point so that you can fulfill that you were right. It is possible and certainly I would love to have it to where you could have both. But when it comes down to it, you only have that choice. And that's the position that I try to challenge myself daily as a dad, try to pose to my kids daily as a husband. My wife's always right. So, but it came to a central question that I certainly got out of the program and became essential to my classroom. And probably the biggest thing that certainly I got out through this entire year. So thank you. Good morning. I'm Jennifer O'Boyle and I teach in Silverdale, Washington. Those are my two kiddos, Madeline and Keegan, running through some very cold water before the summer started, but they did not care. And every oldest sibling has to tease their youngest one with seaweed or something, you know. That's a picture of our building. We have some Native American connections, a Native American Indian connections there. So, Klahaya actually means a welcome friend in the Shinnef jargon. And so we try to build on that. And then we are also in between two pretty major, well actually kind of three pretty major military installations with Kitsap Naval Base Banger and Lois McCord Joint Base and then the PSNS, which is the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard. So we're kind of all right in there, which brings some interesting perspectives to our classrooms as well. Why the peace program? You know, when I started teaching social studies because my background is actually in English, I ended up teaching a course called Contemporary World Issues, which the students and I very quickly realized was depressing. You know, I mean, I kind of go back to this idea of where's the hope, right? And I had traveled, you know, and I had had the opportunity to live overseas twice and so I had some of that perspective. But all of a sudden, you know, we kind of had this epiphany and so I started spending a few minutes every day in that course searching for people who were working within their conflict areas to make change and to, and what were people actually doing that was working? And so we started kind of having that focus instead, which this just really built on. And so I'm so appreciative of that. And that helped us start to kind of change how we approached things. I had one in particular student who had done a lot of research into the human trafficking issues. And so she had shown me the half the sky documentary which I then started using, which was a wonderful piece about how people are actually bringing change to their countries and then how they're working together with others as well. So all of that kind of led me to apply for this program which has been absolutely wonderful. So pictures up there, one of the first things we did this year was celebrating the International Day of Peace. And we made an attempt at creating a human piece symbol down on our football field. And that's not the greatest picture of it, but I learned a few things about how you have to go about doing that. But it was fun and the kids really engaged with that and that idea. Our choir was singing peace in our house that morning and our building really, we passed out quotes from about peace and from Nobel Peace Prize winners. And it was really a great way to kick off the year and kind of that focus. And even as early on as teaching about 9-11, I teach you a history most of the day. And it really shifted how I approach things like that. And instead of just teaching the factual information, we then went and I found some write-ups from Nobel Peace Prize winners about 9-11 and we looked at those. And so there was a shift throughout the year in my thinking about how I teach what I teach, which obviously would be the goal, right? So how I incorporated the USIP curriculum, I kind of gave myself permission to just work through all of the curriculum that is offered or as much of it as I could. And so we did things that allowed students to see, to grapple with complex ideas like what is peace and what is conflict and how can you define peace in a way that it's achievable. And I even had one young woman say, well, trying to define conflict is a conflict. I went, yeah, I mean they were having some struggle. I mean, they were struggling to come up with actual definitions that they could agree on and use. But that's important work and that starts to empower them, which is really my goal is to empower students to see that they're part of that process, right? So through the curriculum, they were able to role play, active listening, we talked about the difference between dialogue and debate and that debate is about winning or losing, whereas dialogue's really about searching for people's stories and why they believe the way they do and what's at the root of how can we maybe get a win-win out of this or at least not a loss. And that really resonated with students as well and will change how I approach some things I do in the classroom, not quite as much debate maybe as more structured conversation about why things are the way they are. And that led us to a final project, one of the pictures up there, oh, and then Allison is up there when she visited because my students really engaged with her as well and I think just hearing, feeling connected to USIP through the visit was really important for them to feel like they're a part of something bigger. And then my students at the end of the year did a final project based on the concrete skills that we had been learning and role playing with negotiation and mediation and active listening where they had to take a current international conflict that the US was involved with or if they were not involved with it, why they should be, why we should be. And then they had to write out a script of how in their ideal world they would resolve this, how they would come to build some peace with that using either mediation or negotiation or those skills. And they really, I mean some of it was a little bit simplistic, but it