Peaceful Solutions - Teacher's Guide

This teacher's guide has been developed for use with the Peaceful Solutions video programs. It provides valuable information for educators who want to learn more about how to prevent or reduce youth violence.

Through the online resources available here and videotapes, Peaceful Solutions is intended to increase teachers' awareness about educational practices that help promote peace. It provides opportunities for discussion, activities, and next steps for involvement with violence reduction programs. One of the ultimate goals of Peaceful Solutions is to help students develop attitudes and abilities that will have a lifelong value, such as problem-solving, communication, and leadership skills.

		Peaceful Solutions consists of four half-hour video programs. Each video includes profiles of two violence prevention strategies. NOTE: These video programs may be broadcast by a PBS station in your area. Contact your local PBS station to determine if and when these programs will be broadcast. Digitized video is currently not available on this Web site. In addition to browsing the teacher's guide, you may want to download it in PDF format. To read this file you'll need to use Adobe's Acrobat reader -- it's free. Download Peaceful Solutions teacher's guide (730K) in PDF format. Download Adobe Acrobat reader software.
		`- - - - -` The components of the teacher's guide include:

			an introduction to the strategy or program described in the segment;
			a video summary that provides a brief synopsis of the segment;
			activities that help students understand the main points of the program, and encourage independent and cooperative learning;
			resources, including organization listings, suggested readings, and Web sites; and
			workshops that provide teachers and administrators with hands-on activities and suggestions.

The strategies featured in the Peaceful Solutions videotapes are drawn from respected programs used in schools around the country.

Presenting Workshops
The information on each strategy described here can be printed, photocopied, and handed out in a workshop environment. We recommend that you show each video once and then replay it, pausing when desired, for discussion. You may also choose to show a video in its entirety, or only in segments.

Some workshop participants may be interested in developing action plans for researching and implementing one of these strategies. (The organizations and suggested readings listed under Resources may be useful.) Before the workshop ends, these participants should plan how to share the information and materials they obtain with other staff members.

Please note: Teachers need to learn conflict resolution and other violence prevention skills at their own level before they try to teach them to students. We encourage teachers to get training in the strategies they are interested in to enhance their own skills and knowledge. Training may be available from violence prevention programs themselves, and there are many graduate programs now available throughout the country that offer credits in conflict resolution and other strategies. Please see Resources for contact names and addresses.