Teaching Peace Initiative Annual Report

January 2014

By the numbers:

2013 was a year of incredible progress for TPI. Let us tell you all about how far weve come.

68

19

Schools across the country that have reached out to TPI, asking to participate in our program. Our staff is working with teachers and students at many of those schools in various stages. College-aged, volunteer staff members, most added in 2013. Our staff includes chapters at Yale and Columbia, and helps to organize volunteers, identify grants, and develop curricula. States in which TPI is currently working. Were also active internationally!

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Up and Running: TPIs Big Year

Dear Supporters, What a difference a year makes! When we began 2013, we were a small group of students meeting once a week in a math classroom. Since then, our organization has made incredible progress. Weve expanded our network of active schools from one to several dozen, weve brought on an incredible teamincluding two returning TPI founders, Jack Anthony and Klay Robertsto guide our progress, and weve brought TPIs message of peace, tolerance, and citizenship to hundreds of students. In this Annual Report, well give you an overview of what exactly weve accomplished over the past year, and what we hope to achieve in 2014. Thanks, as always, for your support. Peace and warm wishes, Fish Stark Executive Director

People Power: Meet Our Teamp. 2 Values in Action: How and Why Our Model Worksp.3 Year in Review p. 4-5 What the Future Holds: Strategies for 2014p. 6

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Issue | Date "The best part of working with TPI is knowing that everyone here is committed to peace education and teaching children to approach situations nonviolently. I am thankful for the chance to improve peace education step by step with these great people." -Kevin Hwang, Research Director, TPI

People Power: Meet the TPI Team

TPI began as five high school students eating lunch in an empty classroom in 2011, wondering how to correct alarming trends of violence and intolerance that werent being addressed in schools. Over the past year, our ranks have grown more than twenty-fold as students from across the country have joined our team. The core of the TPI team is our passionate, diverse, and talented staff of college students. We recruited our team over the summer of 2013 through online, grassroots outreach, and our current staff hails from 10 different universities across the country, many from campus chapters at Yale and Columbia. Much of our 19-member team is made up of Senior Organizers, volunteer coordinators who work directly with students; other team members work on research, development, communications, and Our staff has recruited and managed volunteers at dozens of schools in states across the country, where student leaders are organizing their peers to teach peace with us. You can read about some of our star volunteers throughout this report. her to bring TPI to their classrooms! Kamis team has been especially dynamic, seeking feedback from teachers and students after each class, using the digital teaching tool Wordle to create an all-new TPI activity, and partnering with her high schools health department to bring TPI to the 10th through 12th grades next semester. social media. Our team has experience ranging from the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence to stints as classroom teachers.

For Kami, a public school student in

Volunteer Spotlight: Kami Tinkham

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Cortland, New York, working with TPI is a chance to impact kids in a time when life can be difficult. Leading a team of ten volunteers from her high school, Kami has taught our curriculum to over 175 students as a 2-day seminar at her local junior high. The program has been such a success that other teachers have come to Kami, asking

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What

Are

Students

Learning?

Peace is being kind, caring, helpful, sharing, and truthful, and following the golden rule.

[Being a citizen of the world means] to care and love everything around you and treat others with respect.

Peace is love, fairness, and equality.

To be a citizen of the world is to solve problems with peace.

The quotes above are responses given by 3rd grade students on TPIs post-test.

It Feels Like Were Actually Doing Something:

How and Why Our Model Works
TPI initially grew out of five students frustration with the status quo. We saw bullying, violence, and intolerance becoming cultural norms that were only nominally questions in schools. Anti-bullying education was not offered enough, when it was, it was trite and condescending. Peace education, comprehensive instruction on the values of peace and tolerance, was almost nonexistent. Opportunities for high school students to do measurable, substantive work to build peace in their communities, beyond just putting up posters, were no more plentiful. We knew that kids arent born violentthat we simply need to reach them early and often, teaching them the values of compassion and citizenship. But we knew full well that the only way theyd learn those values was if our curriculum was engaging and respected their intelligence. We also knew that, while they respected their teachers, student were often unlikely to listen to adults when it came to anti-bullying education, due to the issues personal and cultural nature, and would be betterserved by instruction from high school studentsolder peers who were respected, but relatable. We saw the results of our approach almost immediately. Our research report, published in October using post-test data from third grade classes, showed that students were processing, retaining, and using what they had been taught in our class. And our high school volunteers have appreciated a program that recognizes their value as emerging leaders and allows them to do substantive work. One of our volunteers commented: It feels like were actually doing something. In the past year, our model has shaken things upand produced results.

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Issue | Date

Year In Review
Our Progress in 2013
January: TPI starts the year as a small group of high school students working out of an Annapolis, MD classroom. Progress begins on our second curriculum, an hour-long seminar targeted to 7th and 8th grade students about tolerance, stereotypes, and the roots of conflict, including a United Nations simulation. February: TPI debuts its second curriculum for late middle school students in workshops at the School of the Incarnation in Baltimore, MD. March: TPI begins laying the groundwork to expand from its Annapolis, MD base, working with student leaders to organize four new TPI clubs in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. April: TPI is nominated for the Peace First Prize, a $50,000 fellowship awarded by Peace First in support of enterprising young peacemakers. May: TPI pilots efforts to expand instruction to the lower elementary school and high school levels, and is recognized as a Semifinalist for the Peace First Prize. June: TPIs expansion efforts begin in earnest, recruiting twenty new student leaders to start TPI affiliates at their schools. In addition, TPI launched a crowdfunding campaign and made its second curriculum available as a free download on its website. July: TPI continues to add student leaders, receives the support of legendary peacemaker Colman McCarthy, and reports fundraising totals of over $8000, with donations ranging from $10 to over $1000, surpassing TPIs budgetary needs. Dolor Sit Amet