really gave them a sense of what would be required to actually sit down with people, they had to decide who was involved and how that conversation would look and how much time that might take and how many times they might have to sit down together and really get at why people believe the way they do. So I did have to laugh, the one picture shows them holding bananas because why would you use your cell phones that you carry to class as props when you have bananas you could use for a telephone? I don't know. But the concrete skills were really great for abstract concepts. Now they have some actual skills that they can use. What they, the impact really was about, I truly believe they feel empowered now. They're starting to see themselves as peace builders. And interestingly, I'm not positive I would have seen myself completely as a peace builder before this year, but I do at this point. The one picture they did peace collages, just what peace means to them and that was a pretty cool way to show that. And then I did work with some staff this year as well. Our art teacher, our PE teacher, a couple of other staff members are in that photo. And one of the reflections that they had and my students had was really the importance of relationships in any sort of conflict resolution. And that if you don't build that trust in that relationship, that it's pretty hard to step over any sort of line and come to any sort of agreement there. And then I just had to share the card that a student gave me at the end of the year happened to be a Mother Teresa quote and then inside it says at the end, thank you for teaching us about peace, which I didn't see coming, so it was touching. It was a nice way to end. And what I really got out of this year was students are really yearning, they're yearning to be a part of the process and to see themselves as building peace and making progress in terms of solving problems. So, and I'm very grateful to have been a part of it. Thank you. Well, thank you. That was very inspiring. It gives us all some hope, I think. Well, I'll talk for about 15, 20 minutes and we're going to open it to questions both to everybody in the room and to people who are on the internet. So if you're on the internet, please send in your questions. You know, a year ago when we had this symposium, it happened to be the day that the very last soccer student that was in the caves in Thailand, it's hard to believe that's a year ago, got out. And I came here with that incredible piece of hope. It was a time when nations put aside all of their differences and there were, China was there, the US was there, Britain was there. And just focused on a single important mission and sort of miraculously got them out. So I read the paper today, there was nothing today that gave me the same hope. So I thought I'd have to go back for a minute. But I think when we think about peace, you know we can think about several, many metaphors come to mind. One is, you know, bridge building where you have pylons and you find a way to go across the bridge. And that probably is more what happens at an international level as leaders come together. But this program really makes me think, excuse me for mixing metaphors, but of a fabric. You know, many, many threads in a society. And you can't get peace just at the top. You have to get it through the whole society. And I think that's why this program is so important and clearly listening to these teachers, you know, we see that. And so the first question I'd like to put to these four teachers is, and it pivots off of a question that I think casts you as, is what comes after conflict? What do you do after that? So what happens next for you all in your schools? You've had this year, and how does that begin to radiate outward into your community for other students, to parents and all? So whoever wants to go first. Okay, it is on. I wasn't sure if it was already on. I would say that I think starting by building on the students that I already had this year, and perhaps getting them involved next year early on with adding onto our peace day act, international peace day activities. And then I had some good buy-in from several staff members about participating and trying to build onto what we're doing and adding some of these really concrete skills into their classes as well. So I think that that's kind of where we're headed in terms of trying to spread it throughout our building. And our building's a little bit unique in that we're a sixth through twelfth grade secondary school. So we can really kind of layer that through even if it's not international conflict in sixth grade, it is by 10th grade and building on those concrete skills. Yes, and to piggyback on what Jennifer had said earlier, these students, they yearn to learn more. And I know that in the past year and next year, getting involved with the student leadership groups, over the summer, I'm taking over the Student Government Association. And those students have already met with me and trying to incorporate this. We have a group called the Peer Helpers and our Chelsea High School Ambassador Program in which it is service oriented. And having these students to kind of be the beatings and examples of something much greater than themselves. I mean, when they feel empowered to be a part of something special, they end up surprising you or not surprising you in being a part of something special. I'm excited to continue working with my students next year, doing another international day of peace and getting more teachers involved in that. I'm also excited to start a group, a club at my school that will include a lot of the peace curriculum that USIP has provided and to empower my students to go take it another step, go further. A lot of my students don't know all the opportunities there are available to them. Every year I have a student that will go and major in college in different fields of geography. I have one that's majoring in environmental geography, another in international