Check in with us at http://peaceeducators.org/
Teachers of Young Children Aren’t Stupid, or
Why We Have a Peace Educators Facebook Page
Using Facebook can be a mixed blessing or no blessing. But for social change activists it could be a great tool to reach people we don’t know or aren’t in regular contact with. The Peace Educators Facebook page is a great way for teachers working for social change to combine their efforts. You can get it on your Facebook feed by searching for “Peace Educators”, then “like” the Page. 279 others already do so.
Despite the politicians who never seem to take us seriously (or even ourselves) teachers of young children are not stupid. We don’t always speak out in a collective voice. Don’t sell us short.
First-of-all, working with young children isn’t easy. Take 10, 20, sometimes 30 children under 5 with their own issues, add their families their own styles of learning, we think about them for the 8 hours (or more) a day. These children are confined to our class rooms. We plan curriculum for them, plan strategies for their interaction, keep their attention on learning. We talk to a co-teacher, a boss, all the parents, maybe a school board or even a community about the children. You may not think of yourself too often. We don’t like to think about the horrible wages we are paid.
Despite all this, we are pretty smart. We want to know about everything. How things work, where a country is located, how to mix colors, how to keep a guinea pig, what happens when you roll a ball down a ramp, what was it like to travel in a slave ship.
That’s why the Peace Educators Facebook page works. We teachers unite for the goal of peace education. We want to learn about nonviolence, respect, inclusion, nature, empathy, anger, history, science. We want to know how to end racism and sexism. We want to encourage love, cooperation, and joy. We want to nurture poetry, music, reading. We want to empower girls and cheer on boys.
One post recently on gun violence and lockdown at preschools attracted 1,131 views in 24 hours. Our Peace Educators Facebook page shares all these ideas. We can unite the world with teachers. We teach because we want the world to be a better place.
Moving Forward: You’re Important to Us!
As P.E.A.C.E. moves forward into 2018, we need your help and your input. Please contact 1peaceeducators@gmail.com if you’d like to become more active and engaged in P.E.A.C.E.’s work, especially if you have submitted a proposal for a peace education-related session at either NAEYC’s Professional Learning Institute (PLI) in June, or its Annual Conference in Washington, DC November 14-17. We also were able to have a presence at NAEYC’s Public Policy Forum in Arlington, VA, March 4-6.
Please remember that you can be kept up to date by joining our Action list serve, actforpeace@googlegroups.com, either directly through Googlegroups, or by an email to 1peaceeducators@gmail.com. Please feel free to post there any peace-education related action requests that engage your enthusiasm. And if any of our suggestions for action motivate you to tell your friends and colleagues about them, please do forward them. Thank you!
Finally, we need to remind you that we don’t charge dues, as we value your participation more than your money. But we do have expenses that are needed to keep us going, so we always welcome your donations through our website.
