Featured Sites |
PeacePartners, Inc. honors our valued partners by celebrating their passion for peace, their
creative ideas, and the wonderful implementation strategies they incorporate.
As we continue to support our partners, it is our privilege to showcase PeaceBuilders sites.
Don't just take our word for it. Read about some featured sites as they explored their problems,
developed their PeaceBuilders solution, and discovered positive outcomes! We invite you to sit
back and explore the fantastic PeaceBuilding events happening throughout the United States and
U.S. Territories. |
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| Vista La Mesa Elementary - La Mesa, CA |
| Vista La Mesa Elementary School is a proud PeaceBuilders school. |
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PeaceBuilders has been practiced at this school for quite a few years, but at the beginning of the 2007 school year, the staff decided to make building peace a priority and they have been doing some wonderful things!
The principal of Vista La Mesa, Mr. Glenn Heath, conducts monthly awards assemblies. All the classrooms meet on the grass in front of the school. After saying the Pledge of Allegiance, they recite the PeaceBuilders Pledge. |
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| An outstanding PeaceBuilder is selected to lead the Pledge. |
As a reward, PeaceBuilders pencils are given to class groups who exhibited outstanding behavior during safety and fire drills. Rewards are also given to the classroom that showed their best PeaceBuilders behavior in the cafeteria at lunchtime for the past month.
Then Mr. Heath randomly draws 15 PraiseNotes from the office collection box. He reads the person’s name and the reason s/he is being praised. |
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| Students put PraiseNotes (PeaceBuilders cards) they receive in the box hoping to have their name called during the assembly. |
| As their names are called and their praise is read, students join Mr. Heath and he gives each of them a card with a number 1-15. After the assembly these lucky students join him in his office to collect their reward. |
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| The table in the conference room is filled with bounty from which the children choose their PeaceBuilding prize. |
The young people are joined by helpful members of the Student Council who help keep things organized and assist Mr. Heath in making sure everyone gets a prize. The person who holds the card with the number one is the first to choose a gift—and so on until the fifteenth PeaceBuilder has chosen a reward.
Because these students are practicing PeaceBuilders, there is no complaining about the order of the numbers. There is no argument when a choice prize is chosen by one lucky PeaceBuilder with a low number. Everyone seems genuinely happy to be recognized and rewarded.
Finding reasons to recognize and praise young people is fundamental to building a peaceful environment. Finding innovative ways to make it fun takes a little time, but is well worth the effort when it helps young people become engaged PeaceBuilders.
Praise to Mr. Heath and the outstanding staff at Vista La Mesa Elementary for putting PeaceBuilders back at the forefront of their day to day existence and for making PeaceBuilding rewards and recognition a regular event. |