relations, another in development, all at different schools, but to continue showing them, even in the United States, we have so many opportunities for you to continue in what you're passionate about because my students will get on fire in my class, but they don't really know how to go to that next level. So I'm excited to continue pushing them in this direction and showing them the opportunities that they do have available to them. One of the favorite activities that we did was early in the year when I had those National Honor Society students work with those elementary students at that Trojan Reading Bowl, and that's what I'd like to do more with is get those high school students in those elementary classrooms, those elementary students love those high school students, they see them as their role models, and I think that's a win-win situation where now those high school students in turn really feel like now they're doing something proactive to help that next generation. So that would be my goal, getting it into the elementary levels as well. Great, great. Well, one thing we all know that in building peace, one of the words that has come out in our discussions and came out of your talks is empathy, perspective, seeing it from somebody else's perspective. Looking at what we have in common more than what divides us, I think Casey, you had a very good idea just before this program that USIP should have a little course just like this for politicians, maybe even some Congress. So I think that idea of how we take these very basic skills and not to romanticize them, but to really realize how important they are. I also like the idea, and if each of you has maybe one story or narrative, I think then we'll stop and open it up to the audience because in my experience, people don't take away the abstract words that take away the stories. You'll remember a story somebody told you for years. You won't remember these big words. So can any of you, and maybe I'll start with Ryan because he's written a book that's very interesting, and he also focused on the importance of narrative. Is there sort of one story that you can tell us either from this year or as you're looking forward that we can take away with us? Oh, sure. Probably have to be the visit. We scheduled, because of the scheduling of the shutdown earlier in the year, my plan was to have my community event and hosting Ann Louise to come in in February because I wanted to get it done before baseball season because I knew I'd be busy. And ended up that we moved everything back to May and it just so happened that we haven't never been very far, we're a good program, but never a state championship level program, except we're playing to go to the state championship the night before Ann Louise is coming. And we pushed that game up because of the weather and I was very stressed because there were a lot of things that were not in my control that did not know what was gonna happen. And the day that she arrived, it was at the school the entire day, I mean, can't say enough about her. Her presence, her personality was kinda brought into and it calmed the situation because everything worked itself out. The number of students that were involved in helping me present everything in that first slide that I had that was a poster, the advertisement that my students did for me. One of them printed out commemorative tickets to be passed out. I have fellow teachers that were there that night to introduce, welcome people to the door. I had a student who volunteered to do the lighting on the stage, to do the video. And it was that series, not just the one thing, but the series of interactions throughout the day, the number of people that were willing to put in their part just to make things work. And I mean, I couldn't have asked for more and it's that collection of everything that kinda wrapped up. And we ended the night eating in a small little pizza place in Chelsea and didn't know how Ann-Louise was getting back to her hotel because we had the four kids. And then all of a sudden, she is riding back to the hotel with my mom and my aunt and my uncle. And it's all, it's all just becoming my as well. Just welcome to the family. Did you win the state championship? We did not. Okay, well, at least you were calm about it. Okay. You have a, yeah. Sure, I have a story I'll share. So one of the activities we did relatively early in the year, this was with sophomores, had around just a little index card essay, who do you think's a peace builder and why? And so they just did it quietly on their own, just shared them with me. And it was a lot of the responses that you might think, you know, people who are well known, it might be people like our principal got a couple of votes, which yeah, that probably was good for her. But the one that I thought was most moving to me was the student who said, they see themselves as a peace builder because they have their own internal conflict. I have my own conflict that I need to work through first and find peace with myself. And then I can go forward. And that's when I had an aha moment, that this cuts through many different levels. Great, thank you. For me, when Anne Louise came to speak on the day where we were discussing in the troubles, in Ireland, it was great for me to see those aha moments of I no longer feel helpless, because watching the news and learning about all these conflicts and these bad things constantly makes our students feel helpless. Like what do we do? What can I do? There's nothing I can do sitting here as a student, but to actually see what it is the United States is doing and has done to negotiate peace. And I was talking to another USIP person yesterday about how they have brought in two boys from Sudan from two different tribes to live together. And their parents were nervous about this. They were like, they're not gonna get along. They could potentially hurt each other, but to actually build those relationships as students is the important part. Education is the key