Spirit in Action
Peace Learning Center of Milwaukee
The Peace Learning Center (PLC) of Milwaukee started out in 2002 teaching the 4th graders of one school vital skills of non-violent conflict resolution. Based on a tremendously successful, city-wide project in Indianapolis, Milwaukee's PLC has grown rapidly, now teaching peace skills to 16 schools, with more projects on the way.
- Broadcast on:
- 01 Mar 2009
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- other
I have no hands but yours to tempt my sheep No handkerchief but yours to dry the eyes of those who weep I have no arms but yours with which to hold The ones grown weary from the struggle and weak from growing old I have no voice but yours with which to see To let my children know that I am out and out is everything I have no way to feed the hungry souls No clothes to give, and they give, the ragged and the morn So be my heart, my hand, my tongue Through you I will be done The enders have I none to help and die The tangle knocks and twists the chains that strangle fearful minds Welcome to Spirit in Action, my name is Mark Helpsmeet. Each week I'll be bringing you stories of people living lives of fruitful service, of peace, community, compassion, creative action, and progressive efforts I'll be tracing the spiritual roots that support and nourish them in their service. Above all, I'll seek out light, love, and helping hands Being shared between our many neighbors on this planet, hoping to inspire and encourage you to sink deep roots and produce sacred fruit in your own life I have no way to open people's eyes, except that you will show them how to trust the inner mind Today on Spirit in Action, I'm visiting with three different participants of the Peace Learning Center of Milwaukee The Peace Learning Center is an effort to teach peace, conflict, resolution, and non-violent skills to students in the Milwaukee public schools Crucial to the beginning of this project was what is called a leading in Quaker Parlance One that Phyllis Berenson experienced and which resulted in her faithful efforts to bring about this vital peace work for Milwaukee Phyllis is currently a member of the board of the Peace Learning Center Also with us today are Karen Swanson and Daryl Smith, both who serve as facilitators for the day-long workshop trainings offered to the 4th grade students of 16 Milwaukee schools I'm very pleased to have all three of you with me here today as we talk about a grassroots effort that has the potential to radically change the day-to-day life of many Milwaukee citizens Phyllis, I think I'll start with you because you're really the starting person, the person who got this particular project off the ground Welcome Phyllis to Spirit in Action Good morning Mark, it's a pleasure to speak with you today Phyllis, I've been following the development of the Peace Learning Center from afar up here in Eau Claire As you've developed it, and I'd just like you to share some of the history of the development, how it came about and what you do as part of the Peace Learning Center We had our first meeting to organize the Peace Learning Center in November of 2001, but the idea had been around for about a year before that We pulled our program so far in the meeting house of the Milwaukee Friends Meeting, Quakers, and they had enlarged their meeting house And in this process, there was some disagreement about whether it was alright to go ahead and build a building People said, "Well, we can't spend all this money on a building that's just for us, we have to know who else is going to use it for what good purpose is" At one point in the meeting, I said, "We don't have to know this ahead of time because we're being led to build this building and will be led to the right uses" Eventually, the decision was made to go ahead The day after that meeting, I got a phone call from Ian Harris, who was the Director of Peace Studies at UWM He had become aware of a program in Indianapolis that was called the Peace Learning Center And they had a very large program in which all the fourth graders in the whole city went through their workshops at their center, which is located in a large nature preserve I was taken with this idea, he said that it would be a wonderful thing to do in the new Friends Meeting House And I said, "Oh, this is the leading I was talking about and I'll tell the Quakers and they'll do it" I told the Quakers a number of times, they didn't do it Every once in a while, I put the idea for us again, and I started to think, "Maybe this isn't just for the Quakers" Maybe I'm supposed to do something about this, so shortly before the end of year 2001, I wrote a letter to people that I thought might get involved And Don Austin and Margine Lloyd that came forward and said, "They'd work on it with me" That's when we thought about who else in the community might want to get involved, and we had this organizational meeting From there, we had our first Peacemaker's workshop with fourth graders, fall of 2002 And it was just one school at that time we worked with Gensland School And from that beginning, the pilot project with one school, we expanded to three schools the next year, and five the next year And then, oh, 506, we worked for 16 schools. At the end of that school year, we had seen over 1400 fourth graders We came up with our mission, which our mission is to be a catalyst in our community for non-violent conflict management And respect for self, others, and the environment And our goals are to provide opportunities for people of all ages to learn and practice non-violent conflict management Again, in appreciation for the history of non-violence, foster the growth and creativity of each individual Learn and practice environmental and community responsibility We have a five-hour workshop to students and teachers engage in activities that focus on developing non-violent conflict resolution skills We are cooperative games, relaxation techniques, learning safe