Peter Colwell's class rehearse a musical medley from Hair

Music and poetry for peace and tolerance

By Kerri Carr

Curl Curl North Public School teacher Peter Colwell has been using music, poetry, singing, writing and dance to get messages of peace and tolerance across to his students.

Peter has been interested in peace and tolerance issues since well before the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States and the recent debate on boat people coming to Australia.

He now wants to share his ideas with other teachers.

"I'd like to put a unit of work together that would be published."

He said that it was during the last Christmas holidays to do something on peace education along the lines of Meg Sharkey.

Federation Life Member Meg Sharkey (deceased) wrote Peace Studies for Children, a literature based book published by Federation, in which she endeavoured to pass on practical experience to other teachers in ridding the world of conflict.

Peter said in the past decade there's been conflicts in Iraq, Rawanda, Sudan, Serbia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Palestine/Israel and what occurred in New York on September 11.

"We seem to have had a decade, which after the fall of the Berlin Wall should have been a decade of peace, but instead we've had genocide being committed," he added.

"It's time we really became committed to peace education again," he said.

Earlier this year he introduced the peace movement to his students through a unit of work on the 1960s.

"I had them researching the Vietnam war, John F Kennedy and Martin Luther King.

"They were not just war issues, but freedom issues and human rights."

Work with his class has included playing the songs "Masters of War", "Sounds of Silence", "Blowing in the Wind" and "Where have all the flowers gone?".

"They're not only very beautiful but the meaning is still very relevant for today," Peter said. "I treat the lyrics as poetry," he said.

"I use poetry of the 1960s as a vehicle to studying peace and civil rights issues, freedom, liberty and equality."

Peter's class will perform a medley from the musical Hair at the schools performing arts night, so upholding the love, peace and happiness edict.

"There's a message of making love not war in Hair," he said.

"That message is as relevant today as it was when first performed in 1967."

His class has also written poetry. Some of these poems have since been published.

Peter said he likes to use music and poetry to get the message across.

"They use the sensitive side, which is what you're trying to reach."

Peter said he has told his students that "if war brought peace we would have had peace eons ago".

"That's my ultimate belief.

"We need to do something about peace and privileges and share them with those who obviously don't have the same opportunities as us," he said.

Peter said he has two children in his class with Afghan relatives.

"I felt that it was difficult for the children in my class who were turning on the TV every night and seeing Afghan refugees being labelled as illegal refugees or queue jumpers and I felt very defensive for them and went out of my way to let them know I cared about what was happening to their homeland," he added.

Peter said he would like to be involved in Federation's peace education kit, which Federation has resolved should place specific emphasis on the plight of refugee children.

"Teachers are at the vanguard of these social issues but they need to be able to get their hands on resources, that quite often come from the Teachers Federation rather than the Department."

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December 2001 contents