I saw my first person assassinated on television during dinner. I was 9 and watching coverage of the Vietnam War with my mom and dad. A shot was fired pointblank, and a man fell over in the dirt street. That same year, 1969, an extremely graphic picture of a public execution won the Pulitzer. This sort of violence was hard to fathom. I had been raised to solve disagreements with words, not fists, to choose conversation over confrontation, and my public school at the time was not engaged in any dialogue whatsoever on these weighty matters.

In that context, I’m immensely heartened by the development of peace studies in general and thrilled in particular by Kay Morgan and Melinda Salazar’s Teaching Peace Conference 2007. Titled “The Art And Craft Of Teaching Peace: A Conference for Educators, Community Organizers, Researchers, Parents and Students,” the conference takes place at Oyster River High School on Saturday, April 14, from 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. A full schedule is online at www.teachingpeaceconference.org/2007.
Since its inception three years ago, the conference has grown from five workshops to 22. Past and future participants recently took the time to write and share their thinking about peace and what it means to them.

Jenny Jing, 15, of Lanzhou, China, and Guelph, Ontario, says her interest her in Peace Studies was born of travel and education. “From where I’ve gone and the things I’ve seen in places, people don’t care too much for others until they are at their level of security. It’s mostly ‘What can I do to make my life better,’ rather than ‘How can I help the community?’ With limited resources and a huge population, people will always look out for themselves and make themselves comfortable. Peace is really not even in the question. People will do whatever they need to do to survive. And that’s where I got the opinion for peace. I don’t see anyone doing anything unless they’re comfortable in their lives … Being here in the United States, there really isn’t much to complain about, so generally we are at peace in mind and there’s peace in the community, but that’s not the same everywhere else in the world.”

Durham resident Brett Chamberlin, 16, says that he agrees with Gandhi’s observation that an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth leaves the whole world blind and toothless. “War is destructive. It destroys families, lives, nations, homes and cultures.” He says he used to view peace simply as the absence of war, but he’s grown to understand that to understand peace, one must “be” peace. “Peace is not just about not bombing another nation. It’s about not getting into fights, not being verbally assaulting. It’s about thinking and acting kindly. Peace is difficult to live, but rewarding. I try to make choices every day, to choose the peaceful option. In high school especially, there are a thousand times a day when one can hurt someone, attack someone, make fun of someone. By disapproving of my friends when they do that, I can lead by example,” he says.

Emily Boucher, 17, of Lee, shares that her interest was sparked by the opportunity to listen and take part in the lectures. “It’s rare that we get to be handed such lessons and knowledge from others’ experiences. It is almost irresponsible to not take advantage of what these people have to say and offer to the community: us.”

Boucher thinks a lot more than she used to about what and how she’ll participate in certain conversations. “If I am not tested daily as to whether I am at peace, then I am not being truthful with myself,” she says.

Alina Harris, 17, of Durham, has a practiced and practical, cooperative vantage point. “I have always been somewhat of the peacemaker in my house ever since I was little. Now I try to calmly and nicely lay out the situation in order for the opposing sides to try and understand each other and come to a reasonable agreement.”

Keynote speaker Mary Lee Morrison hopes these ideas, reflections and strategies will be shared among conference participants. Her Pax Educare organization is a resource center for the research, study and teaching of peace.

“It’s important to start with your own inner peace and move out from there. I think peace is very personal for people,” Morrison says. Moving out from the personal aspects of peace to a philosophy of peace education offers concrete ideas and skills about “learning and listening, about compassion, about taking care of the world, of making sure there is enough for all of us,” she says.