Human Rights Education: The 4th R, Human Rights Education
and the Arts, vol. 7 No. 1, Winter 1996.

Integrated Approaches and Resources

Integrating Peace and Justice with The Arts and Physical Education

Teaching Toward Peace (TTP) is a group of Madison, Wisconsin educators and parents who have been working on peace and justice issues since October, 1982. They have created Integrating Peace and Justice into the Curriculum, a packet of activities for integration into Science, Social Studies, Math, Language Arts, and The Arts and Physical Education. Each section includes a curriculum web, discussion questions, and activities adaptable for Grades K-12. TTP has granted permission to publish some of the discussion questions and activities from The Arts and Physical Education section. For further information, please contact Denise Janssen, Midwest Regional Representative to the AIUSA Human Rights Education Steering Committee, 702 N. Fair Oaks Avenue, Madison, WI 53711, 608-244-6922.

Discussion Questions:

  1. What is the responsibility of the artist in communicating beliefs and values? When a piece of art offends, demeans, or harms a group of people, what is the responsibility of the audience in responding to the art?
  2. What/who promotes art? What is promoted by art?
  3. What are the issues surrounding censorship? How does our community (society) exert its influence as a censor?
  4. What is the message given by various forms of media? For instance, some artists have chosen to promote peace by depicting the atrocities of war; rock videos sometimes criticize society by flaunting aspects of it; and body language may convey one message while words are conveying another. How do artists choose what media to use to convey their messages? How might their chosen media affect their message?
  5. Brainstorm a list of films or TV programs that made you more aware of peace and justice issues. Choose 3-5 of the programs/films on the list and discuss the qualities that made you more aware.
  6. How can photography change the awareness of an observer? Name some photographers who have heightened our awareness of issues related to peace and justice. Bring in some examples of their work and talk about it in class.
  7. What are the symbols related to peace and justice? Are these symbols universal? How can you find out what peace and justice symbols exist in other nations? Why are these symbols important to recognize?
  8. Bring in some examples of graffiti that express a belief. Are they effective expressions of the belief? Why was this medium chosen? Discuss and compare other examples of “street art” and your feelings and opinions about them. Find examples in your own community.

Activities:

  1. Analyze cartoons for sexism, violence, and issues of injustice. Bring in examples over a period of time and share them with the class. Talk about the images, thoughts, and feelings evoked after reading the cartoons. What would some alternatives be?
  2. Create your own cartoons by selecting a problem or issue of fairness in your lives or in history; then, in different frames of the cartoon, portray what happened and what was done or could have been done to solve the problem.
  3. Collectively design and carry out a mural or showcase exhibit for your school on a subject relevant to peace, justice, and human rights.
  4. Study the life and thoughts of individuals in the arts like Buckminster Fuller and Frank Lloyd Wright and how the artists’ works were evolved from their personal philosophies about humanity.
  5. Create peace and justice posters.
  6. Design a national peace monument.
  7. Experience different kinds of music. Select some pieces with dissonance and others that offer a release from the dissonance and a melodic line (e.g. A Day in the Life by The Beatles or Adagio for Strings by Samuel Baker.
  8. What are the images evoked by the dissonance? By the consonance?
  9. What do you think that the composers are trying to convey?
  10. View several different rock videos and discuss the messages being given through the lyrics, the movements, the costumes, and special effects. What are the feelings they evoke? What are the actions and/or attitudes they encourage?
  11. Have a group sing using themes of peace, justice, and friendship.
  12. Experience the changes in your body between listening to everyone talking at once and complete silence in the room. What does this tell you about communication and listening to one another?
  13. Pair up with another student. Using no language, mirror one another’s movements for 3-5 minutes. Discuss how this felt; how you decided who or if someone was leading; how you did or did not keep the movement flowing between you; and whether your relationship to your partner changed during the activity. Variation: purposely pair with a person you do not know well or with whom you do not usually associate.


Resources

Integrated Approaches

Anglesey, Zoe, ed. Word Up!: Hope for Youth Poetry from El Centro de la Raza. Seattle, WA: El Centro de la Raza, 1992. For more information, write: Roy D. Wilson, Director, Department of Community Outreach and International Relations, El Centro de la Raza, 2524 16th Avenue South, Seattle, WA 98144, tel. 206-329-2974, fax 206-329-0786.

National Arts Education Research Center. A Framework for Multicultural Education, Volume I and Volume II. New York: New York University, 1990 and 1991. Order from New York University, School of Education, Health, Nursing, and Arts Professions, 26 Washington Place, Room 21, New York, NY 10003, tel. 212-998-5060. Secondary level.

Needler, Toby and Goodman, Bonnie. Exploring Global Art. Denver: Center for Teaching International Relations, 1991. Order from CTIR, University of Denver Graduate School of International Studies, Ben Cherrington Hall, 2201 S. Gaylord, Room 208, Denver, CO 80208, 800-967-2847.

Wezeman, Phyllis Vos. Peacemaking Creatively Through the Arts: A Handbook of Educational Activities and Experiences for Children. Brea, CA: Educational Ministries, 1990. Order from Educational Ministries, Inc., 2861-C Saturn Street, Brea, CA 92621.

Written, Illustrated, and Edited by Young People of the World in Honor of the 50th Anniversary of the United Nations. A World in Our Hands, with a foreword by Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Secretary-General of the United Nations. Berkeley, CA: Tricycle Press, 1995.