ways to de-escalate confrontation Learning about peace mentors, peace heroes And, as I said before, some outdoor environmental education We don't just want to work with fourth graders, but that's where we've started in the major part of our ongoing program But we've had some workshops for adults and we've had a few for older children I believe that your project is patterned after the Peace Learning Center that they have down in Indianapolis How did it come about that you came to adopt and what portion of what they do Did you replicate up here in Milwaukee? Some of us went down there and got really inspired when we saw what they were doing And we didn't copy it exactly, we modified it so that it worked well for us But, yes, it's very definitely patterned after their program Karen, maybe I'll direct this next question to you as one of the facilitators of the Peace Learning Center workshops From your point of view, as a facilitator, could you describe what goes on in one of these workshops? We bring in whole classrooms and we call them, you know, I particularly call them classroom communities It's the students who come in with the people they spend the bulk of their day with I think kids spend a lot of time at home, but not nearly as much time or as intense time, I think, with their peers in their classrooms So these classroom communities come in and we work with them for about five hours And by the end of the day, we've had this very intense, very exciting time together By the end of the day, we know everyone's names, we know a little bit about each person And we watch their wheels begin to turn Well, what exactly do you do in these sessions in these five hour workshops? This is the hardest thing, it's painting this picture of what we do Because I often think it's magic, we weave some kind of weird magic with these kids And it's so exciting to watch We spend a long time playing some different cooperative games and getting to know each other And seeing that we're all different, but we're all inside, we're all the same And we all have common things that we share, we all have likes and dislikes But really when it gets down to it, we're all kind of the same That's pretty neat to see in a lot of classrooms, it's a mixed race group I'm white, some of the other facilitators are also white, I'm a woman, a lot of the kids, you know Here's this white lady talking to me about peace, what's she gonna teach me? Well, it turns out that I'm not so different from them And it's a really exciting time So we spend a lot of time doing these, getting to know you and hanging out together kind of games and working together And then we start talking about our feelings and how, it doesn't matter what you're feeling, feelings are natural All feelings are absolutely right and appropriate, it's just what we do with them And so we talk about how can we let someone know how we're feeling in a good way and in a safe and respectful way We talk about how you ask someone how they're feeling, you know, how do we know somebody's feeling upset? Well, they look upset, their body language is telling us they're maybe upset But how do we really know and we, oh, you just really have to ask them And so we ask, we do a lot of role playing, asking, how are you feeling? And then we teach about eye statements and we say, I feel upset when you kick me like that Or when you put me down, I want you to stop So there's another respectful way to let someone know how you feel without getting in the face And without using your physical self as a, you know, I met at you and I'm shaking for my fist in your face It's very easy to just use your words and say, I feel angry when you put me down, I want you to stop So that's a tool that we give them, this eye message We move from that into a little more complex problem solving and we teach what we call ready set go We teach ready set go as a mediation tool that children can use with each other without getting another adult involved Without getting a whole bunch of kids involved, it can be, you know, two kids sitting together working out a problem And this is really the meat of our program In essence, it's six questions, we teach the kids to ask six questions The first one is, are you ready and willing to solve the problem peacefully? And we know that if they're not ready and willing to do it peacefully, that it's not going to happen If somebody's not ready or not willing, it's just simply not going to be solved So we teach them some different strategies to calm down if you're feeling upset, if you're feeling anxious, if you're feeling beyond angry How can you calm down enough to be ready to solve this problem and work it out? Are you saying that they're asking the other person these questions or are they just talking to themselves with these questions? There's a mediator, and it's another child, and that child helps the other children involved solve the problem So you've got three kids sitting in a little triangle together, one child is the mediator, and the other two, for example, have had a conflict The mediator can say, to child A, are you ready to solve the problem peacefully? And that child may not be ready, so then the mediator can say, can you tell me what it would take to make you ready and willing? And maybe they need to take a breath, and we teach them about belly breathing and how to take a big deep breath Maybe you need to count to 100, maybe you need to go away and come back in a little while, maybe we can't do this until tomorrow So we get both kids ready and willing, and then we can move on, and the kids take turns, they pass a piece stick back and forth And the next questions are what happened, why does it matter, and how do you feel? It's really surprising how these two kids have had this conflict, and maybe it's a playground issue, maybe it's something that happened in the classroom or on the way to school And they were both there, but of course there are two points of view, and so this