“… We are confronted with having to explain atrocities which we struggle to understand ourselves. We are often at a loss to explain the inexplicable …”
In the shadows of some of our nation’s recent and catastrophic tragedies (the massacre at Columbine High School nearly fourteen years ago, the murder of five Pennsylvania Amish girls in the classroom of a one-room schoolhouse in the autumn of 2006, and, most recently, the Sandy Hook Massacre in an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut last December), parents and teachers across the country are faced with having to help children deal with events we wish they had never heard about or that we could shield them from in the first place. We are confronted with having to explain atrocities that we struggle to understand ourselves. We are often at a loss to explain the inexplicable.
The hard reality, as we know all too well, is that we can’t always protect our children from knowing about such events, but what we can and should do is give them tools and support that will enable them to see in the world, their country, and communities something bigger and more powerful than senseless acts of violence and inexplicable atrocities. Perhaps the answers we seek are not so much about how to explain these horrendous tragedies, but to teach children, instead, to set their intentions on those things that are based in goodness and love. We must teach them to actively look for the good, to be alert to acts of kindness and love, and to find the beauty that is abundant in everyday living. Children need to know that goodness and love overpower hate and violence, and that they, even as children, can contribute to making the world a more peaceful and love-filled place.
We may not always have answers to the questions children ask about why bad things happen, and we cannot always provide satisfying explanations for why people do hateful things, but we can assure children that the world is brimming with goodness, love, and beauty and that by putting our attention on these qualities, and by focusing our minds and hearts on doing good, they are making the world a better place.
Acknowledge the Power of Children to Evoke Change
It’s important that young children recognize their own potential to be active participants in the work for good in the world. They need to see themselves as capable of contributing to the forces that actively promote kindness and service in their communities, schools, and homes. The very act of working for change gives children the knowledge that they have a role to play in making the world a better place.
Montessori schools are based on the idea that a more just and peaceful world begins with the child. In fact, Maria Montessori believed that if human beings are to become more peaceful, and if a world is to be created in which love and peace prevail rather than violence and hatred, adults must change how we work with and parent children.
It is our responsibility to help children see themselves as active participants in creating this new world. One important way in which we do this is to focus on experiences in which children can learn to see themselves as peacemakers, not at some future time when they become adults or even teenagers, but at this time now, when they are in the early formative years. We can achieve this goal by talking with children about what it means to be a peacemaker and by acknowledging and affirming behaviors that promote peace and love.
Compromise, patience, forgiveness, helpfulness, compassion, and service to others are all qualities of a peacemaker – whether that peacemaker is a famous person or a child. When we witness these qualities in children, we can point it out, talk about it, and encourage them to continue to grow in the behaviors, language, and attitudes of peacemaking. It is important that we tell them that these are the ways in which a more loving world is created and that they are participating in that creation. We can remind them that the world needs peacemakers and that peacemaking is something that we can do wherever we are, at any time. Children have the power to make their world more peaceful and goodness filled. The role of the adult is to make them aware of this potential and to remind them that each day is an opportunity for all of us, both adults and children, to work for peaceful change in our world.
Be Seekers of Goodness & Beauty
Reflective adults have learned that the attitude we maintain about any given event or experience, down to the most ordinary, seemingly mundane occurrences in our daily lives, shapes how we feel about our world and ourselves. If we look at the glass as half empty, we focus on not having enough, not being enough, or not doing everything we think we should be doing. Negative feelings take over. On the other hand, if we look at the glass as half full, we are more likely to see the goodness and beauty that surrounds us; thus, we are apt to feel happier and feel joy more often. If, in our daily interactions with children, we model with language and gratitude how looking for the good in every situation is an act of peace, we are teaching them to do the same.
We want children to know that when we choose to see what is good in the world, when we appreciate simple acts of kindness and acknowledge the beauty in our lives, we contribute to the good in the world. By encouraging mindful behaviors (slowing down, paying attention, and being observant of the world around us), we nurture a way of being that helps children to learn how to be seekers of goodness and beauty.
Do All the Good You Can
Build up or tear down? Many times throughout every day, we make decisions that determine whether we will build up or tear down, create or destroy. Consider the following words by eighteenth century theologian John Wesley, words I often posted on the door to my classroom, or kept framed on a shelf in the room:
- Do all the good you can.
- By all the means you can.
- In all the ways you can.
- In all the places you can.
- At all the times you can.
- To all the people you can.
We can help children to understand the power they have to do good in the world and how those acts of love and goodness counter the hate and violence that we often don’t have control over.
When children are engaged in conscious acts of goodness they are deliberately looking for where help might be needed, a hand extended, an act of kindness bestowed. I regularly reminded my students before outside/recess time to be on the lookout for anyone who might need a friend or who seemed lonely or left out. We talked about the conflicts that were apt to arise at these times of day as opportunities to build up relationships rather than tear down friendships. When the children returned, we spent time sharing their noon-hour observation and experiences. Were there opportunities for them to be peacemakers? Did their actions create positive, loving feelings in themselves and others? Did their choices contribute to peace in the world?
In Montessori schools, children are engaged at a very young age in service projects-collecting items for an animal shelter, a food pantry, or The Red Cross, for example. Community outreach is an inherent element in Montessori environments; there is an emphasis on community service and volunteerism. With these opportunities to serve, children have concrete experiences in which they are actively engaged in doing good.
Adults reinforce the importance of the child’s contributions by discussing with them that it is not only adults who work for good in the world, but that children have contributions to make, too. We must sincerely value the work of children in this world and help them to find ways to participate in doing good.
When children understand that they have the power to work for peace in the world just as adults do, when they learn how to be seekers of goodness and beauty, and when they are able to see themselves as agents for good, making choices to build up rather than tear down, they will be armed with tools for creating peace. We may not always know how to explain to children why people do bad things or why there is violence in the world, but what we can do is teach them to counter violence and hatred with love and peace, and in the end, that might be exactly what is needed.
Tomorrow’s Child / April 2013 / p. 13
