A few days after the arrival of Nobel Peace Prize winner Jody Williams, the “Bienvenida Sr. Jody Williams” posters are still taped on the front door of Foster Elementary School.
Williams may be gone, but her impact on the school still lingers.
Williams visited Foster Elementary, 5300 Saulsbury Court, as part of the school’s Peace Jam program. The program teaches children about conflict resolution and leadership by studying the lives of Nobel Peace Prize winners.
Williams won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997 for her work to ban landmines worldwide. She spoke to Foster Feb. 27.
Several area schools have Peace Jam clubs, but Foster integrates elements of the program into everyday classroom lessons. This helps students lead mindful lives outside of school, said fourth-grade teacher Dawn Axelson.
“It’s nice to have that foundation, to have kids refer back to someone who is a peacemaker,” she said.
Axelson said she hears her students spreading the word about peace outside the classroom, but Williams’ visit was what really got children serious about making peace a priority.
“These kids realize she grew up just like them. She had a brother who was bullied because he was deaf, and now kids come up to me and tell me they see kids being bullied on the playground. You know her story has an effect,” she said.
To prepare for her visit, students learned as much as they could about Williams’ early life and her campaign to eliminate land mines.
Students said they were surprised how easy it was to relate to the Nobel Laureate.
Fourth-grader Dominique Hage said she liked the way Williams joked with students and confessed that she often gave her sister wedgies.
“She was much cooler than I thought she would be. She talked just like us,” said Hage said.
During her visit, Williams spent little time at the microphone. Instead, she asked students to talk about peace themselves. Children crowded around her chair and stretched their hands urgently into the air as they competed for a turn at the microphone. In English and Spanish, they explained what they had learned.
“Peace means being fair and letting everyone play,” one boy said.
“Peace means when your friend has a problem you help them solve it,” a girl chimed in.
“It means no violence or guns,” another student said.
Williams smiled as she took back the microphone.
“If I knew as much as you guys did when I was your age, I would have done more than I have already,” she said.
As the students bounced back to their classrooms, they took that message to heart.
“Before she came, I didn’t know about landmines,” said fourth-grader Sergio Barron. “When I learned more about them I learned how dangerous they were and how they can hurt people.”
When children learned that the United States was not one of the 156 countries that signed the treaty to ban landmines, they were shocked.
Axelson said some of her students are interested in writing a letter to the president to make that change.
“If he sees that kids wrote it, maybe he will see that kids are feeling bad for innocent people,” Hage said. “I think it will encourage him more.”
NEED TO KNOW
For more information about Peace Jam, visit www.peacejam.org.