gives the kids an opportunity to hear both sides of the story You know, we spend a lot of time teaching the kids some listening skills, and how do you listen to somebody, and how do you hear what they had to say, and then reflect back on it in your own words? So once they get through that step, that's the set of ready set to go, it's time to go, and we search for a win-win solution And the whole time of this, the mediator is just making sure that both sides are taking their turn, that nobody's interrupting, that the piece stick is going back and forth between the two disputants So they're going to find a win-win solution, and we do that by asking what do you want, and what are you willing to do? We talk about how a lot of times there's a compromise that's necessary in order to agree that a solution's been reached, that they can't always get exactly what they want And that's a hard thing for kids to figure out, but we get it worked out, and then the last thing we ask the kids to do is to go and do what they said they were going to do, and tell their friends about it So there isn't any more drama about this issue later So with this tool, we hope that if they go tell their friends that they really solved it, and it's done, then the issue truly is done So that's kind of a little description of ready set go Then the rest of our day is spent, we do a few more different kinds of breathing exercises and that sort of thing And then we have a component where we go outside, and we look at nature, and we're on a land preserve, and we look at how we can be peaceful in our environment Oh, and there's one more component, I forgot about this one, and this is how do you back away from a physical confrontation without losing faith with your peers And we call it "I don't want to fight", and it's a technique, we just tip the children to step back and shout "I don't want to fight", and let somebody else hear that you don't want to be involved And pull yourself out of a threatening situation You know, it's not something we teach them to use with a stranger on a street corner, or with a kid that's bigger than them, but with one of their classmates or peers, it's pretty effective When someone makes you slip, and you want to bruise their lip, use a word, use a word, when someone grabs your book, and you go for your left hook, use a word, use a word Because we can work it out, that's what words were invented for, we can work it out, it's the best way there is for sure to fight over something is absurd, so for Pete's sake, use a word When someone steals your ball, and you want to make them fall, use a word, use a word, when someone plays a trick, and you're winding up to kick, use a word, use a word Because we can work it out, that's what words were invented for, we can work it out, it's the best way there is for sure to fight over something is absurd, so for Pete's sake, use a word There's so many different words, they do all kinds of things, some can make a smile and laugh while others hurt and sting, we get to choose the words we use each and every day, so when it's time to use a word, be careful what you say, cause we can work it out, that's what words were invented for, we can work it out, it's the best way there is for sure to fight over something is absurd, so for Pete's sake, use a word When someone hurts your pride, and you want to run and hide, use a word, use a word, when someone thinks of you in a way that isn't true, use a word, use a word Everybody's different, take a look around and see You're the only you, I know and I'm the only me Because we're all so different, there'll be times we'll disagree But I just wanna say my friend that that's alright with me 'Cause we can work it out, that's what words we're inventing for We can work it out, it's the best way there is for sure to fight over something is absurd So for Pete's sake, and Jamie's and Nicky's and Wands and Jamiles and Debbie's and Aaron's and Crystal's and David's and Andes Use the word! If you just tuned in, I'm your host Mark Helps meet That song was by Red Grammar and it's called "Use a word" And you're listening to a spirit in action interview with three people Involved in making the Peace Learning Center of Milwaukee function Phyllis Berenson is a founder of the PLC and a member of the board of directors And Karen Swanson and Daryl Smith are facilitators of the day-long workshops In which they give fourth graders in Milwaukee Public Schools tools to non-violently handle conflict To develop and live out respect and care for themselves, others and the environment Daryl, we haven't heard from you yet How did you get involved with the Peace Learning Center? Well, I was involved with an after-school tutoring program and Peace and Conflict Resolution program On the south side of Milwaukee for five years and when I left that position I really felt like there was still a lot of potential But I think the format of working during the school day with an entire classroom community And with teachers involved really makes for a more cohesive curriculum and a good learning experience And kids are really receptive at that time of day So I basically was introduced to the Peace Learning Center through the Quaker Meeting House That I'm affiliated with and I had some background working with kids around this age Fourth grade particularly in this case And so it was a good meeting of skills and something happening literally right off my back door What about the work that the Peace Learning Center does is particularly important to you? I see it as helping young people develop skills that are almost adult skills Abilities to communicate, to express themselves and find ways of working through conflict And doing so constructively In many ways I feel like that's not something that's really taught to us in any organized way when we're young So to be able to do that in a group setting with a class that can continue to develop those skills Over the course of the year is a