Unit 10

Game-Making and Conclusion

Goals:

The students will…

• Review everything they’ve learned about conflict resolution during Peace by Peace.
• Create a Peace Game to present and play at the Festival.
• Accomplish the personal goal for your classroom for today:________________________ ________________________________________________________________________

The volunteers will…

• Evaluate their teaching and what the students have learned.

Materials:

• Your game materials:_________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
• Balls for the circular ball toss.
• Lyrics for “Gunpowder” by Wyclef; one copy for every three students.
• CD of “Gunpowder” song (from Wyclef album: The Carnival).
• CD player (check to see what the classroom has).

Methods:

Week 1

I. Opening Activity: Circular Ball Toss (15 minutes)

II. Concept Brainstorm (15 minutes)

III. Game Brainstorm (15 minutes)

IV. Assignments (5 minutes)

Week 2

V. Design the Game (30 minutes)

VI. Concluding Activity: Bringing It Home (20 minutes)

Preparation:

• ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
• Get materials for concluding activity.
• Read over the song lyrics and the discussion questions. Note: This song is heavy. That’s good for showing the students how real the troubles in this world are in a way they can understand and relate to, but it also means it is up to you to get the kids empowered to make changes for the better! YOU MUST END POSITIVELY! Figure out how beforehand so you can be happy before you leave your class!

• And get ready to say goodbye!

Week 1: Brainstorming the Game

I. Opening Activity: Circular Ball Toss

(estimated time: 15 minutes)

Volunteer Leading this activity _________________________________________

Estimated time for your class to complete this activity _______________________

Activity Goals:

• Engage the students.
• Remind the students of how Peace Games work.

• Work together and cooperate.
• Communicate well.

To play the game:

• Gather the students in a circle.
• Tell them you will pick a person at random, call out their name, and toss the ball to them.
• The student with the ball should pick another person at random who has not had a turn yet, call out their name, toss the ball to them, then sit down on the floor.
• This will continue until everyone gets the ball at least once and everyone is sitting on the floor. Each person should get just one turn.
• Every time the ball is dropped, start over.

When the students can do this without dropping the ball, then add a second ball (so two games are happening at once in the same circle). If this is successful, add a third ball.

If the ball gets dropped, ask what could have been done to keep from dropping the ball?

• Working together, cooperation, better communication.

After the game, ask the students:

• What was hard about this game?
• What would have made it work better?
• What does it have to do with conflicts?
• Working together and communicating are de-escalators.

II. Concept Brainstorm

(estimated time: 15 minutes)

Volunteer Leading this activity _________________________________________

Estimated time for your class to complete this activity _______________________

Activity Goals:

• Review what the students have learned in Peace by Peace.
• Pick a concept for the class game.

At the Festival in the spring, each Peace by Peace class presents a game they have created.

Ask the students what they have learned in Peace by Peace. Go around the room and have each student reply; write their answers on the board. When the class is out of ideas, ask them what their favorite games were and about the point of these games until they come up with all the important concepts from each lesson (see table of contents for more information):

• Unit 1: Conflict Tree/Conflict Staircase/Escalation and De-escalation
• Unit 2: Real World Violence (Jonesboro) and Real World Peace (Youth Crime Watchers)
• Unit 3: Five Conflict Strategies
• Unit 4: Steps of Negotiation
• Unit 5: Self Esteem/Self Respect/Bullying
• Unit 6: Communication
• Unit 7: Overcoming Stereotypes
• Unit 8: Looking at problems from different perspectives
• Unit 9: Mediation and Peaceful Communities

Tell the students that they will be creating a game to present at the Festival.

• As a reward for their hard work, we host a Festival for them in the spring. During the festival, all the students from all the Peace by Peace classes in New Haven come to Yale for the day. They go through really fun workshops put on by different Yale groups like sports teams and dance groups. They also play the Peace Games designed by all the classes.

Ask the students to pick which concept they want to design their game around. You may need to hold a vote.

III. Game Brainstorm

(estimated time: 15 minutes)

Volunteer Leading this activity _________________________________________

Estimated time for your class to complete this activity _______________________

Activity Goals:

• Design a game to make for the Festival.

Ask the students to now brainstorm different games that could cover this topic; write their answers on the board. Pick a game for the class to make as a whole. Make sure to consider the logistics of making the game: whether you can find the materials, whether it will be fun and safe, whether it is feasible.

IV. Assignments

(estimated time: 5 minutes)

Volunteer Leading this activity _________________________________________

Estimated time for your class to complete this activity _______________________

Activity Goals:

• Ensure that the game will be able to be created the next week.

Figure out what has to be done to make this game, what materials need to be obtained, and who will bring them (if the students will be bringing any). Give out assignments if needed.

