Grade 5 Activity – Planning
The grade 5 peace activity planning gave us a small essence of what planning and organisation a peace conference would be like. I was lucky to be in a group full of people who were really creative idea generators, and it was really great to work in a respectful and calm environment where there was diversity in opinions and train of thinking. After collectively watching the video the fifth graders made about their learning in regards to peace and conflict we were given insight into their understanding of the topics, as well as deeper insight into their preferences and interests when it comes to the kinds of activities they like taking part in. Through learning that they associate peace and conflict with personal experiences, such as sports or playing in the playground, as a group we acknowledged that our peace activity should cater to their interest in physical activity in order to engage them.
We all developed a shared aim for out activity, which would be to teach the kids that any issue, no matter how big or small, have have multiple perspectives surrounding it – and that it is critical to acknowledge this, as well as respect the multi-dimensional nature of various issues in order to avoid conflict and promote peace0building. This idea was inspired by the image of the elephant with various people surrounding it, which was shown to us in one of the initial IFP sessions.
To achieve this aim, we brainstormed ideas as a group to best showcase this with our ideas filtered down by the interests of the grade 5 students. An idea Sara, Rakeb and I had was inspired by an activity we took part in, during the Singapore peace conference we attending in September. It involved us getting into groups and acting out a word given to us, with other groups trying to guess what the word is. The aim of the activity, we learnt at the end, was to teach us that different words can have different interpretations (depending on how they were conveyed when acted out), and that these interpretations are important to understand and acknowledge as being valid even if they are different from yours. We thought it was a great activity to replicate with the grade 5s.
However, the other members of the group brought up a valid point that the kids may not be too engaged with this idea and can be easily distracted, bored even. Keeping this in mind, I changed an aspect of the idea while considering this concern, keeping in mind that the kids like sports. So, I decided the best way to fulfil our learning outcome while engaging the kids was to create a sense of competition, which was created through implementing a time constraint between groups – creating an unconscious pressure for the kids to beat the other teams. This idea satisfied all members of the group and we were keen to see how this would play out when working with the grade 5s. (However, this activity wasn’t chosen. But either way, we were eager to facilitate and work with the kids).
The Actual Activity
We went into the classroom really unfamiliar with the expectations and behaviour of the fifth grade students. Turns out, they were seemingly more mature than we thought them to be. During out warm-up activity, one of the kids came up to me and said, “You know we’re in grade 5, right?” – suggesting that we were somewhat treating them like they were younger than they really were. Funny thing was, as grade 11s we do this warm-up activity very often. However from this intimidating and rather confidence deflating comment, I’ve learned to really empathise with this age group, acknowledging that in similar situations where I miss-read the behaviour of the people I work with – I need to learn to adapt and be flexible in the way I choose to communicate ideas to various types of audiences. Knowing this, I was able to immediately change the way I expressed my ideas to the group, finding the appropriate level of language and topics to use and discuss.
Overall, the activity ran more smoothly than expected considering that the kids were more calm (most of the time), and more mature that we thought them to be. Going into this, I thought I would find speaking in front of a large group way too intimidating and challenging (feeling especially threatened by that comment made earlier by the fifth grader). However surprisingly, with practice in contributing to discussions during IFP sessions I found that I was rather comfortable in speaking in public. Whether it was because it was only a small group of kids, or the fact that they were younger than me, I saw that I am able to speak up confidently and effectively communicate my ideas to them. Although, something I wish to improve on is articulating my ideas better, as I felt that I stumbled upon my own words, not getting to the point – which may have confused the kids a bit.
Teaching and sharing ideas is something I have always been inclined towards, from teaching my peers how to do something, or about several topics – I have always liked sharing ideas and make others think. Therefore, I felt that I had a natural ability to adapt to the level of the grade 5 kids, asking them questions at the end-of-activity reflection to consolidate their thinking, and further drive them to think of the significance of the activity on a global scale and a personal scale too. I think this new-found skill of mine would be great to apply when if I do facilitate a peace conference, as I would be able to effectively communicate and teach the ideas and my learning about peace building and conflict to others.
Overall, this experience has taught me a lot about strengths and weakness when it comes to facilitating a peace conferences, giving me a taste of the true complexity of organising one. Luckily, this is a collaborative task. Otherwise, I know for sure we wouldn’t have had the successful outcome we did with the grade 5 students.
