The PEACE IS Foundation in collaboration with the Sunrise Rotary Club recently organized the "SXM Needs Peace Now" Essay Competition with the 5th & 6th Graders of The Oranje and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr Schools. This competition, which was organized as a lead-up to the Annual PEACE IS Paradise Breakfast on St. Maarten’s Day, was launched in late October. Students were challenged to compose an essay of at least 500 words on the topic "What would you do to increase PEACE in your School?" Prizes are being awarded for the overall top three essays.
The essay submitted by Angel Milliard from the Oranje School (6A2) was chosen as the top essay. Narkifa Richardson from the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. School (Cycle 2 3B) was placed 2nd and Alec Samaroo from the Oranje School (5A1) was placed 3rd. The students depicted various issues affecting their schools such as gangs, acceptance of each other, being nice to people and the need for better examples being set by Adults.
The presentation, on Tuesday November 16th 2010 was held at the Education Dept with much excitement from the students, representatives from each school and members of the PEACE IS Foundation and Sunrise Rotary. The winner received a Nintendo Wii Gaming System and 2nd & 3rd place received gift bags filled with school supplies; the gifts were donated by the Sunrise Rotary Club. The full text of the winning essay is produced below.
PEACE IS Foundation continues to encourage our youth to resolve conflicts without violence and urge them to be Peacemakers in their schools and their community.
The following is the winning Essay:
"What would I Do to Increase Peace in my school?"
Angel Milliard – Oranje School (6A2)
Peace is to bring a disagreement or war to an end.
My ideal peace school is to be friendly with each other and to stop calling each other names and have respect for the teachers. Do not mark up the tables, chairs, and the walls, and for the children not to destroy the books, tables and chairs as well.
To me what will make the school peaceful is for the children and teachers to be calm, and to be kind with each other.
To increase peace in my school, I would stop the fighting by having assembly every morning, and have group studies by putting those who don’t like each other in the same group. Be kind to each other by sharing with each other and stop swearing. By sharing, I mean if someone in my class do not have something I will share with them, and for swearing I would encourage them to apologize by shaking hands, and saying "I’m sorry."
Some of the things that are happening around in some of the other schools are violence such as fighting. Children fight for several reasons which are: dislikes, group affiliation, or just wants to show off. Therefore, to avoid children behaving in that manner you encourage them to respect themselves first then others. That should have been taught at home and continued at school. Discipline, also should be started at home and carried over into school. Churches should also play a role, by installing God in their lives.
Another way of avoiding violence is by having after school programs and activities, not voluntary but compulsive which means "you must do one." By doing so you get rid of all the idle time the children have on their hands. In that way you might help solve some of the violence that is caused by the children.
Another one is cheating on their exams, by copying from one another while the teacher is not looking, or by having one of his/her classmate do his homework assignments for him or her. A next one is group affiliation; group affiliation is children of the same age group which associate themselves together, for some common goal. Such groups as the A+ students, then you have those who think they’re cool – the trouble makers. In order to get into these groups you would have to do something good, wrong, or foolish to be part of the group. So your school knows which group you should be a part of that wouldn’t make you do something wrong, because every wrong doing is a violation of school rules and society laws.
The reason why children or humans on the whole dislike each other is because we think and act, and behave differently. So that’s why a child may not like another child based on the way he/she looks, speaks, or acts. Children show off to get attention, and sometime some of them go over board by trying too hard to impress their friends and end up hurting themselves or others. So there is a limit you should take it and beyond.
In summary, I could bring about peace by installing respect in our children from a very early age so they could grow up with respect, and not forgetting discipline which is very important, which is lacking today, in our children. They don’t say "Good Morning", "Excuse Me" neither "Pardon Me", last but not least install God in our homes and in our children, in our schools and then we’ll see changes.
At Oranje School we don’t have much fighting; however, when we do, we try to settle it in a peaceful way. This is often done by taking the children that were fighting and sit them down and have a chat with them to hear both sides of the story to see what the problem was. Most of the time it is because somebody pushed somebody and they would get in a big fight, or one will call the other a name and they will start cursing. But in the end, we make them make up and shake hands with each other and be friends and set a good example for the young ones. So they would see not to fight and have peace with other children.