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November 4, 2009

Remembrance Day and the Theme of Compassion

[Image Source: Matt 21/07/97 at http://www.deepblue.uk.net/site/node/380]

We are approaching November 11 which is Remembrance Day (in Canada) and Veterans' Day (in the US). In my school the ceremony is conducted with a solemnity that honours our nations' Armed Forces personnel (past and present) and that gives students of all cultures an opportunity to remember their own peoples' struggles for freedom and peace. But we also try to anchor the meaning of peace in our students' hearts by choosing a theme that will be more personal to them. We believe in the importance of living the values of peace and thanksgiving every day, so this year have adopted the theme of 'compassion' -- people helping people.

If you're looking for an interesting global project for your students, I suggest PowerPoint for Peace sponsored by the people at Authorstream. Inspired by the AIDS Memorial quilts, this project invites people to add one slide to the presentation.

Here are the instructions: Create a single standard size PowerPoint slide of 500 KB or smaller that represents your idea for a positive contribution to the world.
  • Do not criticize anyone, anything, etc. Critical, negative slides will not be approved.
  • Use Creative Commons and public domain media. Pictures, sounds, video, etc. must be embedded in the presentation. Linked items will not be converted and uploaded to the site.
  • Animations may be used, but all may not convert accurately.
  • Slides must contain the names of individual, group, or company.
  • Save the slide as a PPT file (Don't have PowerPoint? Impress is free at http://www.openoffice.org/.)
  • Go to http://www.authorstream.com/ and log on. Registration is free.
  • Upload your slide and test it to see how it looks. Delete and upload the file as many times as needed.
  • When you're satisfied with your slide, go to www.authorstream.com/powerpointforpeace/ and upload your slide.
  • Slides are reviewed and approved on Fridays. Slides can be deleted and re-uploaded until approval. Once approved slides cannot be deleted.

The people at TED have an inspirational project underway. This first is called the Charter for Compassion which was the idea of the first winner of the TEDPrize -- Karen Armstrong.

The Charter which embodies the ideas, words, and spirit of collaborators from all over the world is a "cry for return to the central principle" of the Golden Rule. It requires that we use "empathy ... to put ourselves in others' shoes." When I scrolled through the list of participants and their projects, I was struck by the lack of entries from schools. My school's November ceremony ties in with this theme and so I will be adding our name to the list. Perhaps we can invite our students to read the document: Reflections on Compassion and add their own reflections to the Charter website or join the Facebook group, the Flickr Group, or the YouTube Channel and post a contribution.

CHARTER FOR COMPASSION TRAILER from TED Prize on Vimeo.

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Finally here's a video project done with cell phones that we should be able to get kids to try. It's mostly images of words, but assembled this way, they communicate a powerful message about empathy and compassion.

 

Filed under  //   Authorstream   Charter for Compassion   empathy   PBL   PowerPoint for Peace   projects   Remembrance Day   TED  

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November 1, 2008

Remembrance Day

I live in a country that is sending young people to fight in Afghanistan and yet is not 'at war'. We do not, I think, as a country feel that the action being carried out there has much to do with us.  We see automobiles with yellow ribbon decals and wonder vaguely if the family has a son or daughter fighting there. We stand silent for a few moments on Remembrance Day and wonder why Canadian troops no longer wear the UN peace keeper's blue beret. We put on a poppy in November or buy the War Amps key tags and wonder if another Canadian family will have to endure the maiming or loss of a son or daughter.  

But we do not feel outrage -- the outrage needed to get us out to the polls to vote, the outrage needed to get us out on a rainy or snowy day to protest, the outrage to stand as part of a world movement of women and men who do not understand the 'glory' of young people throwing themselves into the path of oncoming bullets and who will, therefore, cease giving kids the message that there is something inherently noble in going across the world to kill people.

This morning I have been listening to the old songs -- Where Have All the Flowers Gone, Eve of Destruction, Blowing in the Wind, We Shall Overcome, Once I Was a Soldier -- wondering which will make the point to my students that they should just not listen to the hype, not sign up and not join up -- but rather that they should take their hammers and ring out warning and danger to drown out the heroes' tales.

I also watched one bit of video of a fellow constructing crosses, painting them white and planting them on a hillside by the highway.  He said, "We can detest war but still should say thanks to those who are fighting." But if we do that, then how will our young people ever learn not to go?  It sounds harsh as I write it but, to get this stopped I think that those who do the fighing must finally be persuaded that no one will thank them for it, no one will honour them for it, and no one will make it easy for them if they make it back. When will they ever learn? When they can no longer see world peace and personal violence as a dichotomy.  When we have made our young believe that it's better and braver to stay home and make their mark here than to leave their blood on some foreign patch of soil out of some misguided sense of service. When we stop giving the double message that war is bad, but those who fight in it are good.  

 

 

Two years ago, a student named Ken graduated from our school. He was a troubled kid -- anger plagued his days and sleep eluded him for nights on end. His Dad, whom he loved and respected, had served in WWII and felt that his own days in the army were the making of him. Ken thought that if he signed up, he'd be able to use his time there to straighten himself out, get a good free post-secondary education, and perhaps do a little sniping along the way.  It's Ken's struggle for self and his belief the path to personal peacefulness lay through a battlefield that are on my mind today.

And so this weekend, I will take my students' PowerPoint for Peace projects and weave them into a video for our Remembrance Day ceremony. I have converted their work into swf's and the swf's to flv's and put the flv's into avi to which I have added the right plug-in. My teaching partner, Debra, has videoed the kids who created these pieces talking about what peace means to them, and we've converted those files as well. Now my work really begins. The final piece will consist mostly of student faces & student voices -- but my presence will be there as well, challenging them turn their backs on the urge to violence by saying over and over like a mantra: "Hell no; I won't go."

 

 

Filed under  //   "Coming Home"   peacekeepers   protest songs   Remembrance Day   Veterans' Day   video   war protests  

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