Key Questions:
What are the commonalities between the Northern Irish and American Civil Rights Movements? What can lessons can my students take away from the history and current issues in Northern Ireland? As I have traveled throughout Northern Ireland, met with so many interesting people with interesting perspectives and really have begun to understand the complex history here, my mind keeps coming back to my students. How can they, with such limited knowledge of Irish history (and history in general), gain important lessons from the events of the past and present here? How do I find an access point for them that makes sense? After spending a few days in the small city of Derry, I finally think that i found where my students can truly connect to the history in Northern Ireland and see that the people and the struggles are not all that different from what they already know. During my time in Derry, I spent a day with Paul Doherty, a lifelong resident of the Catholic neighborhoods of the city. When he was eight years old, his father Patrick was murdered along side thirteen other unarmed protesters by British soldiers during a peaceful civil rights march. These murders became known as Bloody Sunday and truly galvanized the movement by Catholic communities across Northern Ireland to demand civil rights in the face of the oppression that they faced. It was not until this trip that I began to realize the extent of this oppression. I really had no idea how mistreated Catholics were under the both the Protestant led local governments and under the power of the British empire. It is this oppression and the ultimate assertion of rights that will absolutely resonate with my students. Their own personal and community histories are so similar, I know that they will understand and relate to what Catholics in Northern Ireland have suffered theough in the past.
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Key Questions: What needed to happen for combatants to set their feelings of animosity aside? What role did leaders play in the peace process? How did they shape the reactions of average people? Why did the peace process actually work? What were the compromises made? What is the current state of the shared government in Northern Ireland? How do the political parties here get back on track and stay true to the spirit of the Good Friday Agreements? When I learned in April that I was awarded this Fund For Teachers fellowship, I immediately placed a phone call to an old professor of mine from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, Catherine Shannon. We have talked periodically through the years and I knew that because of her expertise on not only Irish history, but also more specifically the peace process in that created the status quo in the nation that she may be able to offer me some advice. She gave me some wonderful insight to how deeply complex the peace process was and continues to be. She and I talk about what I could expect to learn here and she made it clear that while there have been so many strides made toward peace here, there was still a long way to go toward ensuring that this peace lasts for generations to come. Catherine also kindly connected me through email with Sean Farren, a former political leader of the SDLP party, which is seen as a moderate Republican party that, while sharing the goal of a united Ireland with the more radical Sinn Fein party, has always renounced violence as a means of achieving their goal. Sean was key participant in the talks that led up to the Good Friday agreement and served as a government minister in during the early years of the power-sharing that took place after the peace accords. Sean worked alongside giants of the peace process like John Hume, from his own party, Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness from Sinn Fein, David Trimble from the more moderate Loyalist Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) and even Ian Paisley, the long-time extremist leader of the fiercely loyalist and fundamentalist Protestant Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). When I knew that meeting with Mr. Farren was going to be such a wonderful learning experience for me, I did not really comprehend just what a respected and accomplished man he really was in Northern Ireland. During my travels I had mentioned to several people that I was going to meet with him and all I heard was what a smart and skilled political leader he was and what a loss it was for Northern Ireland when he retired from politics. Sean Pettis at Corrymeela let me know that Mr. Farren was truly one of the key players in the peace process and that people from all walks of life appreciated what he had done for the country. In these conversations, it became clear to me just how personal politics is in Northern Ireland. Because the conflicts here are still so recent and because Northern Ireland is so small both geographically as well in population (with less than 2 million people), politics is part of the fabric of the culture here for both Catholics and Protestants. The level of interest and engagement in politics is so different here than in the United States and I think that it would be interesting for my students to think about why that is. In any case, my meeting with Mr. Farren did not disappoint and I learned a tremendous amount just from sitting with him for a few hours in a teahouse in Ballintoy near where he currently lives in Portstewart on the Antrim coast. One of the first points that Mr. Farren made to me was that he felt that the conflict was able to fester for so long here because of the political and economic connection to the British government and that despite the violence, the systems did not completely break down here. Even at the height of the Troubles, there was always enough money