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TechnoratiMessages of Peace Are Blowin' In The Wind:
GMS students plant 'Pinwheels for Peace'
Gainesville Middle School art students spent this week learning about peace, love and understanding.They participated in an international art and literacy project, "Pinwheels for Peace," that featured them making, then planting the windmill-like paper crafts at a fence near a school parking lot.
"I wanted to teach the children about character and that it's OK to be nice to each other," said art teacher Christine Noah.
Students in sixth through eighth grades took part in the project, which culminated with International Day of Peace on Friday.
The students planted the pinwheels Tuesday and Wednesday, as Noah was concerned about a rainy forecast toward the end of the week.
Eighth-graders in her Visual Arts I class spent Friday morning plucking rain-splashed pinwheels out of the ground and shrubbery and off a chain-link fence.
Students also had made colorful signs, including one that featured the campaign's slogan, "Imagine ... whirled peace!"
They had scribbled other messages as well, such as "Be peaceful every day."
Pinwheels for Peace was started in 2005 by art teachers Ann Ayers and Ellen McMillan in Coconut Creek, Fla., "as a way for students to express their feelings about what's going on in the world and in their lives," according to the project's Web site, www.pinwheelsforpeace.com.
"The project was quickly embraced by their students and the entire school community," according to the site.
Noah has worked with Gainesville Middle students on the project since 2005.
"The main thing is asking what does peace mean to them," she said. "Symbolically, the message gets out through the air" by means of the pinwheels.
Students removing the pinwheels Friday morning said the project was fun.
Adrias Henry, 13, said she liked "making (them with) different colors, seeing them spin and then get wet."
And Chaney Jenkins, also 13, said the class earlier in the week watched the movie "Gandhi," which depicts the life of Mahatma Gandhi, leader of the nonviolent resistance movement against British colonial rule in India.
To her, peace means that "everyone can be equal."
"We need to stop violence so there can be peace in the world," Chaney said.
© 2007 The Gainsville Times
12 Comments so far
Show AllThey should have shut this post down at 1:30PM while things were going quite well. A tiny pleasant corner of the internet to take refuge in for a few seconds.
One little pinpoint of light and hope.
If we can't have that every once in a while...They win!!
Some photos of the peace march in Austin: http://goodwordswan.wildflowerstew.com
Well I agree colleen but I also think that many of us have been speaking out for a long time with no results. Maybe the time to act has come and the time to talk is over? I think religions should be declared illegal and any cleric/priest/pastor/mullah that openly supports war should be jailed. A nice thought but then Adolf Jesus Bush might disagree.
shikantaza
The culture is geared to the glorification of war. Many of the solutions towards giveing us peace are considered weak in the culture. Its an uphill battle (well even our language uses war terms ..like uphill battle) to change US culture.
Using war as a way of gaining profits and to contol other nations is a sure way to end the human race. The weapons now are too deadly to be used so recklessly, but it looks impossible to stop. But morally what choice is there but to speak out and try to stop this madness in humanity.
Sadly there are only 7 posts to this article - then look at some of the other more provocative articles decrying the latest obscene use of power from our government (either Party - they're both paid for). Those articles seem to get lots of blood boiling and many heated responses - including some of my own - yes. The point is that we do need a Dept. of Peace - why not? Can anyone lay out an argument AGAINST a Dept. of Peace? Of course not. Not one that has any real validity to it. Yet Mr. kucinich continues to be protrayed in the corporate owned media as a kook or left wing nut, unelectable. Well folks the bad news is that this speaks poorly not of Kucinich but of America. That a man who would show enough courage to talk about chasing peace rather than war in our nation is trivialized by the media says we do not want peace as a nation. I hope people like Mr. Kucinich can begin to show some of the religious zealots in the world that they have missed the message of their sage. Here in America it is Christian fundamentalism that has missed the message of Jesus. In the Middle East and other places it is Fundamentalist Muslims who missed the message of Mohammed. Neither man spoke of killing as a way of life such as the fundamentalists do today. Peace.
I've book marked pinwheels for peace and when I have a chance plan to use it also. Its a wonderful idea.
Thank you to the people who originated and carried out the idea:
Christine Noah
Ann Ayers and Ellen McMillan
I have never heard of pinwheels for peace before but its world wide all right
http://www.pinwheelsforpeace.com/where.html
Why do teachers hate Murka?
/sarcasm
Above: one *positive* article, and four *positive* comments, ~ thankyou for those.
I feel that doing 'POSITIVE' is an excellent and uplifting antidote to much of the negative gunk which our leaders are generating. Positive helps inspire humans towards better things, and on a personal level, raises levels of optimism, useful activity, hope, and happiness.
We live in tough times; we face a load of deep challenges and have a lot of hard work before us, as we try to 'change it all around'.
But no one said we have to be grim and miserable, - 24/7 - within all of this! -in fact, that attitude saps energy and leaves us less capable, -and less in tune with the *Light* of / in this world.
Thanks Libertas Fugit for yr observation re 'prayer wheels' - I too had thought of those Tibetan devices as I read the article.
[Nb: HH Dalai Lama, being a 'man of his time' has said that having the mantra on your computer works the same as a traditional prayer wheel! Since a computer's hard disk spins hundreds of thousands of times per hour, and can contain many copies of the mantra, anyone who wants to can turn their computer into a prayer wheel!]
It's great that there are enlightened, creative teachers in this world, who, -in spite of the narrowness of the educational system, still manage to introduce such positive notes into their teaching practice.
At first sight, the above article about kids making Peace Pinwheels is not apparently a direct challenge to the darkness issuing from our current leaders, and yet...
... It IS! -because imbuing the consciousness of children with healthy concepts of peaceful coexistence is a direct challenge to those who would like to see all our children's minds and hearts filled with the anachronisms of barbarity and separative, unloving, militaristic rubbish.
*Peace, Love, and Understanding* ~ such words are often mocked by cynical and twisted minds (and cold, locked-up hearts) and yet, - without these beneficial concepts, our race would more quickly crumble into the dusts of ruinous disputation, warfare and dissolution.
Psychologically, POSITIVE thinking means, *concentrating on what is constructive and good*
This helps us have a great, -not a *grating* sort of day,
-and thus a great, -not a *grating* sort of world!
:)
If you would do the Lords' work, be a teacher.
With Dennis Kucinich's "Department of Peace", you could be seeing a LOT MORE of these kinds of positive things!
Learn more:
http://www.dennis4president.com/go/resources/the-department-of-peace/
What flashed through my mind as I read the article was prayerwheels. Perhaps the pinwheels are prayerwheels for peace, constructed by children who can learn and perhaps pass on the lesson of peace to their jaded elders.
Thank you for the lesson. May peace and love be with you always.
Thank you, Christine Noah!
Teachers Are The Best!