to building peace and to getting along with each other, regardless of our differences. So for my students to see that and have that aha moment was great for me. And then when we were in Cambodia and at that school to watch them play rock, paper, scissors with the kids, because that is universal, was great for them to see that no matter where we are in the world, there are things we can have in common. And even my six-year-old little guy, they were like, can we play with you? And he loved it and to see him play rock, paper, scissors and to teach him, not just my students, but to also teach him the conflict management pieces that I've learned through at USIP has been great as a mom and as a teacher. I have lots of stories, but one in particular stands out to me kind of going back to what I was talking about with dialogue versus debate. There's an activity in the toolkit where you line up kind of on a spectrum of what's peace, what's not peace and you give an example of so many child soldiers or in the world or things like that. And something got a little heated in my room that I guess kind of took me off guard and that was a statement about hiring an armed security officer in your high school. And we have quite a few students who are children of police officers and then we have quite a few students who have had problems with some police officers. And so what happened in that, and we had just, we now have a resource officer on staff and that was very recent that that had happened. So I think that was really interesting as the kids heard why people were standing on either side about it, making them feel safe. And so it was an opportunity for them to really appreciate the value of understanding why someone has kind of an opposite opinion because they were pretty divided. And it was also a show of bravery for the few students who were on the other side. And so we talked through being able to share how you're feeling and why you believe the way you do. And it was a really great way for them to understand and respect that that dialogue piece we're not all going to agree. But at least when we understand where other people are coming from, it makes it a little easier not to just assume, well, you're a bad person or you're, I mean, it doesn't build the conflict, it de-escalates it when you're actually listening. So that was kind of an aha moment for my kids. Okay. Well, let's open it up to the audience both here and online. They're people with microphones, so if you raise your hand, somebody will come to you with a microphone. Okay. Getting this gentleman. Hi, good morning. I'm Bob Reed with Peace Through Action, USA. I'm interested in whether any of the work that the students and you did turned out into discussions or problem solving around the peace deficit in our own country. And the other is what did anything happen in your programming or could you see that extended it to adults in the community, whether it was parents or other community members? Because one of my great concerns is children and youth are a captive audience for education, but once you're 18 or college age or whatever, you're done with education in a formal way, and so what are we doing to make sure we continue to educate adults around peace building and whether you saw that happening through some of the activities you're doing with your students. Whoever wants to tackle it? And I hope I can answer your question there. I think that was one of the things that attracted me to the peace builders curriculum because like I said, I'm also a government teacher. And I have certainly a lot of students that think that because the 10 people that I sit with think this way, everybody feels this way on a given topic. And I like to remind students that's the crux of democracy is that no, we're not gonna all agree. And they have this sense that if we're all in agreement then there's peace. And that I think gives them a false sense of not just the world, but certainly our country. And sometimes in many cases our students aren't aware of that till they travel outside of our state and our country. And so that was also one of my goals is to realize that it is okay that we don't all agree on these issues. But once again, how can we engage in dialogue to resolve those problems? Cause that's what democracy is about, is not all agreeing. As far as that next element, and that's what I'm hoping this year was a lot to absorb and just get into the classrooms. That is the next piece I'd like to take then into the communities. Whether it's maybe through our churches or some of our different other organizations to reach out and spread that word out to the adults in our community too. And not everybody has to answer every question, but does anybody else have anything they'd like to add to that one or we'll move on. I will say one of my favorite conflict management pieces from the USIP was learning about active listening and teaching active listening. And that's something I did talk and work with my students on. And I definitely want to continue that in our community. Cause I, my school's 1800 kids and it's a very good diverse mix of urban and suburban. And so I think it's a great place cause there's lots of different ideas and beliefs and even in my school to work on that active listening and negotiating together and understanding those different perspectives. Great. Is there a woman here? Hi, my name is Andy Webb and I'm an Einstein fellow in the House of Representatives which is a fellowship for teachers. In my typical life, I'm an elementary teacher. So I think you know where I'm going with this. My question is for Joanne. I know what I believe, but as a high school teacher what do you believe about the importance of beginning an elementary school? And do you think it's possible that this program can go to elementary school? Well, yes, certainly. I mean, I think we've had elementary, there's been elementary teachers as cohorts or have not yet? No, middle school, high school. Yeah. Well, yeah, certainly, you