Learn Peace Working towards Nuclear Abolition

One teacher’s journey

Marg Murnane – Hawkesdale P12 College

Setting the scene• We are a small country college in south West Victoria,

Australia, with an enrolment of 260. • I began working on nuclear abolition with my year 6

students, in 2008, after a discussion with Dr Bill Williams.

• I consider myself to be neither scientific, nor particularly political and prior to my discussion with Dr Williams, thought myself particularly unqualified to run any units of work on nuclear abolition, with any of my students.

• If I am perfectly honest, not only did I not consider myself qualified, I put myself in the category of complacent and apathetic to the cause. We live in Australia. What’s it got to do with me?

• Learn Peace changed my thinking on this.

My philosophy now is this: As teachers, we have both an opportunity and a responsibility, to give the students a voice in their future. Gen Y can’t take a stand against something they know nothing about. When you teach the students about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, they are horrified. When they learn that there are 10’s of 1000’s of Nuclear Weapons in existence today, which are far more powerful than Little Boy or Fat Man, they are appalled. Students “get it”. They know it is a trust thing between countries and they understand it is a huge deal to rid the world of Nuclear Weapons, but they know they can have a voice in achieving this, and that we can make it happen. Getting these weapons off hair trigger alert for starters, seems to them, to be a no brainer. As an educator, it is not critical that you understand the science and the politics of nuclear weapons for you to be able to guide the students in this unit of work. The facts are these: there are too many nervous and angry fingers, on far too many nuclear weapon triggers, many of which are either set on high alert, or aging and potentially faulty. The other fact is that the catastrophic launch, either intentional or accidental, of even one of these weapons, will kill hundreds of thousands, destroy our environment and stretch its poisonous tentacles far into the lives of future generations. There exists a scary complacency amongst adults, about the existence of nuclear weapons and yet the threat of intentional or accidental launch of these weapons is as relevant today as it was in 1945. We must mobilise Gen Y by giving our students a voice in abolishing the greatest threat to humankind and our future.

What have we done so far•Created board games and posters•Participated in role plays – nuclear countries discussing abolition•Created slideshows using powerpoint and uploaded them to www.slideshare.com•Created online quizzes using www.mystudiyo.com •Participated in Blog Action day with a Peace theme•Had individual students write blog posts•Visited the Ican headquarters in Carlton, Melbourne Australia•Written letters to world leaders, expressing our desire for a nuclear weapons free world•Invited 5 local Mayors to sign up for Mayors for Peace. 3 of these city councils have joined this initiative

•Made and decorated letters which spelt out “TIME TO ABOLISH NUCLEAR WEAPONS” for the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty Review Conference in May 2010.•Been featured in THE AGE, Melbourne newspaper after a visit from journalist Daniel Flitton. The article was entitled The Bomb Squad•Ran an online Elluminate session, which saw Dr Bill Williams, run a presentation which was attended by a small international audience as well as our students•Dr Bill Williams spoke to students in our school, across the year levels 5 – 12•Participated in a RAP writing session with Kaso and Madeline from Friends of the Earth•Had local journalistic support when we ran the Mayors for Peace initiative

This photograph was displayed at the NPT Review Conference which was held in May 2010, in New York.

Students worked on making board games, quizzes and brochures about the need for nuclear disarmament.

Warrnambool City Council Mayor Michael Neoh, signing the Mayor’s For Peace Initiative in front of our year 5 students at Hawkesdale P12 College.

Proud Principal, teacher and junior school captains, with the Warrnambool city Council mayor.

Kaso and Madeline from Friends of the Earth, run a workshop with our students on creating a RAP about nuclear abolition.

Recording our RAP

Elluminate session with Dr Bill Williams

Dr Bill Williams spent a day with us at Hawkesdale P12, talking to groups of students and working online in an Elluminate Session. Dr Williams covered all areas concerning nuclear weapons, including the history, the current situation and ideas on how we can influence world leaders to abolish these hideous weapons. We had participants from America, Canada and Venezuala, as well as local students from our school.

The students and online participants, were enthralled by his engaging presentation. An online recording of Dr Williams’ presentation can be found on the Elluminate site.

The Elluminate software provides a brilliant forum for global collaboration. The sessions are all recorded, so if time zones preclude participation, interested parties can access a link to the session and listen in after the event.

Dr Williams engaged in his online presentation using Elluminate.

Dr Williams, with a group of year 8 students, following his presentation.

This is a quiz my students made using www.mystudiyo.com

http://www.mystudiyo.com/ch/a67219/go/say_no_to_nuclear_weapons!

http://techno6.globalstudent.org.au/2008/06/18/nuclear-weapons/

A slideshow that my students made using powerpoint. We then uploaded to slideshare. You need to upload powerpoints to slideshare if you want to embed them on your blogs.

GOOGLE SEARCH STORIES

This is sensational software which forces users to really think about the message and identify the main points. You can check out examples on youtube if you search “Google Search Stories”

Our story on how we might make a difference, can be found at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRBIBqiioi4&feature=player_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6AZ39NnGNg Hawkesdale P12 response to Million Pleas Initiative

Pleasing and satisfying outcomes•Students in years 7 and 8 choosing to use their knowledge about nuclear abolition and all the issues, to produce essays, arguments, poems etc in English and for public speaking topics, without prompting by me. These students worked on nuclear abolition in year 6.•Students in year 5 (10 year olds), coming to me to tell me things they had heard on the news the night before – involving updates on nuclear issues. This increased awareness in students so young, is really exciting.•Year 5 and 8 students able to converse knowledgeably with visiting journalists and politicians, on the issues surrounding nuclear abolition•Receiving a response from then PM Kevin Rudd, congratulating the students on their initiative•The belief amongst the student body generally, that people power can achieve nuclear abolition.

A final word from the students…..“I’m only 11 and I want to live my life to the full. We need to abolish nuclear weapons for us to be able to do that safely.

As a starting point, we need to get the nuclear weapons off high alert. At least then, there is less likelihood of an accidental bombing. After that, the countries need to get together and discuss abolishing these devastating weapons altogether.

If kids can think like this, why can’t world leaders?”Bailey

Web 2.0 tools & Software•www.mystudiyo.com – quiz maker•www.slideshare.com – an online tool which converts powerpoint presentations which can then be embedded into blogs, wikis etc•www.animoto.com – create free 30 second videos using photos & using copyright free music•www.voicethread.com - http://voicethread.com/?#u96398.b191314.i1013417 – fabulous collaborative tool which others can add to online•www.glogster.com – interactive, online poster maker which can include videos, soundtracks etc•Google search stories – exciting story telling program•www.wallwisher.com – pose a question / issue – have students leave their thoughts as online sticky notes•www.polldaddy.com – run an online poll on an issue•www.surveymonkey.com – ask up to 10 questions – either tick or comment•www.toondoo.com – create a cartoon•Blogs•Wikis •Photostory•Windows Movie maker•Comic life•Audacity•Powerpoint•Elluminate