Volunteer Spotlight: Rachelle Chaturabul

Rachelle, a junior at public school in Walnut, California, had always been involved in community service initiatives, but saw a special opportunity in TPI to address a need she felt had gone unmet in her community. Bullying is a very wide aspect of our lives, and it seems as if there could never be an end to teaching peace, she wrote to her Senior Organizer. With TPIs help, Rachelle organized a group of 15 student volunteers at her school, and has gone on to teach TPIs curriculum to younger students in elementary school classrooms throughout her community. Rachelle and her team noticed that the 4th grade students enjoyed the interactive aspects of the curriculum, and worked together to create roleplays to accompany the days discussion. In Rachelles words: My drive towards advocating peace and education comes from my passion in giving back to my community. Rachelle has made a great addition to our grassroots network of high school volunteers organizing for peace and tolerance.

August: TPI announces the arrival of a new staff comprised of nineteen volunteer college students from across the US, including chapters at Yale and Columbia Universities, and launched a new website using Nationbuilders innovative community organizing technology. September: TPI continued recruiting a strong volunteer corps through the beginning of the school year, and formed a partnership with the Junior State of America as an official activism initiative for the 10,000-strong student group. 4

Lorem Ipsum October: TPI releases a research report using post-test data collected from several 3rd grade classrooms in support of its curriculums effectiveness, and began a partnership with PeaceJam, an peace education organization that brings Nobel Laureates to speak with students, working to develop seminars for one of their conferences. November: TPIs Executive Director, Fish Stark, gives the keynote speech at the Culture Jam regional diversity conference in Pittsburgh, PA. December: TPIs curricular development team finishes the first draft of an upcoming high school curriculum, and the organization moves ahead with plans to incorporate as a 501c3.

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Volunteer Spotlight: Tristan Salvon-Harman & Kate Porterfield

Tristan and Kate, seniors at The Key School in Annapolis, MD, lead one of our most active chapters, directing two dozen volunteers. Their chapter has taught classes to fourth grade students and is piloting a new curriculum targeting at kindergarten students this spring. In addition, this September, Tristan & Kate partnered with several community organizations and houses of worship to bring together over several dozen youth for a day of TPI-led peace education seminars and discussions about how to make their communities safer and more tolerant.

What Our Supporters Are Saying:

"The students at the Teaching Peace Initiative know that teaching children tolerance and the values of good citizenship makes a real difference. Their innovation is needed and inspiring as we work to make our schools safe and accepting for all.
- CONGRESSMAN MIKE HONDA (D-CA), CHAIR, CONGRESSIONAL ANTI-BULLYING CAUCUS

Count me as an admirer of the Teaching Peace Initiative. It has all the markings of success: a knowledgeable and energetic staff, a passion for peace education and a sure-fire plan to expand still beyond its early achievements.
-COLMAN MCCARTHY, AMERICAN UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR, FORMER WASHINGTON POST COLUMNIST, ACTIVIST, AND PEACE EDUCATOR

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Teaching Peace Initiative

January 2014
strong grassroots partnerships with students nationwide. We want to expand our outreach in 2014 to work directly with teachers in our efforts to bring TPI to schools across the country. We have already begun building promising relationships with teachers weve encountered in our work, and we now hope to expand that network. 3. Strong Partnerships A key goal in 2014 will be building on our existing partnerships with JSA and Peace Jam, and finding new ways to collaborate with likeminded organizations.

What the Future Holds: Strategies for 2014

We enter 2014 having faced a years worth of challenges and coming away with a years worth of successes. As we consider what the next year will bring, here are our goals as an organization: 1. Continuing to turn our volunteers passion into action. As youve seen, many of TPIs volunteers are brilliant young people doing incredible work in our communities. We want to continue to nurture their creative, compassionate spirit. Additionally, many more would-be student leaders have had their efforts frustrated by bureaucratic roadblocks in their school districts. Part of our 2014 efforts will involve a greater effort to work closely with administrators to remove those roadblocks. 2. Educator Outreach TPIs success in 2013 was due to our ability to build

"Brilliant and innovative, with a curriculum and plan that actively and explicitly advocates for peace, the Teaching Peace Initiative offers real hope for promoting peace in our classrooms and in the world.
DR. SALLY SHAYWITZ, AUDREY G. RATNER PROFESSOR IN LEARNING DEVELOPMENT, YALE UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE & CO-DIRECTOR, YALE CENTER FOR CREATIVITY & DYSLEXIA
Director of Research Kevin Hwang, Yale University Director of Development Jack Cahn, Wharton School of Business Senior Organizers Brea Baker, Yale University Suguna Chaganti, Drexel University Rebecca Fix, University of Hartford Michael Gardner, Rennsselaer Polytechnic Institue Sophie Gorham, Columbia University Bianca Li, Yale University Simon Uljarevic, Tulane University Ruohan Zhang, Columbia University

Director of Operations & Policy Jack Anthony, American University* Directors of Communications Adam McCann, Johns Hopkins University Adelina Lancianese, Georgetown University Director of Digital Media Anurag Chinepalli, Columbia University Director of Curricular Development Eric Ho, Columbia University Webmaster/Graphic Designer Lining Wang, Yale University

Executive Director Fish Stark, Yale University* Deputy Executive Director for Organizing & Programs Andi Peng, Yale University Director of Finance Klay Roberts, Columbia University* *denotes Founder