Y. I. K. SONG
nology projects, methods, and pedagogy discussed in this paper
can be replicated by teachers and community peace educators
easily and with minimal (if any) costs.
Process
This section will describe how teacher Kim KyungSu’s sixth
grade class at Daeja Elementary School in Gwangju, South Ko-
rea came to unde rstand the concept of peace, crafted a vision for
peace, and expressed a shared hope for peace through the “Ma-
king a PEACE of Paper” project. It is important to note that this
project utilized a constructivist approach in which one activity
led into the next and was directly influenced by the ideas and
reactions of students. In replication, the ideas might lead the
project in a slightly different direction but would ultimately help
students reach important insights and understandings of peace.
The classroom project at Daeja Elementary consisted of five
steps. Each is discussed in turn below.
Writing a Found Poem
The definition of a found poem is “the poetic equivalent of a
collage in visual art. A found poem takes text from non-poem
sources and uses it to create a poem” (Clairenstein, 2011). Stu-
dents first took 15 minutes to walk around school grounds. Du-
ring this time, they used notepads to write words that they en-
countered that they liked, disliked, or for some reason piqued
their interest. At this point, students were not aware of why
they were “collecting” these words and did not know about the
project to follow.
After the students returned to the classroom, they were in-
structed to write a poem on the topic of peace by using only the
words that they had collected on their search and some preposi-
tions. Students found this process to be challenging at first due
to the requirement of only using words that they had found, but
were soon able to use their imagination and creativity to com-
pose a poem. This first opening activity invited students to think
about the word “peace” and to be creative in how they could
conceptualize it from a variety of source words.
Thinking about, Discussing, and Pantomiming Peace
To gain a better understanding of how the sixth grade stu-
dents thought about the idea of peace, the instructor then led a
discussion on the following topics: “How do you think about
peace?” and “What does peace look like to you?” During this
discussion, students overwhelmingly focused on national and
international issues, such as the unification of the Korean pen-
insula and world peace. It was intriguing that only these larger
issue s that were less directly palpable were discussed, rather than
issues of peace in the classroom, between friends, and amongst
neighbors. Based on this discussion, it was determined that the
appropriate role of an educator would be to help students com-
prehend that national and international peace stems from the
coming together of peaceful relationships that are much more
palpable and occur at a local level. In accordance, the instructor
engaged the students in a variety of activities that encouraged
them to further think about the concept of peace.
One such activity had students convey their understanding of
peace through pantomime. Students presented their interpreta-
tions to the class by acting out their abstract ideas in a way that
was comprehensible to others without utilizing words. Students
worked hard to convey their ideas in as concrete of a way as
possible, through body motions, facial expressions, and other
non-verbal cues. Through this process, it seemed that the stu-
dents were constantly reexamining their conceptualizations and
understandings of peace. After the pantomime activity, students
engaged in another discussion about what might cause peace to
be broken. One of the students’ main concerns was that violence
and wars would occur as groups and nations fight over a dwin-
dling supply of natural resources.
Creating Handmade Paper
To extend the idea of trying to mend and foster peace through
environmental protection, we decided to use junk mail to make
handmade paper that would be used for the subsequent active-
ties. Students were excited that they could make the art materi-
als for the activities on their own. They were also pleased by
the fact that they did not need to ask their parents to buy art ma-
terials for the activities. For a week, they created a lot of hand-
made paper with enthusiasm.
Following is how to make homemade paper using junk mail.
Rip the junk mail envelope into small bits.
Then, place the pieces of paper into the blender.
Add about 2 cups of water.
Run the blender slowly at first, and then increase th e speed.
It’s up to you how much you should increase the speed.
Depending on it, it’ll be smooth or rough.
Then, fill the papermaking tool.
When it stops dripping, take out the top part of the paper-
making tool.
Place the screen on this top part of the tool.
Flip it upside down.
Take out the tool.
Add one more screen.
Dry the paper using a towel.
Take out the top screen.
If desired, add pressed leaves and some decorative items.
Air-dry the paper.
After creating the handmade paper, students deliberated about
what could be made with these sheets of paper and simultane-
ously convey the topic of peace. After this brainstorm, students
agreed on two projects: first to create several paper-mâché glo-
bes, and then to construct a three-dimensional model of a pea-
ceful town.
Creating a Paper-Mâché Globe with an Abstract
Portrayal of the Earth
The students decided to create paper-mâché globes with ab-
stract portrayals of the earth to visually capture the earlier dis-
cussion that expressed a concern that environmental destruction
could threaten peace. To create the physical structure that would
provide a frame, students used paper-mâché techniques. For the
spherical shape, they built up several layers by gluing old news-
paper around old beach balls. After it dried, students removed
the beach ball and were left with a paper-mâché globe that re-
tained the spherical shape. Students then completed the paper-
mâché globe by adding a layer of handmade paper from the
previous activity.
For the next part of this project, students worked in teams of
two to do an abstract watercolor painting on each of the paper-
mâché globes. Each team agreed on a specific theme on the to-
pic of peace. The final list of themes included, a beautiful earth,
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