really good combination You know Darrell, you said that these skills are not taught to us when we're young in any organized way But I was just wondering if you can think of any way that they're taught to us as adults in any organized way I guess it depends on our adult experiences But it's something that I've come into contact with just through some of my own personal growth work And through my connection with a meeting house and a sense of the importance of peace And of communicating clearly with each other in ways that we can receive and respond and that are productive That help us to get closer to one another and understand each other better Rather than brushing it aside or stuffing it or waiting till something explodes But to really start learning to, I guess I think emotion is really at the core of it You know, how do I express myself when I'm angry? How do I deal with somebody else's expressions of anger and find ways that are safe To help me to be safe and to respond in ways that show the other person that they've been heard first and foremost Are these skills, the skills that you're using and facilitating these workshops Are these skills that you had before or are you making them up as you go or are you following someone else's script on how to do these things? Right, I guess as a program, the simplest way to describe it is that we've taken a program that's currently going on in Indianapolis It's called the Indianapolis Peace Learning Center, and we've adapted it and made it in our eyes a little bit easier for the students to digest But we've modeled it after their program in the sense that it's high energy It's a day-long workshop that really grabs their attention and takes them through a variety of skills And I think these are each things that the facilitators have learned in some capacity and training in other places But the way we've been able to bring it together and adding our own spin to it has been really effective So when we're up there teaching, it's evolving constantly It's taking advantage of work that other people have done across the country And it's something that's personal because we've added our own creative inputs to have it something that kids can really use And that's a question we ask them at the end of the day is something you'll really use And then we challenge them to try one thing they've learned Well, speaking of things that they learned that putting them into practice I'm wondering what kind of feedback you're getting from the schools and from the staff About how well this is working, how much these lessons are being taken to heart I guess, Phyllis, since you sit on the board and review the progress that the workshops are making What do you hear from the schools and staff? We've done some evaluation and the report at the end of August '06 65% of teachers agreed or strongly agreed that their students were more considerate of each other's feelings since the workshop Over half of them agreed that their students had truly improved in their handling of conflict with their classmates Two thirds of the teachers believed that they had handled student conflicts differently since the workshop And they were almost unanimous in their desire to return for next year's workshop Do you have any examples, Phyllis, of kids that have been changed kind of in a concrete sense Not just a general statistic, but examples of kids who've acted differently because of having taken the workshop in a kind of concrete way Not personally, no, I've heard some stories of almost instant changes There were people from Kenosha and Racine who came up and visited our workshop And then went back and started their own program And one of the stories they tell is of a bus driver who, when the kids came out after the workshop, he said, "What did you do to these kids?" Because apparently they had behaved much differently after the workshop than they did on the bus ride, coming to the workshop Karen, you're out there facilitating the workshops with the kids Are there cases where you've seen really concrete changes come about as a result of the workshop? We had one experience in particular, it was pretty emotional, we've had several, but this one in particular that I can tell about Was a class that was really a tough group of kids, and they were just, you could see the moment they walked in, it was going to be a tough day And you know, they were talking trashy to each other, and they were kind of rambunctious And they just didn't have a lot of respect for each other, you could just tell that And they came in and they went through the first part of the day And we had to be talking about eye messages and talking about our feelings And they started sort of saying trashy eye messages to each other, you know, putting each other down And the teacher said, I have an eye message, and so we said alright, go ahead And the teacher said, I feel so upset when my class talks this way to each other, and she started to cry And it was the most moving, I mean, time stopped, there wasn't a noise in this room And the teacher was crying, saying it hurts me so bad that we work and we work together all the time And we try so hard, and we come to this peaceful place, and you guys are talking to each other like this And she was just really beside herself, and it was a stunning moment, and these kids started to apologize And apologized very sincerely to her, and to each other, and then they started giving each other nice messages And I mean, it was like this catharctic moment where it was a beautiful thing I don't know if we changed the climate in that classroom forever, but it was a good day after that And we certainly changed the climate in the room for that day What about you, Darryl? You're also out there facilitating these workshops What kind of direct feedback have you received about how effective they are in terms of teaching these kids' skills And really making a difference in their life? The best ways that I have to gauge that