coming in from the British government to keep the schools open, the businesses running, the government offices open--in other words, life went on throughout the violence and the ordinary people here became somewhat used to the constant threat of a bombing or a sectarian murder of innocent people. Had the horrific violence stopped everything in society from operating (as it might in a small independant nation), then maybe the pressure would have been put on the warring groups sooner to renounce violence and come to a peaceful agreement. I found this really interesting and not something that I had really thought about before. It made me think about the threat of violence and the trauma associated with it seems to operate at a low-frequency in the the personal lives of so many of my students. They are used to it and their lives continue to operate despite the threats they face. How do they come to grips with the violence and live conflict-free lives without having a total breakdown of their life first? Are their parallels that they can see in what has happened in Northern Ireland? Mr. Farren was also able to provide me with a personal account of how and why the peace process in Northern Ireland reached such a milestone in 1998 with the Good Friday Agreement and why this agreement has held the peace (mostly) since then. One of his key points was that the agreements really began with a series of small conversations between powerful leaders who were on the same side first. For example, both Adams and Hume were Republicans, but Hume needed Adams' Sinn Fein party and the IRA to renounce violence before they could come to the negotiating table with Loyalists. Hume needed to convince Adams that the political fight for a united Ireland could continue on even if the violent struggle came to an end. Again, lessons for my students here include the idea that you can still be passionate and fight for what you want, but there are more effective ways to assert yourself then by the use of physical force. Mr. Farren also strongly believes that the Good Friday Agreements have held because the structure of the agreement ensures that no one issue between the two groups can completely destroy the peace. This is complex, but essentially it boils down to the idea that each side can always look to the agreement as a success for them...this is not a peace by the degradation of one group over the other. Both Republicans and Loyalists can feel like they are "winning" with this peace which is another important lesson for my students to see: True peace only happens when all of the players in a situation feel like they have a say and feel like they are gaining something by compromising. When I was planning my fellowship to Northern Ireland, I did so with the intention of having students look to the past and present here as an example of successful conflict resolution. I can honestly say now that I did not fully understand the complexities of both the past and the present though and did not realize how fragile the peace can be in some areas. My meeting with Mr. Farren really helped me to comprehend the current political issues here and how they pose both problems for the peace process as well as opportunities for further cooperation. As of today, both Sinn Fein and the DUP are refusing to work with each other in government at Stormont because of seemingly minor issues. The Northern Irish government is really at a standstill and these two political parties are hardly great examples of cross-community partnership for the ordinary Northern Irish people to follow. With the issues surrounding Brexit involved, it is really challenging (although the British PM May just offered nearly 14 billion pounds to Northern Ireland in return for their support of her government in Westminster). Mr. Farren made it quite clear though that the nature of power sharing agreement is such that it neither side will refuse to compromise forever. He had spoken to the head of the SDLP, Colin Eastwood, the day before we met and he said that a deal between the two parties was likely before the summer's end. In fact, Sinn Fein will likely be the ones to make the first move because the only political representation that they have is at Stormont (because they still refuse to take their seats at Westminster because of their belief that they should be unified with the Republic of Ireland and not Great Britain). In any case, Mr. Farren seems to think that once this political crisis in resolved, it just puts both groups further down the road of lasting peace. If they can overcome this hurdle (as they have before and will after), it is just further proof that peaceful coexistence can work here. As time carries on and the Troubles become more of distant history instead of an immediate one, then peace becomes the norm. I wonder if my students can recognize how that can be true in their own lives as well? They can move forward and as they get further away from the traumas and conflicts in their own lives, it all just becomes easier to handle. Key Questions:
How can both sides begin to realize there is a shared goal instead of opposing goals? What role does restorative justice and reconciliation play in the peace process? How is the peace maintained now? How are young people taught about the conflict? How does this shape the future of a united and conflict-free Northern Ireland? Key Questions:
What were some of the violent and divisive events or policies that occurred in the modern era? How did these modern day events shape the feelings on both sides? What needed to happen for combatants to set their feelings of animosity aside? Key Questions:
What were some of the violent and divisive events or policies that occurred in the modern era? How did these modern day events shape the feelings on both sides? Key Questions:
What were some of the violent and divisive events or policies that occurred in the modern era? How did these modern day events shape the feelings on both sides? When I arrived here in Belfast, I was actually surprised how different it felt from Dublin. There are subtle differences, like the brands of butter and tea in the shops, and really overt ones, like the British flag flying from poles and decorating homes and streets in the the Protestant neighborhoods (albeit those flags are more prominent because of the 12th of July celebrations just a week ago). It really feels much more like the United Kingdom than I though it would. I guess that I assumed Northern Ireland would feel more Irish than British, but in my initial days here, I realize that it is the opposite. The obvious "British feel" here is due to the Protestant Loyalist community that lives here. The immense sense of pride and the desire to protect their community runs so deep I was able to get a sense of this when I toured one of the most famous neighborhoods of the Troubles--the Shankill Road of West Belfast. My guide was Noel Large, an ex-UVF life sentence prisoner who was let out as part of the Good Friday Agreements. The Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) was one of the fierce Loyalist organizations that was actively violent during the Troubles--targeting both the IRA (Irish Republican Army) and Catholic civilians. The connection to not only the British government, but also to the British culture is purposely fostered by the Protestant Loyalists in the city who trace their heritage back to the early 17th century. The ancestors of the Protestants in Northern Ireland arrived here from England and Scotland under a policy colonization known as the Plantation of Ulster. The English kings in the 17the century knew that a massive influx of Protestant settlers would serve the purpose of overwhelming the Irish Catholic chieftains, who were particularly strong and resistant to the English in Ulster (which is one of the four provinces Ireland). This policy worked and the immigration of these settlers continued until by the beginning of the 18th century, the Ulster-Scots made up a major of the population in Northern Ireland--especially in the two counties on the east coast, Antrim and Down. During the Home Rule push of the 19th century (when the majority of Catholics pushed for some political autonomy from the British), the Protestant community in Northern Ireland began to form into the Loyalists. They became determined to stay connected to the British because they feared that they would be mistreated as a minority in a Catholic dominated independant, or even semi-autonomous, Ireland. This underlying fear is really at the heart of so many issues in Northern Ireland today. The anxiety that the Loyalist community has felt throughout the 20th century as really manifested itself as oppression of the Catholic community. They created a system where Protestants were a protected and privileged class and the Catholics were a mistreated second-class of people. For example, a person could only vote in Northern Ireland if they were property owners, but the Catholics were regularly denied good jobs including secure and good-paying government jobs, and therefore unable to purchase a home or land. Thus, most Catholics were not allowed to vote. This unfair system persisted well into the 20th century and is, at its root, the main cause of animosity between the two communities in Northern Ireland. Since the Good Friday Agreement, there seems to be a concerted effort to soften the anger between the two groups and to find ways to move on from the history. Unfortunately though the various civil rights and economic and political gains made by Catholics over the last thirty years, have made some in the Loyalist community in Belfast increasingly anxious. I heard from Noel as well as other people that I spoke with that some feel that their unique heritage and culture as Protestant Northern Irelanders is under attack. They want to be able to continue to showcase their pride in events like the Orange Order parades during the June and July marching season and in the bonfires that light up the sky on the evening before the July 12 anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne where the Protestant ascendancy took hold. Each year, the conflict over what one side calls pride and the other side calls insulting, renews itself and provides flashpoints for violence, despite the relative peace between the two groups. When I think about my students and what they can learn from my experiences in the Protestant Loyalist neighborhoods of Belfast I keep coming back to the question: "When does pride in your culture stop and sectarism (or racism or ethnic hatred) begin?" I wonder if they will be able to see that the Loyalists fear and anxiety about losing their heritage and their history stands in the way of an even more peaceful co-existence with their Catholic neighbors. Spending several hours with Noel helped me to wrap my head around how far some were willing to go to protect their community that they felt was threatened during the Troubles. Noel told me that he was incredibly proud to be an Ulsterman for most of his life and still does. What he sees now though is that his pride in his heritage should not take precedent over what is best for his city, but it seems as if his views are somewhat unique. It is my hope that my students begin to recognize that is any situation that anxiety about loss and pride can stand in the way when compromises are needed. Key Questions:
What are the deep roots of the conflict and how were these roots barriers to peace? What were some of the violent and divisive events or policies that occurred in the modern era? The depth of Irish history, and particularly the tumultuous relationship between the Irish and the British, is really somewhat daunting. While in Dublin, I have attempted to wrap my head around the roots of the Irish Republican ideology and I am both incredibly impressed and overwhelmed with the historical complexity of the issue of Irish nationalism in the face of British domination of this island. As someone who is far from a expert on Irish history, what I assumed to be a simple case of British imperial power and conquest of the native Irish population in Ireland has become increasingly more nuanced and less clear-cut as I have begun to scratch the surface of the history here. Of course, there are so many tangible examples of British oppression and Irish nationalism in Dublin, none more so than Kilmainham Gaol. My visit to the prison provided me with a wealth of knowledge about the degradation that the Irish faced under British rule that had gone on for centuries, but was really solidified in 1690 when William of Orange defeated the Catholics at the Battle of the Boyne. With that, the “Protestant Ascendancy” took hold as Catholics were barred from land ownership and political life. In an effort to suppress the majority of the population, the British government (through their Protestant officials and landowners in Ireland) enacted law after law designed to humiliate and weaken the Catholic people. The most obvious and egregious example of these laws (out of many) is the 1847 Vagrancy Act. This law, enacted during the height of the Great Famine, meant many impoverished Irish Catholics who had been evicted by their Protestant landlords were thrown into the horrible conditions at Kilmainham because they were found begging on the streets. In Kilmainham, men, women and children as young a five were thrown into overcrowded cells where they received very little food. Shockingly though, famine conditions were so bad that some people preferred Kilmainham to the streets because at least there there was the promise of even meager food rations. This small detail of Irish history, which I know is compounded with countless other similar details of oppression, makes me think about the challenges that Catholics face in the north in reconciling with not only the recent, but also the very distant past. It also makes me wonder about the working class Protestants in the north. Do they actually identify with the history of British (and Irish Protestant) suppression of the Catholic majority or do they only see their history as a minority in Ireland and the justification of the fears they hold as the minority? The roots of Irish nationalism and the proud history of the people is apparent everywhere in this city and this is especially true because the one hundred year anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising just passed. This rebellion, although a military failure, was a pivotal point in Irish nationalist history and marked the beginning of the final push for independence from the British empire. The Rising, which began on April 24 and only lasted six days, was small, but its symbolism in was enormous--especially after the British government executed sixteen of the leaders at Kilmainham Gaol in May. This turned the tide of public support for Irish independence and led to the dominance of Sinn Fein, the political party of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (a precursor to the IRA) in the Dail, which was the seat of Irish political power. The full on war for Independence began in 1919, but there were many IRB guerilla attacks on British troops and symbols of British power before. The campaign for freedom from the British government continued throughout the island until 1921 with the signing of the Anglo-Irish agreement that granted freedom to the 26 majority Catholic counties in the south, but kept the six majority Protestant counties in the north united with the British empire. This arrangement was not acceptable to all, especially because even though there was a Protestant majority in the north, there were nearly as many Catholics there as well. After a civil war between the Irish who supported the division of the island and those who did not, the division held and Ireland has had the independent Republic of Ireland and UK affiliated Northern Ireland since. It should be noted that the 1916 Rising also still plays a prominent role in the Republican ideology in the north today. Prior to 1916, there were numerous Irish rebellions (in 1798, 1803, 1848 and 1867) and republican in the North consider the Troubles in Northern Ireland to be just one more chapter in the ongoing struggle against British oppression. The history here is truly exhausting to comprehend and I keep coming back to the question of how Irish history can impact my students--none of whom have any personal connection to this history. What lessons can they learn? How can they draw conclusions that will help them overcome their own complex personal histories? I do not have any answers yet, but one theme keeps running through my head: There is evidence of enormous pride in the struggles that the Irish have faced, but this pride does not equal an anger toward the British. While I was on a Sinn Fein tour of the 1916 Rising sites in Dublin, there were two men from London. The guide, Rauiri, clearly has a great love of his nation and the history of the Irish Republican fight for freedom. He made a point to the young men from London that “this is the past” and that “the ordinary Irish and the ordinary British” have much more in common than they have differences. I feel like Rauiri’s ideas, as even as Sinn Fein supporter, are typical here. There is a sense that pride in the past need not equal anger and resentment and that this is a lesson that my students can most certainly connect to. RATIONALE & PURPOSE:
