Pupils learn peace-making skills

The Speaker briefly welcomed pupils, followed by a narration of the Queen’s Address to the Commonwealth for 2017. She said the Commonwealth is a group of 52 nations with a total population of 2.4 billion people, nearly twothirds of whom are youngsters under age 30 years. Dispelling the idea of “peace” as a passive state, the Speaker said, “The achievement and existence of peace require deliberate and conscious action through the employment of specific peace building tools which we felt duty bound to share with you”.

Pupils enjoyed a skit about classroom conflict performed by the Arts in Action (AIA) programme of the University of the West Indies (UWI), St Augustine, with Brendon La Caille in lead role as a frustrated teacher having to handle equally irritated “students”.

The AIA’s Tishana Williams allowed onlooking pupils to stop the unfolding scenario at any point where they thought the “teacher” or “pupils” had behaved badly, and suggest better options for conduct.

The pupils urged that the teacher character should speak in a softer tone, not make hand-gestures in the pupil’s face and not vent his woes in the classroom. The onlookers said the pupil needed to show more honesty and respect in explaining why she’d not done her homework assignment.

Transformation coach, Judy Joseph Mc Sween, remarked, “Who would believe that a classroom could be so full of stress? We can change it by some simple ways.” Earlier she had led pupils in an exercise of deep-breathing/meditation.

Citizen Security Programme (CSP) coordinator, Gregory Sloane Seale, spoke of how pupils could use four tools of emotional intelligence to cope with their current feelings – self-awareness, self-control, self-motivation and empathy. He said meditation is a very good tool, especially to help traumatised pupils. Meditation helps people to slow down and find their own inner peace and silence and self-control. The aims and methods of mediation for conflict resolution were spelt out in a talk by the Mediation Board directors, Elizabeth Solomon and Anthony Gafoor.

The Centre for Human Development’s Candice Moore got pupils to peacefully greet each other by hand-shakes, “bounces”, high fives and two-taps Also from the centre, psychologist, Cherene Mohammed, got pupils to think about what “peace” means – such as an absence of disturbance, hostility or discrimination.

“Peace begins with a mind-set,” she said. “We are what we think”. Pupils attended from 39 schools, colleges and institutions nationwide.

These were ASJA Girls (Charlieville and Tunapuna), Barrackpore East, Belmont, Carapichaima East, Corpus Christi, Diego Martin Central, El Dorado East, El Dorado West, Fatima, Fyzabad, Gasparillo, Hillview, Holy Faith (Penal), Malabar, Marabella South, Mayaro, Naparima Girls, North Eastern, Presentation, Princes Town East, QRC, Russell Latapy, San Juan South, San Fernando Central, San Fernando East, St Augustine Girls, St Augustine Secondary, St Joseph’s College, St Joseph’s Convent (St Joseph), St Jude’s Home, St Michael’s Home, SWAHA, Tranquility, Tunapuna Secondary, Waterloo, Woodbrook and the Youth Training Centre.