are when we go back to do a follow-up session in the classroom And I play a little game with them to find out, basically, standing up and sitting down, depending on what's true for them In terms of what they've experienced with things that they've used from the Peace Learning Center And, you know, did they tell someone at home about their day? Did they, have they given an apology in the way that we teach them that shows someone that they really meant it? And then I can get the sense from those who have been involved that, yes, this is something that struck a chord or no, this hasn't And several have said, oh, I went home and I did this with my family Or I told my mom or dad that this is how you solve the conflict And then I walked in through what we learned today So, I mean, something like that, where a child is brave enough to take it into an environment that maybe isn't really that receptive to some of these ideas In terms of what's normally done to handle conflict, I think that shows a belief that, oh, this has got some real quality to it And I'm going to try it out. And then, through the teachers, we also find out that simply being aware of behaviors that we call fouls So, kinds of bossing people or calling someone's names, blaming, scapegoating, things like that That they're aware of that and that the students call each other on that instead of the teacher having to be the one that lords it over them That's really helpful. I mean, you can tell that there's awareness growing as far as what are those dynamics? Do you have examples, Daryl, of times when you think that the kids really, really got it? Yeah, one person I have to say, we teach a basic conflict resolution method that we call "ready set go" One of the times I went back to the classroom and we were just reviewing it And usually, I sort of anticipate that kids will have forgotten fair amount of it in the months since we saw them last for the day-long workshop And just follow up and find out where they're at with this And when we finished it, it was clear that they got all the steps and all the questions, that wasn't the issue They had further questions and one girl said, "Well, what do you do if you're going through this?" And somebody isn't being honest. They're answering the questions, but you don't think they're being honest And then somebody else can say, "Well, what happens if there are three people who are involved instead of just two?" And so they were clearly taking it to a next level. They were saying, "Wow, this is good, but what happens if this or this happens?" And these are real-life situations, so we talked about it and at the level they're at I mean, these are really tough questions and there's probably no easy answer But I encourage them to involve the teacher at that point because we teach them to do this so that students can mediate But I encourage them to get a little more complicated to bring in a teacher to help them Phyllis, I wanted to come back to you, you know, as a founder of the Peace Learning Center You clearly were getting on board for doing this long before you had any kind of results coming back I mean, you sat with the idea for a year when no one else would take it up, you put yourself to the task What was it about this peace work that seemed so important to you? Why is this such a big thing in your life? Well, you know, I said earlier, I tried not to do it, I thought other people would do it, but it wasn't happening and it just seemed like I couldn't let it go I needed to do it at that point where, "Well, if no one else is going to do it, then I have to" I don't know why that was so important to me, I guess I could say that one reason is that I gradually came to realize over, of course, of many years that I believed in finding peaceful ways to do things I was in a seminar last summer where actually it was with Ian Harris, he was talking about peace education and its history of development and he asked us when we first heard about peace or got ideas about peace and I realized that my first introduction to the idea actually was when a brother of my husband's friend wouldn't go to war and he instead moved to Canada and lives there still, that must have been the second world war and I was very impressed with that. It had never occurred to me that somebody could say, "No, this is wrong, I'm not going to do it" I guess my feelings about this grew from that point. Eventually, my husband and I started attending and later joined the Quaker meeting it was partly that I felt at home in their way of worship and partly because of their beliefs and peace and justice Phyllis, were you raised in a peace-oriented family, a family where you would basically learn these skills of peacemaking and how to resolve conflict? The only thing I can remember that would lead me in that direction was my mother saying to me when she heard that there was a certain child that some of us didn't want to play with she said, "I want you to play with everybody, you shouldn't want me excluding people" No, it wasn't the otherwise peace-oriented family. I said, "I hadn't really encountered that kind of thinking prior to who I must have been to nature or young adult" Were you raised in some church? Yeah, we went to the non-denominational church in White Fish Bay that later became a Methodist church And you didn't get these kind of values about peace from your church? Well, I suppose anybody gets it to some extent in being raised in a Christian church, but no, they weren't saying that I recall no war is wrong and that kind of thing Karen, what about you? Why did you get involved in the Peace Learning Center? What led you to get involved in this and what's your background? Well, my background, I have a bachelor's degree in child development and psychology and I have a master's in school counseling and I was working on that at the time that I became involved It's sort of a funny story. The church that I belong to, which is North Shore Presbyterian