know, like with that peace day activity that we did with the peace trail, we did have to modify it a little bit. You know, there's I think 14 stops on the peace trail. We actually focused it down to the Washington, Lincoln and Jefferson Memorial. So I mean, I think there's modifications that could be made, but I think a lot of those basic elements that we've been talking about today, engaging in dialogue, engaging in active listening are certainly things that probably are already being done, you know, at an elementary level. And once again, that's where I think it's maybe even more beneficial to get the middle school or the high school students into those classrooms, because I would imagine you would agree that those big kids are their models. And if those high school kids are demonstrating it to them, that those elementary students would be, you know, sold on it. But I think that's, I mean, ultimately to me, that's the whole goal. You know, if you can get that foundation built, we have the roots from which we can grow with this. I agree, hands down, conflict management needs to be taught day one. And that's my six year old, instead of, because I've discussed this with everybody, you know, we constantly as moms want to go resolve the conflict for them. I don't want my little poor, precious baby to cry. You know, you guys need to learn to share, but I've actually learned to step back and be like, okay, go talk about it. I'm not gonna come resolve this conflict for you. You need to work on this conflict yourself. They do say everything you need to know, you learned in kindergarten. Okay. Let me read one from somebody online. This is from a student from Tennessee. What is one thing you would say to a young person who wants to make a difference and doesn't know where to start? Roll dud. What is it? Roll dud. Don't, Tennessee. Roll play, okay. Tennessee? Starting at right now at the, I'm assuming maybe a high school student to say, probably, getting involved, getting involved with our local World Affairs Council in Tennessee, getting involved with anything local that you guys have available, which there are. There's so many more than, we have a Tennessee Geographic Alliance. We have a Nashville United Nations chapter. There's so many things we can get involved in right now and bringing awareness, participating in an international peace day challenge, bringing awareness to those things now would be important. Okay. Other questions from the audience in the back? Hi, my name is Allie Schwartz and I'm currently getting my master's at Georgetown International Relations and I've been turning this summer at Peace Tech Lab right next door. My question is about how technology or social media either impacted the work that you were doing with your students, as well as if you had any, you touched upon media literacy, disinformation, fake news in what you were teaching your students. I have a few things there. So I also teach government, I teach an AP government class, but in US history and in my government class, we focus quite a bit on social media and just the idea of taking what we talk about with civil discourse, which they don't hear a lot of and it's not modeled for them very well in any of the news programs, things like that, that they may get a hold of. And so we talk about you live in this bubble and you need to purposely expand that bubble. The news, the media literacy piece, I'm trying to work more and more in because that does feed into, you know, if they're not able to recognize what's legitimate news and what's not, it feeds into the negative discourse and the polarization piece, which obviously is the opposite of what we want when we're trying to build peace. So, you know, yes. And then technology, interestingly, we were just talking about, I love bringing former students in to talk and technology is allowing that to not just happen in person. So, and then the USIP has quite a few opportunities that we can take advantage of to have people kind of skyped into our classroom or things like that, which is really awesome. Yeah, and I would continue with that because that technology allowing us to bring the world to Hartford, South Dakota is a huge piece because, you know, those students need to travel. Some students do have the means to travel. We had a group of students that actually went to Europe this summer and I'm excited to see how their view of the world maybe has changed after that experience. But we frankly have a lot of students who won't have that opportunity. But technology now does allow the world to come to them so they can have that experience. So in that sense, certainly that's a positive thing. I do have concerns though, certainly, that, you know, oftentimes though, the same thing can happen with social media is that, you know, rather than using social media or the media to see this point of view and that point of view and then from that be able to draw some sort of conclusion. They have a tendency to gravitate towards the stories that reinforce what they already believe and then that just reinforces what they see as, I'm right, rather than doing right. And so that's a challenge, a double-edged sword that certainly, that we work with. Tim? I see another hand here. Oh, I'm sorry, somebody behind you and then the woman in the middle. Guess go ahead, you have the microphone. I'm Rhys Davis. I'm an intern with the Zen Education Project here in DC. And I was wondering if in your conflict resolution activities in your conflict education that through those activities students were able to reflect on the orthodox educational materials you had in your history classrooms and if they were able to form any opinions or ask questions that were more critical or they were coming to conclusions that were more critical of the kind of traditional or orthodox teaching materials? Do you wanna handle it? Ryan, you go first. Well, one of the major parts, and this kind of goes back to the last question as well. Our little presidential bracket