Week 2: Creating the Game

V. Design the Game

(estimated time, 30 min)

Volunteer Leading this activity _________________________________________

Estimated time for your class to complete this activity _______________________

Activity Goals:

• Work together as a class to design the Peace Game.

Prepare the game for the Festival. Students should design a poster explaining the rules and objectives of their Peace Game so other people can play it when they’re not around.

If there is enough time, the students can play their own game.

VI. Concluding Activity: Bringing It Home

(estimated time: 20 minutes)

Volunteer Leading this activity _________________________________________

Estimated time for your class to complete this activity _______________________

Activity Goals:

• Bring together all the points from the year.
• Empower the students by reminding them of the skills they’ve learned.
• Show how these skills are relevant to helping resolve conflicts in their lives.

Note: This song is heavy. That’s good for showing the students how real the troubles in this world are in a way they can understand and relate to, but it also means it is up to you to get the kids empowered to make changes for the better! YOU MUST END POSITIVELY! Figure out how beforehand so you can be happy before you leave your class!

Activity

• Give every 3^rd student the “Gunpowder” lyrics.
• Play the song for the class. Listen to the whole song while the students (and you) follow along.

Discussion

• Did you notice New Haven mentioned at the end of the song? How did that make you feel?
• What was going on in the song?
• Why didn’t the problem ever end?
• Escalation.
• Refer to lines: “Because the war is not over / until you can feel love, peace, and hear silence / But I smell gunpowder.” The gunpowder means there is not that silence now.
• Draw an escalation staircase on the board: show how retaliation (“I headed for revenge in the city of Port Au Prince”) leads the problems back on the people over and over.
• What does Wyclef want in the song?
• Peace, an end to revenge.
• Who all is affected when a brother is killed? How many more people get brought into the conflict when someone they know is involved? Where does that lead?
• Idea that everyone is someone’s brother.
• How could this conflict be resolved? What might have kept wyclefs brother alive? Look for clues in the song.
• Solutions presented in the song: “the war is not over until you can feel love, peace…” ie empathy, point of view, and “the preacher man told me good things come to those who wait” ie those who step back, cool off, don’t act in the height of their anger.
• What other de-escalators do you know to help resolve conflicts? Think of things we learned this year
• List their responses on the board
• How could each of these de-escalators have helped this situation?
• At the end, tell them now they have just shown they have the skills and know how to handle tough situations that they will encounter both in and beyond the classroom! (Tell them you know they can do it because you have seen them do it already in the activities in the class.) Remind them of their peer mediator “certificates”. Motivate! End positively!
• Thank them, say your goodbyes, etc.

BEFORE YOU GO:

• Thank the classroom teacher and tell him or her that you hope Peace by Peace can come back to this classroom next year.
• Write notes for yourselves on how the different activities went.

MATERIALS INCLUDED HERE:

• Lyrics for “Gunpowder” by Wyclef for Concluding Activity: Bringing It Home
• One copy for every three students.

MATERIALS NOT INCLUDED HERE:

• Balls for Opening Activity: Circular Ball Toss.
• CD of “Gunpowder” song (from Wyclef album: The Carnival) for Concluding Activity: Bringing It Home.
• CD player for Concluding Activity: Bringing It Home
• Check to see what the classroom has.
• Materials for your class’ game.

Gunpowder By: Wyclef 

I asked my mother why do you cry

she said your brother had... he just died

Well I told him not to go outside

he said he had to fight for his country's right

But don't you know that mo-mother

don't you know that we can't stop the violence, no

Because the war is not over

until you can feel love, peace, and hear silence

But I smell gunpowder (pow)

my brother's been dead ever since

I didn't believe it, but when I saw him I was convinced

Two shots to the head he was already dead Lord,

I headed for revenge in the city of Port Au Prince

Screaming bro-brother

don't you know that we can't stop the violence, no

Because the war is not over

until you can feel love, peace, and hear silence

But I smell gunpowder (Pow)

Zion's gunpowder (pow)

L.A.'s gunpowder (pow)

I wanna know why

Christians pray for a new day

we don't need no, we don't need no, we don't need no

But its still the same way

I wanna know why

ghetto people pray for a new day

hey, hey, heeey

and its still the same way

But the preacher man told me

good things come to those who wait

do good things come to those who wait?

I wanna know tell me

good things come to those who wait

do good things come to those who wait?

we wanna know, we wanna know, we wanna know [pause]

Pe-people

don't you know that we can't stop the violence, no

because the war is not over

until you can feel love, peace, and hear the silence

but I smell gunpowder (gunpowder)

Brooklyn's gunpowder (gunpowder)

Shaolin's gunpowder (gunpowder)

Uptown's gunpowder (gunpowder)

Jersey's gunpowder (gunpowder)

even New Zealand's gunpowder (gunpowder)

Australia's gunpowder (gunpowder)

Brixton's gunpowder (gunpowder)

even New Haven's gunpowder

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