in Shorewood, had given the Peace Learning Center a grant to do some programming And they came to thank the church and I had no idea about this grant. It was sort of below my radar The Peace Learning Center folks came to the church to thank us for this grant And I had never heard of them before, but they stood up and started speaking about their goal and their mission And it was one of those weird goose bumpy moments where I was sitting in the pew and they were talking to me And after church, I went to the back of the church and I found the people involved and I said, "I don't know what I can do to be involved, but I'm your person." I had a toddler hanging off one hip and a kid pulling on my other arm And I said, "I really need to work with you. I think that what you're doing is a beautiful thing." And that was kind of it from there. So, are you a full-time at-home mom? Actually, I'm not. At the moment, I'm a part-time school counselor for a small Catholic school in Wauwatosa And that's new for me. I've had my degree for a while, but I've been involved in raising kids. I've got three boys of my own. The youngest one is now in kindergarten and so I'm a little more free to pursue my career. But at the time, I was fully at-home with my kids that I started with the Peace Learning Center. Are peace and non-violence justice issues? Are those part of your family history and your upbringing? I would have to say no. I was raised in a very white middle class, suburban Minneapolis neighborhood. And peace and violence never, ever entered my conversation or my world. It just didn't happen. So, I guess, you know, the issues surrounding it, it was an on issue for me as a kid growing up there. You know, I remember asking my folks, "What's with the Martin Luther King day? Why do we have that day off?" And there was no reason given that I can remember. I remember someone saying, "Oh, those civil rights people." And, you know, it was very much not talked about in my house. And I went away to college and it really wasn't even part of my life then. But I guess after I got married and we lived in the inner city in Chicago, we saw a lot of issues that were really troublesome to us or for myself anyway. And we started getting involved in some soup kitchens and that kind of thing in Chicago. But really, it was not an issue for me growing up. And it wasn't until really that I lived here in Milwaukee. And, you know, it's such a wonderful city. But, boy, it's got a lot of problems. And I started bringing up my children and realizing that, boy, we've got to do something to make this great city a better place and really the world. The Peace Learning Center is just, I guess, my way of meeting that need. You know, Karen, I want to test a theory on you. You said that when the Peace Learning Center delivered their thanks to the Presbyterian Church and you heard them speak, you felt totally called. I wonder if there's correlation between your feeling called and the fact that you're raising three boys. I have a feeling that it hits so close to home, especially for the parents of boys to think about violence. For instance, Margine Moida, who's one of the founders of Milwaukee's Peace Learning Center, she's the mother of three boys. And I think that helped lead her to a quicker meeting, got her especially involved in that sort of thing. Is having three boys yourself, is this part of the deep relevance to you of your motivation to be involved in peace work? Absolutely. You know, I don't think that when I started out having a family, I gave it two thoughts. But, yeah, three boys, the potential for the physical violence is huge. But my boys know how to do eye messages. My kindergartner can do ready set go. He can mediate a dispute between his big brothers, which is kind of a neat thing. In terms of the larger world, you know, here we are, we're in this sort of terrible situation. In our city, our country is in a terrible predicament internationally. And the thought of, oh my gosh, I've got three boys. Even one of them went into the service and, oh my gosh, I can't even, I can't even go there in my head. So yeah, absolutely. I'm pulling for peace. I don't know how to answer that in a way that's not totally from my heart and passionate. You mentioned to me earlier, Karen, that you were raised in a church that was on the fundamentalist Christian end of the spectrum. Did you get values of peace from that community or what was the transition to your being Presbyterian and being involved in peace and nonviolence? You know, I don't believe that peace and nonviolence, I don't remember it ever being a topic of conversation in the church. It's about to say that it wasn't, but I don't remember it being ever an issue. I went to a Lutheran college and my husband and I got married after college and I guess it wasn't necessarily the church that we were involved in, but it was the fact that we were living in the city, in the heart of the city of Chicago, that brought some peace and justice issues sort of to our conversations. We joined the Presbyterian church because it felt like a good fit for us. We liked the theology, we liked the worship style. I don't know, it didn't feel awkward, I guess. I know, Karen, that part of the curriculum that you do for the Peace Learning Center is to talk about peace mentors, kind of peace heroes. And I was wondering for you who are some important peace mentors of your life. You know, I've done a lot of studying since I started working with the Peace Learning Center because I told you it was not part of my life growing up. So, of course, I'm inspired by Gandhi and by Dr. Kang and Vell Phillips as our local peace mentor that we talk about and how she worked really hard at making Milwaukee a place where you could live anywhere because it used to be that blacks and whites couldn't live on the same street. And now we can, and I think that's pretty important, but really in my own little spiritual journey, I can think of