project, it was done in parts because it was very important for me that I did not want a personal bias to come into either how we did the development of the bracket or how the decisions were made as to who advanced. And before being able to dissect a lot of stuff that happens currently, it was helpful I think in this process for them to look back at what has already happened and to look at it from a different set of lenses. So we divided this assignment up into parts. My students were in charge of having the dialogue as to who would be the one seeds based off of approaches to conflict, based off situational in the context of history criteria. And we developed the one seeds, the 11 seeds, the two seeds and went back and forth. And then we passed on the entire bracket across the hall to the teacher with the other 11th grade, the regular students. And he had four classes. And so each one of his classes only got a portion of the bracket. So that way they were able to eliminate as much bias as possible. We set the criteria as to what they had to look at to where the focus was not on, oh, I like them best or because I believe this way that's who is better on this one. They took the approach of looking at it from a different lens and you got a very interesting matchups and fun way of getting the discussion going not only between myself and the teacher but between us and our predictions of who's gonna win and all that kind of stuff. It became a lot of fun just to having that discussion. So yeah, a lot of those connections were made without just about presenting the opportunity for them to make. Jennifer, do you wanna say something? I started, I actually really liked the question and I was trying to think through, I don't think my students got there this year but I think now that I've internalized this year, what this approach is, I believe that approaching that from the very beginning of class next year may get them there. In addition, that's where I do believe technology helps now because I have access to more tools and information and I give kids a lot of choices about what they're looking at and so yes and no I guess is my answer to that. But one of those things that we both did was about teaching the Cuban Missile Crisis and that access to the website that we had that traditionally taught from the American perspective but we had a website that taught it from the Soviet perspective and how it's even referred to by a different title depending on if you're looking at it from the Soviet perspective and then the Cuban perspective and the students found that very interesting. Yes, here in the middle. Hi, I'm Caroline with the St. Alvin School of Public Service and my question is for Mr. Adams. So Alabama is ranked 50th in education and as a rising high school senior in Alabama, I was just wondering if you learned anything from this program that you think if it's implemented in other schools in Alabama, it can really help bring that up and improve the education system. Well, we are first in the alphabet though, which is. Yeah. There are a lot of changes. I mean, just from an educational policy standpoint that certainly need to be addressed and there are people who are aware that they need to be addressed in the state of Alabama. They're also, and looking at this as a state of conflict, you know, being ranked where we are and knowing that someone's gotta be ranked last and you're always moving your way up, is to think more progressively and it really does come in from that next generation. Change for anyone is scary and certainly just growing up in the South, growing up, knowing certain mindsets that there is always the resistance to certain change and it does keep being with education and to kind of give us as an anecdotal example in the city of Hoover last year, which we're close to in Chelsea, there was a shooting in the mall that occurred around Christmas and a lot of controversy that also surrounded in what is the largest high school in the state with race relations that were going on, that the community itself was up in arms but what you saw was a, and probably not focused on as much, was a assembly that was organized by the student body, designed by them in which they came together, black, white, students from freshmen, the senior, didn't matter, put everything aside and I think that in ways that education has to be reciprocal and we talk about active listening, is not just the old teaching down to the young but the young also allowing them the opportunity to teach the old and I think that once that begins to happen, then we can move a little farther up in the rankings. I'm gonna read one more now from the internet. This is from a college student in California. How can we encourage students to feel empowered and hopeful as peace builders, even as news cycles tend to emphasize conflicts? Anyone wanna take that one on? I think that in order, this is, I struggle with this too. You know, when you teach AP government, you have to be on top of the news and it's hard. You know, when you're constantly watching kind of the negative and the, but when you're looking, this is kind of why I got into the program but when you're looking for the people who are trying to make change and you're choosing to focus, yes, you have to listen, you have to be aware and informed but when you're making choices to focus on the positive and what people are doing and how they're being successful and then using that to, you know, make that change in your own community, I think that's the best way to kind of keep on top of that instead of letting it kind of sink you and sometimes you have to turn it off for a few days. I mean, I tell my students that too, like get your news from a variety of sources, turn it off for a few days and disconnect, and then get back into the swing of things but I think it's also about being active in the causes you care about and finding that kind of passion to stick with it and make change. And maybe that's where we bring in history. So we study