As an 11th and 12th grade History teacher, it is my responsibility to help my students understand the historical roots of an increasingly complex and conflict-ridden world. This is especially true for the population of at-risk Boston Public School students that I teach. Some of my students are refugees from impoverished, and war-torn nations around the world and have first hand knowledge of global conflicts. Others have been born and raised Boston or other American cities, but know first hand the trauma of violence and hostility in their homes and in their neighborhoods. All of my students are acutely aware of the current climate in this country where so many issues increasingly feeling less solvable and more divisive each day. My concern is that when I teach my students about historic and current events in their Modern World History II class, I only layer more stories of senseless brutality upon what they already know all too well. I have come to the realization that marching students through a parade of war and discord without providing purposeful and well-structured examples of how peace between warring groups can be achieved and maintained is a serious disservice to my students. I want to create a way for my students to see that conflicts, from the global scale all the way down to the personal, can come to lasting resolution. I want my students to understand that peaceful coexistence between groups and individuals with long histories of hostility is not an impossible goal, instead that it an achievable, ongoing process that takes commitment. The history of the conflict and present day work to maintain a peaceful society in Northern Ireland is one of the best global examples a successful peace process between groups who were once seemingly locked in an unending cycle of sectarian violence. This friction has deep, complex roots in religious differences, territorial battles and centuries of power struggles between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland. These festering issues exploded in the late 1960s in an intensely vicious and bloody era known as the Troubles. I do not know as much about this period of strife, the road to peace and ongoing societal changes that keep the region conflict-free as I would like to. Therefore, I struggle to convey the information to my students and they miss out on a chance to learn powerful lessons that a divided society that dedicates itself to peaceful co-existence has to teach them. I want to travel to Northern Ireland and see first hand the historic sites associated with the Troubles as well as with the peace process. I also want to explore the ways that various groups continue to contribute to the peace in order to give my students a solid example that conflict resolution can work. Key questions that I hope to answer are: What are the deep roots of the conflict and how were these roots barriers to peace? What were some of the violent and divisive events or policies that occurred in the modern era? How did these modern day events shape the feelings on both sides? What needed to happen for combatants to set their feelings of animosity aside? What role did leaders play in the peace process? How did the leaders shape the reactions of average people? Why did the peace process actually work? What were the compromises made? How could both sides begin to realize there was a shared goal instead of opposing goals? What role does restorative justice and reconciliation play in the peace process? How is the peace maintained now? How are young people taught about the conflict? How does this shape the future of a united and conflict-free Northern Ireland? PROJECT DESCRIPTION: Spending three weeks in Northern Ireland as well as in Dublin will provide me with the opportunity to learn more about the complex history of the hostilities between Catholic Republicans and Protestant Unionists. I will be able to see the places that were the background to not only the violence but also integral to the peace process. If I am awarded the grant I will solidify plans to meet with various individuals and groups who work today to maintain a healthy peaceful society in Northern Ireland. I will answer my key questions and keep a record of my experiences on a website that my students will use as a resource during a conflict resolution unit that I will implement for the 2017-2018 school year. My travel plans include: Dublin Although Dublin is the capital of the Republic of Ireland and not part of the British administered Northern Ireland, time here will provide me with some much-needed historical context. I will visit the Irish National Museum here that has an extensive exhibition dedicated to the Easter Uprising of 1916. This uprising, although an ultimate failure, was a pivotal event because it was the first time that Catholic Republicans fought for independence from the British Empire, which had held oppressive control of Ireland for hundreds of years. I will also spend time at the Kilmainham Gaol, where Republican leaders were executed after the uprising and that today serves as a public museum and memorial to the Republican cause. Dublin is also the city of origin for Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Republican movement. The Sinn Fein Bookshop here runs walking tour of Republican sites that I will take. These tours and museums, coupled with the experience of being in the city where the Republic of Ireland was born in 1922 will help me, and then my students, to better understand the fierce nationalism that Irish Catholics felt during the Troubles. Belfast In 1922, when the Republic of Ireland was formed, six counties in the North, where there is an overall majority of Protestants remained in a union with Great Britain instead of unifying with the majority Catholic Republican counties in the south of Ireland. This strange solution left a