I'm pretty excited about the idea of creating a real curriculum for schools to use with The Bead People Peace Project. I started just this week and decided a couple of things. Sometimes people think they can create peace by focusing on what is wrong with the world. For instance, the word bullying in classrooms has almost become a dead word. When I hear that word, I instantly think of some little boy thug stealing a poor kids's classroom. What we don't realize is that we create peace by focusing on peace. You have to make the right pictures--see kindness, a gentle approach, a creatively engaged child or classroom, a village coming together to dig a new well--whatever. There are so many peace scenarios we could be running in our heads all the time.
And most of all, peace begins inside of each of us. That is the focus I want the new curriculum to have. How do we create peace inside that then ripples out into our friendships, families, and into the world. Stay tuned and send me your good ideas.