Seventh graders at Hamburg Area Middle School spent Friday, Sept. 19, working on teamwork, learning about peaceful resolutions and how they can help make the world a better place as they celebrated Peace Day a few days early.
“It’s unfortunate that it couldn’t be on the day itself,” said Andrew Hoffman, Hamburg Area Middle School seventh grader teacher who organized Hamburg’s part.
Peace Day is celebrated on Sept. 21 which fell on a Sunday this year. Hoffman has been teaching his students about Peace Day and the organization Peace One Day in his social studies class for many years. This is the first time that he was able to organize participation for the whole seventh grade.
Peace One Day was founded in 1999 by actor turned filmmaker Jeremy Gilley. The first ever annual day of global cease-fire and non-violence was created by the United Nations on September 21, 2001. Peace One Day’s goal is for Peace Day to be an annual day of global unity.
“One of the things to do for Peace Day is to have one day where everyone around the world, globally plays soccer. It’s called ‘One Day, One Goal,'” explained Hoffman.
Toward the end of the school day the students played a series of soccer games to participate, but that was just one of the many peace related activities of the day.
“All the activities were to promote peaceful resolutions and things that we can bring awareness to this day,” said Hoffman.
Hoffman spent the week preparing his students for this day in his social studies class. To start Hamburg’s participation in Peace Day, the students received a presentation from Hoffman on what the day is about and the non-profit organization Peace One Day. During the presentation, Hoffman spoke about global issues as well as issues here in the United States. He also spoke to the students about ways to deal with conflict and how they can solve conflicts with peaceful resolutions.
Following the presentation were the peace related, team building activities. Students had to build bridges out of spaghetti and marshmallows and then had to move resources form on side of the bridge to the other. They also tested the strength of their bridges with one team proudly explaining that their bridge held on student’s shoe. There was also a lesson on minefields over the world during which Hoffman explained to the students that 70 countries have unidentified minefields. To simulate the minefield, a student was blindfolded and was led through the field by another student. After the activity, Hoffman presented the students with the statistics of injuries and deaths from minefields.
For the English class side of the day, the students heard a poem on peace and wrote their own as well. For the next activity students each represented a certain number of people and had to group together to represent the population of other countries such as China to show the size difference between the other countries and the United States. The last activity before soccer was a human knot and scavenger hunt during which the students had to work together to unknot themselves and complete the scavenger hunt.
“It’s a great way [to participate in the day] and the kids are moving and out,” said Hoffman.
After the soccer games, it was time for the students to put their teamwork to the test by making a giant peace sign on the soccer field behind the school. Once the peace sign was successfully completed, the students separated into their homerooms and each class took a part of the letters, number and symbol to form a human “HAWKS 4 Peace” with the peace sign rather than spelling out the word. Not surprising after a day of working together, the students were successful in both projects.
“I’m happy with what I’ve seen today and how the kids are listening and respectful,” said Hoffman. “What really makes me happy is to see that in my class when I would show video clips around the world, things like the Syrian children and the conflict over there, how they can relate it to their own lives.”
He continued, “They see these children tell their story on how their homes were taken and their families are taken from them. And put themselves into their shoes. They try to get that into perspective.
Hoffman added that it is not just about the students putting themselves in others’ shoes, but also about finding out what they can do to help make the world a better place.
“Just because we’re over here in the United States doesn’t mean that we can’t make a difference. That’s when we talked about the picking up your trash, walking somebody across the street, because it’s a cycle. It’s either you’re in a good cycle or bad cycle. When you help people and see that you’re in the good cycle that continues. I think the kids really responded well to that,” he explained.
According to the teachers, the students really took to the activities and enjoyed themselves throughout the day.
For more information on Peace Day visit www.peaceoneday.org.
