Teaching Young Children in Violent Times

Building a Peaceable Classroom

By Diane E. Levin
Review by Barbara Gifford
Lifespan Faith Development, UUA
Boston, MA

“Young children … spend on average, six and a half hours with media every day. Children living in poverty and urban areas watch an average of 50 percent more. On television alone, children will see over 8,000 murders and 100,000 other acts of violence by the time they finish elementary school.… These statistics for TV viewing do not reflect the violence children are engaged in when playing video games, computer games, and violent toys linked to TV shows.” –Diane Levin

Diane Levin, an expert on how violence in the media affects young children, wrote this new edition of Teaching Young Children in Violent Times after September 11, when she began to explore how children’s needs in that “crisis were similar to and different from children’s past experience with violence.” This second edition includes three substantial additions: a chapter on how children understand the news and strategies for helping them with media violence, a chapter on creating “conflict stories,” and a section with updated references and resources.

Young children are particularly vulnerable to the escalating violence in our society. Since the deregulation of children’s television by the FCC in 1984, there has been increased violence in programs designed for children. Levin writes that all adults – not just parents and teachers – have a responsibility to prevent risk to children from exposure to violence and to help violent children. She notes, “Because young children learn best by doing, learning about peace, nonviolence, and conflict resolution needs to grow out of directly experiencing how to live as responsible and contributing members of a peaceful community….”

Teaching Young Children in Violent Times provides guiding principles for a peaceable classroom. The underlying approach to offer information that is “prescriptive enough to provide concrete strategies that could be readily applied in classrooms while at the same time flexible enough to adapt to the complex and individual needs of children and changing circumstances in society.” In faith settings the philosophy and strategies for a peaceable classroom can be a foundation for the ways in which adults and young children work together. The resources in this book could be used to create faith development curricula or be integrated into existing curricula. Levin believes that all aspects of a classroom can support this kind of learning.

A peaceable classroom meets children where they are. It starts respectfully with their needs, developmental levels, backgrounds, and experiences, which are unique and changing. Levin offers valuable information about developmental characteristics of young children in a variety of contexts and gives examples of how teachers can observe and explore with children in order to see things through their eyes and extend their learning, without imposing adult ideas and solutions.

Safety is the heart of a peaceable classroom, a classroom in which children (and adults) can say, “I feel safe” – safe enough to try out new things. A peacable classroom is a place where mutual respect and interdependence are fostered, and democratic participation is encouraged. The children know they can rely on the teacher to keep them safe, and in sharing power with the teacher they learn to rely on themselves and each other.

Levin provides scripts of classroom discussions that are valuable models of how to empower children to solve problems, make decisions, and feel safe enough to bring their concerns into the classroom. Samples include discussions on gender and bias. One discussion, prompted by physically aggressive behavior on the playground, results in children resolving conflict about the lack of safety as a result of superhero play. Messages young children get from television are that it’s OK for good guys to use violence; the way to solve conflicts is with violence; and violence is glamorous. Without casting blame or imposing her ideas, the “teacher enlists the whole group of children to work with her on the problem.” The children come up with solutions that result in more creative play and a classroom that values respect, justice, and equity in relationships.

Opportunities for positive experiences in conflict resolution, anti-bias learning, creative play (as an alternative to media scripted play), and helping children to deal with violence in the news are developed using a variety of materials and techniques, included in part three of this book. Levin encourages dramatic play with puppets representing children and characters from books or television. Books can be used to raise emotionally laden problems in a way that provides safe distances from particular experiences and is less stressful. Children and teachers together can create conflict stories, based on lived experiences in the classroom or “pretend” conflicts.

I recommend this book to teachers, parents, and caretakers of young children. The background information is valuable for all adults. Teachers in religious education settings will benefit from models of interacting with children that truly live out UU Principles. Creating intentionally peaceable classrooms can inspire children and teachers alike to live their faith.

Available from Educators for Social Responsibility www.esrnational.org , phone: 800-370-2515.