Teaching peace as a theme in Catholic religious education class has huge possibilities. The peace theme lends itself to lessons in worldwide change, everyday situations and everything in between.
Teach your children this year that they, as individuals on this big earth, can make a difference by being peacemakers.
Sowers of God’s Peace Theme Year
“Sowers of God’s Peace” is a popular theme for many parishes and religious education programs. Planning an entire CCD year around the theme of Sowers of God’s Peace provides a plethora of tie-ins to almost any lesson.
Make peace pots at the beginning of the year. Have the children decorate a terra cotta flowerpot with peace symbols. Have each student make a flower with a small photograph of him in the center and his own inked fingerprints as petals. Attach the flower to a small dowel. Place all the flowers in the pot, filled with small pebbles, marbles or dirt, and use it as the centerpiece to your class activity table or prayer table.
Make individual small peace pots for each child. Have the children decorate their pots, fill them with dirt, and sprinkle seeds in each one as you pray, “Lord, make me a sower of peace.”
Current Events
Pass out a week’s worth of newspapers to your students and have them leaf through them, looking for places in the world that need a peaceful solution.
Write a prayer for world peace, with each child adding something to the prayer.
Manifesto 2000
Have students sign the Manifesto 2000 for a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence, a promise to follow the tenets of the United Nations in its International Decade for a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence 2001-2010.
The manifesto is a call to:
- Respect all life
- Reject violence
- Share with others
- Listen to understand
- Preserve the planet
- Rediscover solidarity
Discuss with your class what each of these things means and how they can be done on a large worldwide scale and on a smaller scale in their own community, schools and homes.
Peace Symbols
Talk about some of the symbols of peace. Your students will probably know the peace sign from the ‘60s and the two-finger peace hand sign. Add to the list the olive branch, the olive wreath that is used in the United Nations logo, the dove and the rainbow.
Have your students draw and decorate a peace sign of their choosing onto a piece of poster board for a sign or doorknob hanger.
Profiles in Peace
Talk about people throughout history who have promoted peace. Their work started out with small accomplishments and resulted in major changes in the world. Jesus is our greatest role model for living in peace. Have your students research the lives and works of other historical figures - Mahatma Ghandi, Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama, Leo Tolstoy, Martin Luther King Jr. and Franz Jägerstätter. Jagerstatter was executed in Germany in 1943 for refusing to serve in Hitler’s army. He was venerated by Pope Benedict XVI in June and is being considered for beatification by the church.
Who do your students know in their own lives that are sowers of peace?
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