SPV Students Spread Peace
Peacemaking is the most important value taught here at St. Pius V School. Peace is at the center of every lesson we teach and in the heart of every SPV graduate. For that reason, Peace Day is one of the most important days of our school year.
Each year on September 21st, students throughout the school put together projects and presentations on how to make the world a more peaceful place. This year, students created posters and flyers to educate others and encourage them to end the violence both in this community and across the globe.
One special moment this year came when Ms. Morice's 4th
grade classroom joined hands to create a giant peace sign on our playground. It was inspiring to watch these students come together to create such a beatiful symbol. After they had finished, the 4th graders were given colorful chalk and asked to draw pictures on the concrete that symbolized peace to them. Soon, the playground was covered in hearts, doves, flowers and messages encouraging others to work to create a more peaceful world.
We are always proud of our students, but rarely more than we are today.
SPV's Peace Day celebration was inspired by the organization Peace One Day. Below is an excerpt from their website:
"Young people are absolutely at the heart of Peace One Day’s journey" says Jeremy Gilley film-maker and founder of Peace One Day. Launched in partnership with Ocado, the Peace One Day UK Citizenship Resource aims to engage young people aged 11-16 with issues related to peace, non-violence and inter-cultural co-operation and is available free online.
POD is running a major outreach program with secondary schools in the UK and around the world, using Skype to contact a school in each country every week. Skype itself is sponsoring POD to create a Global Education Resource currently being used in 174 countries.
For 21 September 2012 POD is calling for and working towards a day of ceasefire and non-violence – a Global Truce. POD hopes that this will be the largest reduction in global violence in recorded history. POD wants young people around the world to lead in this campaign; so this year POD have a created a new Global Truce 2012 lesson plan, which provides a simple and dynamic process for identifying and selecting student-led activities for the Global Truce. The Global Truce 2012 lesson plan is being phased into all new resource editions, and is available online for free in the six official languages of the UN.
According to Gilley, the key to making Peace Day work is helping young people understand that violence in the classroom is no different from violence in the community or between nations. "Young people effectively realise that wherever they are in the world, whichever country in the world, a young person can become part of this day because bullying is violence," says Gilley. "If we can create a day where young people are involved in a very real and tangible way, it’s massive, it’s life-saving stuff! I encourage anyone who is reading this article to log on to the free education materials and use them."
The hope is that the POD message inspires a new generation to be the driving force behind a vision of a united and peaceful world. "Young people need tools to resolve their own conflicts and also to be able to think about the bigger global situation," says Gilley. "We hope they will think about their role in shifting the level of consciousness around the fundamental issues that we face - the protection of each other and our environment."