divided island and festering animosity between the two groups. For three decades beginning in the 1960s, this exploded into bombings, gun battles and riots that left thousands dead and tens of thousands physically maimed. Many more were psychologically scared by seemingly unending acts of violence led by sectarian paramilitary groups. Belfast, the largest city in Northern Ireland was the center of the violence. While in Belfast, I plan on immersing myself in the history of the Troubles and reflect on how this history shaped feeling on both sides and stood as a barrier to conflict resolution. I will visit the “peace walls” that wind through the city separating the Catholic and Protestant neighborhoods. During the height of the conflict these walls served as a way to stop the violent IRA from attacking Protestant civilians, but led to a feeling of oppressive segregation for the Catholics. I will take a Black Taxi tour that will highlight some of the important historical sites like Stormont, the Northern Irish Parliament building and the Maze, the prison where IRA members died from hunger strikes. I will take a political walking tour that will take me to both Catholic Falls Road and Protestant Shankill Road districts. I will visit the Ulster museum, which has permanent exhibit of Troubles era art. My time in Belfast will also be spent learning the details of the Good Friday Accords, which finally brought a lasting peace between the two groups in 1998. Ulster University houses the United Nations sponsored Incore—the International Conflict Research Institute. I hope to connect with someone there to learn more about leaders of the peace process and what it took for them to convince each side to renounce violence. In addition, I want to connect with community organizations that work in some of the neighborhoods of Belfast that saw the most violent paramilitary activity. I want to spend time there to learn about the grassroots efforts to bring Catholic and Protestant youth together, dismantle the “peace walls” that divide the groups and provide restorative justice opportunities and connection points between Catholics and the Royal Ulster Police, with whom they have a deep history of distrust. I would like to see if and how they coordinate care for those who suffer from the impact of Troubles related intergenerational trauma. Ballycastle Facing History and Ourselves, a local Boston organization that is committed to helping students make connections between history and the moral choices that they have in their own lives, also operates in Northern Ireland. I have worked with FHAO before plan to connect with someone who can get me in touch with teachers who bring teens from impoverished sectarian communities throughout Northern Ireland together in an effort to build personal connections between them. These connections happen in part through Corrymeela—a peace building organization that has runs a retreat center for community healing in Ballycastle. I will visit and hopefully volunteer for several days at Corrymeela to see first hand how this type of work helps people from both sides see their shared history and goals instead of their differences. Derry Another major flashpoint for sectarian violence, including the Bloody Sunday massacre that left thirteen civilians dead, the small city Derry has many reminders of the Troubles as well as examples of the peace work. The Museum of Free Derry chronicles how the conflict impacted Catholic neighborhoods here and how ordinary residents mobilized for civil rights, justice and peace in the face of government oppression and violence in the Free Derry Movement. Today, that movement has grown to encompass a wider, global struggle for justice and peace. I will also view the work of the Bogside Artists, whose massive murals throughout the city serve as a visual record of the Northern Irish conflict. Their commemorative art, known as the “People’s Gallery” also features the ordinary people who pushed for peace. As my final stop in Northern Ireland, my last few days in Derry will allow me time to reflect and write my answers to my key questions about Northern Ireland on my website. TEACHER GROWTH & LEARNING: I have been teaching in Boston for more than a decade and it seems to me that, today, our students need inspiration and optimism that human beings have the capacity for compromise forgiveness, and compassion more than ever. They feel overwhelmed by the hateful rhetoric, animosity and violence that seem to surround them. I want to spend time reflecting on the roots of conflict and subsequent peace in Northern Ireland so I can shake the nagging feeling of resignation and inevitability that I have when I think about global as well as national and local conflict. Answering my key questions will provide me with tangible evidence that peace can be achieved—even in the face of complex, historical hostilities. This fellowship will help me to establish a more optimistic view that present and future conflicts can also be solved. I want my thinking to evolve so that I can pass that feeling of optimism onto my students. Because I teach Modern World History II, the conflict Northern Ireland are embedded in my curriculum, but I do not teach this history in a way that I know I should. Spending time traveling in Northern Ireland will help me to answer the key questions that I have and help me create a thematic unit with conflict resolution at the center. I will be able to not only better inform students about the Troubles and its peaceful resolution, but also help them to apply the lessons and envision solutions to other global, local and even personal conflicts. This solutions-driven unit focus will help me to avoid the demoralizing method of teaching history where I feel the need to “cover the standards” by piling more examples of