We found Atlanta to be an inspirational site for CEASE. Our visit to the Martin Luther King, Jr. birthplace and National Historic Site brought the civil rights movement and King’s devotion to social justice alive for us. President Jimmy Carter’s Library and Museum inspires us to continue working toward building a culture of nonviolence and peace.
CEASE 2012 Interest Forum Sessions
Play matters!
That was the theme of our CEASE session, “Urgent! Return Play to the Lives of Children.” Our interactive session was one of several at the 2012 NAEYC Atlanta Conference highlighting the message that play is critical and endangered. After presentations by Graciela Italiano-Thomas, Lucy Stroock and Irene Lipshin, enthusiastic participants addressed queries in roundtable discussions: How was play honored in your childhood and how is it honored now in the classroom; Think how play happens with your age group (the introductory story was presented by Lucy Stroock for Craig Simpson, who was delayed in New Jersey, helping his brother deal with effects of Superstorm Sandy); How can we design classrooms to support play and think how to explain and advocate for play. Before the session started a slide show of children at play, with quotes by notables in the field and handouts, including “Children and Play: a Resource Guide for Advocacy” helped participants consider this critical topic.
CEASE/LGBT Collaborative Session 2012: “That’s so Gay: Reviewing Language and Teaching Tolerance.”
Last year CEASE and the LGBT Interest Forums experienced notable success in a collaborative session on preventing bullying of LGBT children and families. This year our two Interest Forums once again joined together to present a stimulating collaborative session. We were pleased to learn that our sessionwas selected for the NAEYC Live Learning Center where members may obtain an audio recording, PowerPoint and handouts. Lucy Stroock moderated the session and Steve Schuman, Brian Silveria and Sharon Davisson spoke to identifying and addressing biased language and behaviors, integrating proactive anti-bias activities into the classroom, and using a “Peaceable Classroom” model to create a democratic and socially just learning environment.
The participants engaged in lively discussions as they addressed each topic. One participant reported,
“Thanks for the informative and thought-provoking session. . . having us talk in small groups made the session especially supportive. The resources posted on the conference site will be helpful as I share this experience.”
CEASE Peace Awards
Susan Linn and Joyce Daniels
CEASE/Violence in the Lives of Children Interest Forum Meeting
We agreed to accept the proposal from the June Retreat to add “sustainability” to our Statement of Purpose. The second sentence will now read “We seek to end the violence that permeates our society to an ever increasing degree and to remove the root causes of this violence by advocating for peace, justice, economic opportunity and sustainability.”
We chose to support three proposals for the 2013 Conference:
- Empowered Children Make for a Peaceful World: CEASE in collaboration with NVP.
- Sharon Davisson and Wilma Gold will work together on this.
- CEASE will join in a Defending the Early Years proposal with Geralyn Bywater Mclaughlin. CEASE will lend its support to a CCFC proposal submitted by Susan Linn.
- CEASE will meet again for our Retreat in the East, June 5th -9th.
Leave A Comment?