no better peace mentor than Jesus. And I say that without being, I hope, not something like a zealot or anything, but I just think, wow, here's a guy who was okay to take a stand and treat people fairly and ask others to do the same. Phyllis, what about you? With all these peace mentors to choose from, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, Vell Phillips, which peace mentor was most influential for you, which was one that you most wanted to emulate? Martin Luther King is probably the one that I was most tuned into. It's more people that I've known personally who've worked for these values. One of our good friends who was a leader in our youth hostile group, who my husband and I met in youth hostile activities, and one of the leaders was a man named Bob Conley, who later became a close personal friend, and he had been a conscientious objector in World War II. Well, I guess we're over to you, Darrell. So, Darrell, for you, who are your favorite peace mentors? For me, I would say Gandhi is up there. He, in my opinion, is the pioneer of really saying that not only is peace an important value to have, but it's something that is concrete, it's achievable, it can actually be implemented in an organized way for society, not with a goal of being weak, but to be strong in a different way. And so I actually studied him in college. I studied philosophy and did my thesis on Gandhi and looking at some of his theories and whether or not they had some real traction to him. And I would say I admire him and I also find him really challenging personally. So there's sometimes a love-hate relationship with somebody who has taken something to such a high degree and really challenges all. And I would say he's a personal one, but then, you know, in my own life, there are people that I find who carry themselves in a different way, who exhibit a way of living in life that kind of facilitates other people's growth. And I think that's, on a different level, those are people who are my own peace heroes. Do you want to mention any names? Yeah, I would say there are people. This probably wouldn't work well for a radio show who's being hosted, but I'd say Mark, even the way you've described some things in terms of listening in tongues and the energy you bring to the Northern Yearly Meeting of Quakers is one person. Locally, I would say, Don Austin, who is one of the co-directors, or actually, I guess he's the co-chair of the committee that leads up the Peace Learning Center. He's somebody that has a warmth that when you meet, you can just tell that there's something else going on inside of him that's not the norm. It's something that's special. He has a great degree of care in the way he relates to you. And when there are challenges, he has a balance of energy and activism, but also sensitivity to what's going on around him. I don't know how to really describe it. There are intangibles of people like that who seem to carry themselves in a different way. You said back in college that you studied Gandhi, were you Quaker-affiliated at that time, or maybe Hindu-affiliated for all I know? No, I wasn't actually affiliated in any way. I was mostly becoming very disillusioned with Western philosophy and an analytic philosophy that divides everything up into rational steps. Gandhi was somebody who came from a very different perspective, although he was trained and he went to, I think he got his higher education in England. As a lawyer. As a lawyer, right. He certainly was not, he didn't dodge criticisms. In fact, he did a lot of public writing through a newspaper that he edited. And he was alive at the time that Hitler was doing his thing. And so that frequent response of, well, what about if there's Hitler or Phil in the blank, somebody doing mad, you know, does non-violence work? He addressed that. But I knew there was more out there from my own personal life realizing that modern Western philosophy was ultimately unsatisfying and that I had to look to some other sources. And when I did that, I actually received quite a bit of flack within my department for believing in things that were obviously rationally false. So, you know, the Gandhi's techniques are obviously false and irrational because they can never stop somebody like Hitler. But in fact, there were examples in history in which people use non-violence and civil disobedience to make a power like that ultimately ineffective. You know, there's something I want to come back to that I skipped earlier. Perhaps you can answer this, Karen. That is, you do this training for fourth graders. Why do you train fourth graders as opposed to, say, high schoolers? I mean, I would think that the high schoolers were facing considerable more potential of violence, including the fact that pretty soon they'll be graduating, leaving high school, and they'll make job decisions, including some of them thinking about the military. So, why are you training fourth graders? The Peace Learning Center here in Milwaukee is modeled after the Peace Learning Center in Indianapolis. And that is a huge operation. It services every single kid that goes through the Indianapolis public schools, including several parochial schools. This is a huge, huge program. They've got a big staff, and it's really a very cool place. We are modeled after the Indianapolis Peace Learning Center. And they started out with fourth grade workshops. And I think that the reason behind that is that cognitively, developmentally, fourth graders, kind of in that age 10 area, they're really into what their peers are doing, but not entirely. They're okay doing role plays and working sort of off the cuff like that. As you get into fifth and sixth grade, they don't like to do role plays. And this kind of workshop, we use role plays all the time. Fourth graders are very aware of what's going on around them, but they're not entirely sold on what's outside of themselves yet. They're still able to just kind of think about themselves. And