conflicts from history and where have those conflicts then provided opportunity for growth and then how can we apply that to today? Where is the opportunity to grow from this conflict? And sorry, I got to jump back in. So I was just recently at an AP Institute for my government class and we were talking about letter from Birmingham Jail and one of the things that he says in there is that very idea that there's a necessary constructive tension that is necessary for growth and that if you're going to have conflict, which we always will, that we have to allow ourselves that tension before we're going to actually grow and I think that kind of touches on what you were just saying. Thank you. Building peace at the local level, even to that high school student in Tennessee to both is you have to build relationships with people that aren't just like you. Building relationships with people that are different than you, different ages than you, different beliefs than you, different values than you, that's where peace building starts. Good. Other comments, other questions? Yes, in the back. Hi, I'm Mark Forsberg. I worked with Monastic School in Myanmar last summer teaching peace education and I made a lot of assumptions, I think, at the beginning of my teaching and informed a lot of the things that I would do now and do differently. I'm wondering if you had any key takeaways or lessons learned from your past year of teaching that would inform this year of teaching as well. I think you stumped them for a minute. It saved us our thinking. I think it's hard to answer because of course once you do something once there's so much that you now want to do a little bit differently. One of the takeaways that I have is I want to incorporate it much earlier in the year because I kind of waited a little bit just because of how we were doing things and I want to tie it more directly for students to the different things we're studying throughout the year and I think I might, we have a new segment in Seattle area called Eric's Heroes which focuses on positive stories in the community and I think I might start showing that like once a week and then building from some of those positives to some more historical and then global issues. So I've got tons of things floating around about how I'm going to do it differently. Honestly, I probably wouldn't change anything because I'm a believer that everything happens as it should and for a reason that how I taught before, if not going through the program, I don't learn what I did and so I kind of need to have my mind changed and I need my approach to be altered a little bit because I need to look at things a little bit differently. So if I didn't have how things were for the first 14 years then year 15 doesn't happen as it did. Okay, we're getting near the end. I have one more internet question and probably a time for one more question from the audience. So I'm gonna read the internet question and if you have a question, we'll compete for who gets to take the last question. Okay, this is from Olivet Lutheran Church in Toledo, Ohio. It's nice to know this internet website is going all over the country. How do you envision the lives of faith communities with the USIP curriculum? And they say it might be aimed, you? Yeah, well, certainly in rural South Dakota that through our faith-based communities, that's a great way to reach out to our community populations. And I just see that once again is another avenue because many times in once again rural South Dakota, you have a fairly homogenous population and I think this would be once again a great avenue through the resources, through some of our speakers, through even the students coming to share their stories with our faith-based communities of getting that word out. And is there one last question from the audience? Yes, over here. All right, my name is John Jackson. I'm a substitute teacher, been around for a while. So my question is, since you guys brought up the faith-based, do you think putting prayer back in school will help your initiative in terms of peace? No. Okay, I think it's Megan's turn now to come and wrap us up. Thank you, John. Thank you. Oh, did you, I'm sorry, did I miss? I noticed it as a subject. I'm not sure that faith for me is never left. I mean, it's kind of embodied in your actions as who you are. So in my classroom, I hope that who I am resonates with me. I tell my students that what you see on the first day, what you see is what you get. So I know how to be me. I want them to be them. And then collectively we'll have collaborative abrasion. Yeah, that sounds good. And from that, have a positive outcome. Since I said no, I'll give a little bit more. If I were to pray in my classroom, I have my student that's from Afghanistan over here that acknowledges and practices during Ramadan. I have my Christian student here who goes to the local church of the city. I have my Buddhist student over here that's from South Korea. I have my Shinto student over here that's from Japan. What do I pray and how do I, who do I give preference? And if I do, I favor one over the other when I'm trying to teach them to respect different perspectives. Good conclusion. And I'm sure there's a discussion afterwards too. Well, on that note, I wanna thank you all for coming. This was a very rich conversation. Thank our teachers for being here with us today, our moderator, Joanne, all of you in the room. I think there are lots of different perspectives and questions probably still remaining. An hour and a half is not nearly long enough. So we have planned 45 minutes of coffee and snacks for everybody outside since it is about lunchtime. So we hope that you'll remain and linger for additional conversation. If we didn't get to your questions or if you have follow-up questions for us, we are here to chat more. So thank you all very much for coming. And we look forward to staying in touch with all of you as part of this program, but also more broadly with USIP's work. So thank you all.