The Peaceful School

• To learn children what it means to grow up in a democratic society by making them feel heard, seen, giving them a voice, learning them to make decisions together and to solve conflicts.
• Children feel responsible for others and the community and are open to differences between people.

Peaceful school is a program that consists of a series of 38 lessons that are provided for 30 minutes every week in primary school. These lessons cover the following topics:

1. We belong together: the aim of this series is to create a positive atmosphere in the class. The children make rules on how they treat each other.
2. We solve conflicts ourselves: children learn about conflicts and learn how they can react to a conflict.
3. We listen to each other: this series is focused on teaching children about empathy and active listening.
4. We care about each other: children learn to recognize their own feelings and to vocalize these. They also learn to accept and respect the feelings of others.
5. We all have duties: this series of lessons focuses on student-participation
6. Everyone is different: these lessons focus on being open to differences between people.

Example of part of a lesson:

Write the word ‘respect’ on a black board, explain what it means and provide examples of people that are respected (e.g. Nelson  Mandela, etc). Ask the children the following questions: What people do you respect? Why? What are the deeds or features of this respected person? Why do you respect that? Let the children ask questions to each other. Pay attention if the children treat each other with respect and mention the importance of this.

http://www.devreedzameschool.nl/