I think they are just prime. Now, do I think that we need to expand this? Absolutely. We are scratching the surface. We've got a few schools that we work with in Milwaukee. What I love to see every fourth grader go through it, like they do in Indianapolis, absolutely. But we don't have that capacity yet. We are developing a program to work with three middle schoolers. Like I said, I'm a school counselor. I work with kindergarten through eighth grade kids. And I've used different programs components in my teachings with fourth through eighth grade. And they work very well. But we've not done exactly this program for middle schoolers yet. We're working on it for the summer. So Indianapolis has a program. They've got a middle school component and then a high school component. Again, it's every kid in Indianapolis. So they get hit three different times with three different age appropriate programs. And I think they're starting to see some real results in Indianapolis with violence and expulsion rates dropping like crazy for kids that have been through the three different components. I think it's wonderful that the Peace Learning Center has been growing as quickly as it has from just one school back in 2002 and up to 16 this past year. And I'm wondering if you have specific plans for the future. If you have an idea of which direction you're going to be going with your program. That's a good question. One school of thought is, well, we ought to work with everybody in the school district. In fact, that's what the Indianapolis Peace Learning Center does. Every single fourth grader goes through and has this experience, which is pretty powerful. And they've had some good results doing that. And then another very valid way to look at it is, well, if you only really work with somebody once, how much good are you going to be able to do? And when a lot of these are habits that come from practice and from trying it from different angles. And so we've thought about working with older students, maybe sixth grade or middle school, but actually as a young organization, those involve completely new curriculums. Kids are a different stage of life, different challenges, and learn in different ways. And so we've sort of been, I would say, leading towards the idea of trying to work again with the same students that we have seen before. But we need to come up with something that would, again, we feel like really works and accomplishes the goals that we have. Well, there's a lot more that we could talk about related to the Peace Learning Center and the spiritual journeys. They got all three of you to a place where you're doing this really important work. I think it's wonderful work you're doing, and I just know that it's making a really crucial difference to the students there in Milwaukee, to their families and to the whole community. I should give them new tools and insights that are going to make the brighter future thanks to all three of you, Phyllis, Karen, and Daryl. Thank you very much. Thanks for investigating. ♪ Teaching peace are the world around ♪ ♪ You and me every city, every town ♪ ♪ One by one in our work and in our play ♪ ♪ We teach in peace by what we do and what we say ♪ ♪ It's up to us to show we care ♪ ♪ Reaching out to everybody everywhere ♪ ♪ Heart to heart and friend to friend ♪ ♪ Circling all around the world and back again ♪ ♪ Teaching peace are the world around ♪ ♪ You and me every city, every town ♪ ♪ One by one in our work and in our play ♪ ♪ Teaching peace by what we do and what we say ♪ ♪ So take my hand and come along ♪ ♪ It's time to sing the world a brand new song ♪ ♪ So sing it loud and sing it clear ♪ ♪ All together now so everyone can hear ♪ ♪ Teaching peace are the world around ♪ ♪ You and me every city, every town ♪ ♪ One by one in our work and in our play ♪ ♪ We teach in peace by what we do and what we say ♪ ♪ We teach in peace by what we do and what we say ♪ ♪ Sound off ♪ ♪ One, two, three, four, one, two, three, four ♪ ♪ One, two, three, four, one, two, three, four ♪ ♪ One, two, three, four, one, two, three, four ♪ ♪ So take my hand and come along ♪ ♪ It's time to sing the world a brand new song ♪ ♪ So sing it loud and sing it clear ♪ ♪ All together now so everyone can hear ♪ ♪ Teaching peace are the world around ♪ ♪ You and me every city, every town ♪ ♪ One by one in our work and in our play ♪ ♪ We teach in peace by what we do and what we say ♪ ♪ We teach in peace by what we do and what we say ♪ ♪ Teaching peace are the world around ♪ ♪ You and me every city, every town ♪ ♪ One by one in our work and in our play ♪ ♪ We teach in peace by what we do and what we say ♪ ♪ Teaching peace are the world around ♪ ♪ You and me every city, every town ♪ ♪ One by one in our work and in our play ♪ ♪ We teach in peace by what we do and what we say ♪ ♪ Teaching peace are the world around ♪ ♪ You and me every city ♪ That was Red Grammar and his song "Teaching Peace." That's what we've been talking about here with three participants of Milwaukee's Peace Learning Center, a vital and growing effort to give students their tools to build respect for themselves, others, and the environment. You can email them at peacelearning@sbcglobal.net and on the web you can read up on them at plcmilwalkie.blogspot.com or it might just be easier to go to my website, northernspearradio.org or you can listen to this program again and find links to the Peace Learning Center and other relevant information. The theme music for Spirit in Action is "I Have No Hands But Yours" by Carol Johnson. Thank you for listening. I welcome your comments and stories of those leading lives of spiritual fruit. You can email me at helpsmeet@usa.net. May you find deep roots to support you and grow steadily toward the light. This is Spirit in Action. ♪ I have no higher call for you than this ♪ ♪ To love and serve your neighbor ♪ ♪ Enjoying selflessness ♪ ♪ To love and serve your neighbor ♪ ♪ Enjoying selflessness ♪ ♪ ♪ [MUSIC PLAYING]