atrocious violence and discord on to students—some of whom know these lessons all too well. STUDENT GROWTH & LEARNING: My fellowship in Northern Ireland will provide students with a template for peace and reconciliation. My implementation of a thematic unit of study based on conflict resolution with Northern Ireland as the example of success will help students to recognize that contentious relationships between individuals and groups can evolve, through the hard work into partnerships for peace. The addition of this conflict resolution unit will hopefully teach them that if large societal moves toward forgiveness and reconciliation, like what has happened in Northern Ireland can occur, then smaller, more personal peaces can be made too. Part of this fellowship will be to renew my own optimism that that peace between people and groups who seem to be in a constant state of war with each other can find common ground and with this conflict resolution unit, this optimism will trickle down to my students as well. I want my students to find hope that despite the many divisions that they see globally, nationally and locally can be bridged through the work of committed individuals dedicated to the cause of creating and maintaining a peaceful co-existence. BENEFITS TO SCHOOL COMMUNITY: Over the last several years, my school, a large comprehensive school with a large population of at-risk students has moved toward a discipline strategy that employs restorative justice and conflict resolution. While these strategies have enormous potential to bring about a real shift in the culture of our school, we are not there yet. We do not have a cohesive plan for implementing restorative justice for several reasons, one of which is that many of the staff members do not quite understand the impact that this method can have. Restorative justice practices began to be used throughout Northern Ireland in the early years of the peace to help individuals make amends to each other and begin to heal the trauma of decades of horrific violence. Today, restorative justice strategies are used extensively throughout Northern Ireland’s communities and schools. It is seen as a tool to give people voice and to maintain the peace. I will present to our staff at the beginning of the 2017-2018 school about how restorative justice has been part of the strategy to create trauma sensitive communities and a peaceful culture of co-existence in Northern Ireland and can also be a force to change the culture of our school as well. Currently at our school students, as well as staff are afraid to appear weak in the face on conflict and often respond with aggression. When students engage with the materials and information about Northern Ireland during the conflict resolution unit, it will empower them to recognize that issues can resolve in a way where all players feel comfortable with the peace. Student learning during this unit can serve as part of peer mediation program that we, as a school, have already identified as a way to create a more positive and peaceful school climate. We are in the early stages of planning this program and are looking at many different ways to implement it. I envision the conflict resolution unit and the website that chronicles my learning during my fellowship as an integral piece of this plan. Student mediators who study the successful peace in Northern Ireland can then apply the lessons to individuals at our school. As experts on the power of conflict resolution, they can spread the idea that compromise is not weakness, but instead takes great courage and strength. CURRICULAR UNIT: A thematic unit on conflict resolution with Northern Ireland as the template for peace will address standard MA WHII.43 (Identify the sources of ethnic and religious conflicts in the following nations and regions: Northern Ireland, the Balkans, Kashmir, Sudan and Rwanda, Sri Lanka). My experience in Northern Ireland will shift the focus of this standard though. Instead of just asking the students to understand what caused the conflicts, an added essential question will be “How did these conflicts resolve?” with Northern Ireland as main focus. Our state is now defining part of college and career readiness as possessing “core civic content knowledge and the ability to apply that knowledge to different circumstances and settings”. When students use the narratives that answer my key questions, as well as other materials on the website that will chronicle my experience in Northern Ireland, they will gain much needed civic knowledge about pathways to peace. Currently, my students complete an independent project about a current global conflict at the end of the school year. I will shift this to one where students will use their knowledge of Northern Ireland to create a plan for peace for current global conflict. They will focus is on peaceful solutions instead of on the problems alone. The students’ work, which will be completed using an online presentation tool like Prezi or Thinglink will be curated and displayed on both my website and our school’s website. |
Why Northern Ireland?As a History teacher in Boston Public Schools for over a decade, I have become increasingly concerned that my students, many of whom have their own personal histories of conflict and trauma, are rarely presented with historical lessons of conflict resolution. While issues in Northern Ireland between the Loyalist and Republican communities are far from resolved, there is admirable work being done since the 1998 Good Friday Agreement to bridge the gaps between these groups. Hopefully my students will begin to recognize that peace is not an end goal, but an ongoing process that takes commitment and that the work being done in Northern Ireland can also apply to their own personal lives and in their own communities in Boston. |